The Role Of Animals In The Graphic Novel 'Maus'

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The graphic novel ‘Maus’ written by Art Spiegelman recounts his fathers tragic story of the Holocaust depicted through a series of detailed drawings. Spiegelman puts his own unique spin on hitlers original metaphor using animals to represent races and nationality. Animals provide another layer of complexity to the story as the represent an animal hierarchy that ties in with the inhumanity of the Holocaust. Spiegelman dehumanise and subtracts emotions from the character by portraying them as animals because reality was just to harsh. Animalisation is a key theme found throughout the graphic novel. Which effects the way we digest and comprehend the story as it dehumanises races and segregates humans from one another. Spiegelman clearly stereotypes races and matches them…show more content…
Each level of the food chain helps to give readers a better understanding of the treatment of each animals. The mice are obviously sit the lowest on the food chain and are ‘beaten with no reason’ and imprisoned in concentration camps. Sitting one slot above the mice are cats who are the Germans. The cats believe they have the most power and toy with Jews before ultimately killing them with. Then finally readers can easily relate dogs as the hero’s as they are highest in the food chain and give readers an easy idea to comprehend. But interestingly the polish are not apart of the food chain. The casts them as bystanders in the situation that failed to stand up for Jews and inform the rest of the word of these atrocities. The animal hierarchy helps us to imagine Hitlers initial thinking on the Jews being a ‘vermin’, and ables readers to comprehend the ranking of animals in a more visual depiction. Thus allowing the readers understanding to be

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