A summary, themes, techniques and character analysis of Art Spiegelman’s Maus II
This text was our final project in the English Literature lesson at university. Since I and my partner has spent so much effort to write this text from ground up, I have decided to not waste it and also publish it here with my partner’s permission. Hopefully it’ll be useful to someone on the internet.
| Name | Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began |
| Author | Art Spiegelman |
| Date | 1991 |
| Genre | Graphic Novel |
Summary
In the beginning of the story Art and Francois argues about which animal should represent which race. Then they got a call Vladek (Art’s father) got a heart attack. Upon this news Francois and Art goes to Vladek’s house. On their way, Art mentioned a photo of Richieu and he wonders whether if he can reflect his father’s experience and what he lived through in Holocaust in his book. When they arrive, it turns out that Vladek was fine, Mala left him and Vladek wanted to see Art.
Next day in the morning Vladek and Artie argues about how many matches he used to light his cigarette. Because of that Artie goes outside and Vladek’s neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Karp invites him to their house. They say that Vladek needs care, Artie refuses them but after that he realizes what they are saying is indeed true. Later, Artie and Vladek goes to a walk. Vladek starts talking about Auschwitz.
Vladek and Anja are separated in the entrance of the camp. Later they gave them striped uniforms of prisoners and marked numbers on their arm.
Vladek was off with grief but later he was encouraged by a rabbi. He, along with other prisoners, had a Kapo that gave him very tiring exercises which in some of that people have died.
One of the Kapos looks for someone to teach him English, and Vladek volunteers. In return, the kapo gives Vladek a job and gives him good food and better clothes. After this Kapo recruits him to the team that repairs the roofs of the camp.
In the second part, Artie sits at the drawing table as a human wearing a mouse mask. Vladek has died from heart failure. Then it’s stated that Artie was expecting a baby, thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed in Auschwitz, the first episode of Maus was published and liked very much, and finally Artie’s mother committed suicide.
In the next panel, there are rat corpses around Artie’s desk. As reporters suffocate Artie with questions, Artie turns into a little boy and goes to see Pavel, psychologist. They start talking about Vladek. Here, Artie says he will never be more successful than the people in Auschwitz.
In another scene, we see Artie as an adult again. While listening to his father’s tape, the story returns to Vladek’s memories. Vladek hears a communist named Yidl likes gifts, he gives him clothes to get food. When Artie asks about his mother, Vladek tells him that she was in Auscwhitz-Birkenau, which is used for prisoners awaiting death. Vladek meets Mancie who works at the same camp. In this way, he learns that the Anja is alive. When S.S. Birkenau asks for tinman, Vladek volunteers and meets Anja there. One day, when a guard saw Vladek talking to Anja, he beat her to death. Vladek is sent to the hospital for death, but here he is controlled and returns to his barrack.
Vladek decides to become a shoemaker and pays a worker to teach him better business. In this way, the S.S officer likes his job and gave a huge sausage to Vladek.
When new buildings will be built, Vladek asked a capo about the possibility of Anja can go there, the Kapo says that it will cost 200 cigarettes. Vladek saved this and Anja moves to the new building and has also given a job. In this way, Anja and Vladek were closer to each other. After a while, Vladek’s shoe shop is closed, and he starts to work hard. He worries that they will send him to the gas chamber because he is constantly losing weight here.
When the Russians invade Poland, they ask to dismantle the gas chambers. As the story comes to an end Artie asks his father why the Jews did not fight the Nazis. The answer to this is that they kill 100 prisoners for each resisting person, except for those who die out of hunger and so ends the second episode.
At the beginning of the third episode, Vladek offers Artie food, but Artie is not hungry and jokes that he hid the food in case Hitler comes back. Then, when Vladek and Artie go to the market, Artie tells the prisoners’ S.S. incident about killing his men, and Vladek states that the prisoners were hanged.
As Vladek continues to describe his experiences, first he mentions an explosion he heard 25 miles away from Auschwitz. The soldiers forced the prisoners to march into Germany. Besides the fact that there were many killed or shot on the way, many suffocated and starved to death in cattle wagons. Only 25 people of 200 survived.
The story comes back to the present, when Vladek gets into a fight at the grocery story, Vladek begins to his story again, this time in Dachau. Vladek is kept in a shack filled with lice and hurts himself to get to the infirmary where the food is. He met a French prisoner which is shown as a frog in the book. Instead of the old shirt, they wear new shirts that they bought in exchange for food. Vladek gets typhus and has to step on many bodies on his way to the toilet. When he recovers, he is sent to Switzerland as a prisoner of war.
In the other episode, Vladek gets angry because Francoise took a black hitchhiker in his car. The hitchhiker is depicted as a dog in the story. Vladek thinks he’s a thief and Artie questions how his father is still racist after all.
At the start of the fourth episode, Artie visits his father at a Rego Park, and Vladek tries to persuade Artie and his wife to live together. Artie suggests that he should hire a nurse, but Vladek says he will let Mala come if she gives $100,000 to him. Artie asks Vladek about his mother, and the story goes to the past.
When Auschwitz disintegrates, Vladek loses Anja. He learns she was rescued by the Russians. In Switzerland, the prisoners hears that the war is over. When they are sent to the next town, Vladek and the others run into the German soldiers. They think they are going to be shot, and the next morning they are held in a barn by a different group of soldiers. They hear the war outside all night.
Vladek and his friend Shivek, who knows him before the war, find some food in the adjacent house since they’re not used to that much of food, they get sick. A few days later, they gave American soldiers the house as a camp. They let Vladek and his friend stay. Soldiers liked Vladek because he speaks English and they let him fix their shoes.
At the end of the episode, Vladek gives Artie a box full of photographs. These photos were taken in Poland and before the Second World War and tells Artie about the history of the people in the photos. While many of them died in the war, only Vladek said that his brother Pinek survived.
At the beginning of the final chapter, Françoise tries to persuade Artie to invite Vladek home, but Artie does not want it. Mala has started living with Vladek again. Artie flies to Florida to help his father.
In the morning of the next day, Vladek tells that he expects to get American citizenship in Sweden and has worked in the store in Sweden for a few years. Vladek and Artie go to New York after Vladek recovers. However, after a while, Vladek loses both his mental balance and his physical deterioration.
Vladek continues his story in Rego Park, where he says that his friend Shivek convinced him to go to Hanover. They were staying at Shivek’s brother. Vladek wants to go to Sosnowiec because they planned with Anja to meet here. However, he still does not give the possibility that she may be alive. Shivek’s wife tells Vladek to check Belsen. When Vladek gets there, he hears the war in Sosnowiec. Vladek hears that Anja is alive and is in Sosnowiec.
On the other hand, Anja visits the Jewish organization every day to get news from Vladek and goes to a Gypsy fortuneteller, who is drawn as a moth. She tells that Vladek is sick, and Anja receives a letter from Vladek that he is in Germany. Vladek walks the road for three weeks as the train tracks are broken. They come together with Anja in Sosnowiec.
At the end of the book, Vladek gets very tired and asks Artie to turn off the tape recorder and calls him Richeau by mistake. In the last panel, the story ends by writing two names on the double tombstone: Anja & Vladek Spiegelman.
Characters
Vladek
He is the protagonist of the story. He survived Auschwitz and many bad things Nazis made to Jews at the time.
Vladek is stingy. Compared to previous time he is more suffocating now. He even got angry to the Art for using matches he uses to light his cigarettes. One time he tried to glue a broken dish and he tried to return the half-eaten groceries. (Pg. 89)
He is anxious. We understand this when he straightens everything his son touches.
He answers every question Art asks but when he is tired from answering the questions, he either changes the topic or turns into a deaf ear.
He was very kind to his friends even in the worst conditions. For instance, when he got a little bit better conditions in Auschwitz, he helped to his friend Mandelbaum who was struggling with shoes, clothing and spoon.
