Who has “power” in your text? How does that power get shown?

By Liam McAllister 812

            The graphic memoir Maus by Art Spiegelman is about Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, a Holocaust survivor, who recalls his experiences during World War II. I chose this question because there’s a lot of evidence that the Germans held the primary power in the story.

Even before reading the book, one way I infer that the Germans have the power is because they are represented by cats and the Jews are represented by mice. Being portrayed like predator and prey is a really powerful metaphor.

The Germans’ power is mostly shown through acts of violence. On page 33 a stranger on the train tells Vladek about how Germans were humiliating Jews and planning pogroms.  On page 56 at a prisoner of war camp, when people got tired they were beaten. On page 61 the Germans killed 600 prisoners of war after they were released. On page 80 Vladek sees Nazis grabbing Jews, beating and shooting them even if they had legal papers.

Germans had power over the Jews because they made the Jews’ living conditions bad. For instance on page 53, when the main character Vladek was a prisoner of war, the Germans made the Jewish live in small tents with only their summer uniforms and a thin blanket when it was freezing out. On p. 63 we learn that Jews have fewer food rations than other people.

The Germans also had a lot of power over the Jews because the Germans could basically do whatever they wanted. On pages 27 and 28 the police came and searched Anja, Vladek’s wife’s house because of Communist beliefs. On page 65 we learn that the Germans cut off some Jew’s beards and all Jews had a special curfew of seven o’clock. On page 76 it says that the Nazis took all Jewish-owned businesses including Vladek’s textile factory. On page 79 the Germans came and took nice furniture from Vladek’s family. Vladek and his wife are sent to concentration camps at the end of the book.

The events of the book made me more aware of the Holocaust and how terrible it was. In part of the book the Germans were just beating human beings to death and I couldn’t even understand how they could kill somebody that brutally without any immediate reason.

            Although this was a very gory and violent text these kinds of things are still happening in the world. People even in America are being discriminated against because of their race or their beliefs. I believe it was the author’s intention to show his father’s story to make it more personal for the reader and have a more specific point of view.