Art Spiegelman Maus

Art Spiegelman Born in 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden (where his parents were taken after the war) Art grew up in New York City (Queens) From , he worked for Topps Chewing Gum. He illustrated trading cards and stickers (including Garbage Pail Kids)

Art suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized in the 1960s. In 1968, his mother committed suicide. He was an instructor for the School of Visual Arts He was a writer for The New Yorker He wrote Maus in 1986 based on the events in the lives of his mother and father in WWII. Maus earned his the Guggenhein Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize He currently lives in Manhattan with his family.

About Maus Maus is unclassifiable. It is both biography and autobiography; it is a nonfiction, comic book, prose, and history. When Maus was first released, it was placed on the fiction bestseller list; however, Spiegelman called and requested it to be placed on the nonfiction list due to it biographical/autobiographical content. There are three generic narratives woven through Maus : 1. kunstlerroman- the development of the artist, conveyed through the present day sequences showing Spiegelman dealing with his creative anxieties as he makes his story 2. bildungsroman – the maturation of the invidual, conveyed through the depiction of Art’s addressing his relationship with his parents and their effect on him 3. hero story – the hero, Vladek, passes enormous danger

The Cat-Mouse Thing The animal characters are metaphors for the racial and political conflicts of Germany and Poland in the 1930s and 1940s Cats: Germans—Cats are known to be cunning, sly, manipulative, and selfish. They are beasts of prey. They also have sharp claws which are normally retracted and hidden, but can damage when provoked. Mice: Jews—Mice are known to be small, unobtrusive, quick, skittish, and easily frightened. They mostly live hidden in holes or out of the way places.

The Cat-Mouse Thing Pigs: Poles—Lazy, sloppy creatures who have no real ties to the cat and mouse games. Pros: Using animals reflects the comic tradition of animal fables Using animals provides a metaphor for the Nazi-Jew relations Using animals makes it easy to differentiate between the races Cons: Using animals creates stereotypes which might be problematic Using animals oversimplifies political issues Using animals might detract from the seriousness of the subject matter