He is a clever person, and he used his intelligence to survive in everywhere. He used his limited resources very wisely for his or Anja’s advantage. Some notable instances are, he fixed Kapo’s shoes to behave Anja better, after Auschwitz he traded clothing for a bread and used that clothing to get lice check and got soup every time and when he was typhus, he used the bread he saved to get two people carry him.
He is a determined person to survive. He did everything to survive and get free. Once he ate the snow from the roof of the train.
Vladek is racist, he thinks that black people are thieves. When Francoise takes a black hitchhiker to the car, he mentions that black people stole his stuff in the past and gets very anxious about
Art
Art is the author, Art Spiegelman. Art has a dark past, because of that he gets bad ideas after his brother’s death when he was 5. For instance, once he thought poison will come from the tap of the shower.
He feels guilty because he has an easier life compared to his parents. Also, he says that his father’s ghost still hangs around him. No matter what he accomplishes he thinks it isn’t equal to surviving Auschwitz.
He is a very curious person. He always asks questions about Auschwitz to his father, Vladek. Even when Vladek changes the topic Art somehow gets him to tell his story.
After his father’s death, life becomes harder to him, and he was trying to understand how to be a dad.
He is very curious about her mother, Anja but since Vladek destroyed her diaries he has limited information on the hand.
Francoise
Francoise is the Art’s wife. She is also a Jew.
She is a helpful person. Even when Art wanted to leave his father, she suggested to stay to take care of Vladek.
Vladek was angry to her because she took a black hitchhiker to the car.
She’s converted her religion just to make Vladek happy.
Anja
Vladek’s previous wife, committed suicide after the war. One notable and important thing about her is that Vladek destroyed her diaries she written after the war.
More information about her can be found in the first book.
Mala
Mala is the second wife of the Vladek. He married with Mala after Anja’s suicide.
Although she is married with Vladek, she’s more like a nurse.
According to the Vladek, Mala is a wasteful person because she opened another jar of salt when there was already another opened one.
She took money and sold Vladek’s car when she left Vladek.
Mancie
According to Vladek, Mancie is tall, beautiful blonde and clever girl. She’s Hungarian.
She is in a better position compared to others because she had a lover, a SS man.
She helped Vladek to find and contact Anja.
Although she helps to people with bribes, we understand from her efforts to help Vladek and Anja she is a helpful person.
Themes
The Holocaust in the foreground
In the first book of Maus Holocaust themes were in the background. In this book story is at right in the middle of the Holocaust. Vladek sent to the Auschwitz then various other camps which has one common objective, persecute and murder the Jews.
Survival
Vladek had to survive many different situations. For instance, Auschwitz, animal transportation train, typhus is some instances Vladek survived through.
Guilt
Art feels himself guilty during the story. At page 44, he mentions that no matter what he accomplishes in his life it doesn’t same as surviving Auschwitz and he lives in easy times.
He feels a guilt because he lives in easy times, and he wasn’t with his family during Holocaust. He didn’t survive the Holocaust.
Racism
Everything Nazis did was a negative discrimination against Jews during that time. They tortured, killed, gave prisoner outfits and did unhuman things to the Jews and it is very clear to see that in the story.
Luck
Some of the reasons why Vladek was able to survive was purely out of luck. For instance, in the entrance of Auschwitz he might just got separated to the “useless” section.
Bribery
Bribery is a big part of Vladek’s survival story. For instance, he saved food just to get Anja in new building of Auschwitz which is near where he works. Another instance is when he fixed Anja’s Kapo’s boats to get him be kind to Anja. Since Vladek was a successful businessman before the war, he trades his stuff very intelligently.
Techniques
Captioning Style
Some text in the bubbles is written bigger or thicker to emphasize the text in it.
First person point of view
Story has been told from the view of Vladek and Art’s views.
Jumping through time
Story goes back and forth; it doesn’t have a linear narration. For instance, it firstly starts in the summer with Vladek, then the time in Auschwitz, the time author talks with his dad, then jumps to after death and publishing of Maus I at first two chapters.