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Cassie McKenzie

Melissa Jacques

English 153

March 14, 2017

Maus: Intergenerational Trauma

Trauma is a persistent beast to slay. Those traumatized by their past experiences suffer a

wide range of symptoms and usually have a very difficult time coming to terms with their

trauma. In Maus, Art interviews his father Vladek, a Holocaust survivor. Being Jewish but dis-

connected from the most widely known trauma of his people, Art wanted to know his father’s

story. He believed it would connect him to his heritage as a Jewish man and his family. How-

ever, by interviewing his father, Art learns about his father’s past and becomes the intergenera-

tional recipient of his trauma.

In summarizing Maus, it is necessary to show how Holocaust Survivor Vladek’s trauma

is passed on to his son, a cartoonist and writer born just after World War II. It is the how and not

the why that concerns us for now. According to Katalin Orban, Maus is considered canon sec-

ond-generation Holocaust narrative (Orban, 57). It is based off the memories of Vladek Spiegel-

man, who reenacts his suppressed trauma as brought about by the loss of almost his entire fam-

ily. Art Spiegelman, his son, interviewed him over many months and recorded their sessions for

later documentation. While interviewing his father, Art finds his trauma is dwarfed by his fa-

ther’s. Art feels guilty that he used to “wish [he] had been in Auschwitz with [his] parents so [he]

could really know what they lived through..” (Spiegelman, II.1.6). Art struggles with feeling that

his own struggles were insignificant compared to his parents’. To specify, Art’s trauma regards

his mother’s suicide and the part he played in causing it. He is aware of the “lack of empathy” he
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gave his mother and notes that his failure to understand her contributed to her sense of loneli-

ness. (Kolár, 229) This loneliness eventually led to Anja’s suicide, and for that Art has a strong

sense of guilt. This all plays a critical role in how Vladek’s trauma combines with Art’s preexist-

ing negative experiences. Art’s inheritance of his parents’ trauma leads to his focus on the Holo-

caust, although he denies that it is an obsession. Stanislav Kolar speaks of the “need to write

himself into a family from whose founding trauma he was absent” (Kolár, 232). In both parts of

Maus, we see Vladek’s and Anja’s past form an important part of Art’s identity.

As a result of Vladek’s past, the Holocaust has a large impact on his and Art’s relation-

ship as father and son. Vladek was changed forever by his experiences, and this effected his

treatment of his son in a big way. Regarding Art’s description of his father, it is apparent that the

Holocaust never really ended for him. He seems convinced the safe life he lives now is transitory

and he believes disaster could come at any moment (Kolár, 236). In his own words, “Ever since

Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb” (Spiegelman, II.3.68). His frugal and miserly atti-

tude makes him seem like a Jewish caricature, and Art acknowledges and explains this early on.

Vladek’s personality clashes with Art’s almost perfectly, which is the source of many of their

disagreements. Vladek is old-fashioned and stuck in the past, yearning for Anja instead of his

current wife, Mala. This contrasts against Art’s guilt-laden but otherwise more modern personal-

ity. We see Art, throughout both parts of Maus, holding his parents at arm’s length because of his

childhood. It is explained to the viewer that from Art’s perspective, Vladek treated him like a re-

placement son for Richieu, who died during the war. Art strongly believes that Richieu had a

stronger connection to his father, and that he could never measure up because he was not alive

during the Holocaust. His feelings of inadequacy invade his descriptions of both his father and

brother, and Richieu’s impact on their relationship reaches a peak when Vladek dies at the end of
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the second volume. The conclusion to Maus II is Vladek’s last words, a painful moment of

Vladek confusing Art for Richieu (Spiegelman, 130). This heart-wrenching scene reminds Art he

was the second son even at his father’s deathbed, that even though Art was by his father’s side it

was Richieu he thought of in his final moments. Art’s relationship with his father is tragic and

one of complex emotions, as outer and inner conflicts built a metaphorical wall between the two

men.

While Vladek’s trauma seems to be a distancing factor in their relationship, Art’s post-

memory connects them in a way even they may not fully understand. Marianne Hirsch describes

post-memory as the experience of those who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded

their birth (22). Jews born after the Holocaust in particular have their own stories overshadowed

by their parents’ experiences, these experiences having been shaped by traumatic events that

they were not a part of. In this way, the memory of Vladek and the post-memory of Art are de-

pendant upon each other, despite the complex relationship between father and son. The transmis-

sion of wartime experiences across generations has become an important identifier of the chil-

dren of survivors. Art’s story confirms the assertion that generations which have never been ex-

posed to a traumatic event can ‘inherit’ the trauma of their ancestors (Kolár, 228). Another factor

of post-memory is the ‘appropriation’ of ancestral trauma. Art distances himself using animal

figures to avoid a total identification with the Holocaust, and to attempt to prevent the ethically

unacceptable appropriation of an event he has not lived through (Kolár, 229). For Spiegelman,

making art from the suffering of millions of victims is unacceptable. How can a Jew with “no ex-

perience of the horror of the Holocaust” (Kolar, 235) become successful using the suffering of

others? Spiegelman makes an effort to not appropriate or misuse the trauma of his people, but his
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guilt is not unfounded. Although Art was not directly exposed to the Holocaust, his identity has

been shaped by the tragedy of his parents.

Finally, I must note that the Spiegelman family is a maze of complex emotions and rela-

tionships. Their connection to the Holocaust is one of their primary traits and this historical event

affects large parts of their lives. The transmission of Vladek’s trauma to Art is visible throughout

the volumes of Maus, and the result is compounded guilt and stress on his shoulders.

Works Cited
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Mandaville, Alison. Tailing Violence: Comics Narrative, Gender, and the Father-Tale in Art

Spiegelman's Maus. Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 44, no. 2, 2009, pp. 216–248.,

www.jstor.org/stable/25699568.

Kolár, Stanislav, Brno Studies in English: Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Spiegel

man's Maus. 39th Vol. Masarykova University Student Zine, 2013. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.

Orbán, Katalin. Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman's Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers.

Representations, vol. 97, no. 1, 2007, pp. 57–89., www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rep.

2007.97.1.57.

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holo

caust. Columbia University Press, 2012, page 22.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor's Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. Print.