Understanding the Holocaust through Art Spiegelmans Maus Essay

The experience of being in the Holocaust is hard to imagine. The physical pain and fear that a survivor of the Holocaust felt could never fully be understood by anyone other than a fellow survivor. The children of survivors may not feel the physical pain and agony as their parents did, precisely they do feel the psychological effects. For this reason Artie and his father could never connect. The Holocaust built a wall surrounded by them that was hard to climb. Artie makes an attempt to overcome the wall between him and his father by writing the comic Maus about his fathers life in hopes to recruit closer to him and understand him better, yet he struggles in looking past his fathers picky habits and hypocritical attitude. Arties father, Valdek, as he knew him ontogenesis up was stingy. He was stingy with money, nutrient, matches, and even toothpicks. All the food on his plate had to be eaten, or it would be served to him the next night and the night later on that until it w as gone. Valdeks obsessive behavior about not wasting anything aggravated Artie to no end. He grabs paper towels from restrooms so he wont consume to buy napkins or tissues, vented Artie to his stepmother. