Art Spiegelman's Maus - 10/02/2008

Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a very interesting book. Prior to reading it, I figured that it would be another boring history book. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened it up and realized that it was a comic book. That in itself sparked my interest and encouraged me to dive in.

History, according to Hayden White, is based on the form of Emplotment. He says that “It is a process through which facts contained in ‘chronicles’ are encoded as components of plots”. There are four categories which make up Emplotment, they are: tragic, comic, romantic, and ironic. Remarkably enough Maus falls into all four categories.

For instance, Tosha killed herself and the three children, Bibi, Richiev,and Liona, in order to prevent them from going to the gas chamber. She would rather take control of her destiny than to let the Germans dictate it. This is a classic example of tragedy. In addition to that, there were several examples in the book that exhibited irony. One instance of that is when Vladek had the last laugh because the “mole” that turned his family over to Gestapo was left for dead and he had the honor of burying him.

All in all, I must admit that this book was very fascinating since it used an unusual method to depict a serious event such as the Holocaust. I truly enjoyed reading and I made a mental note to myself, never judge a book by its cover.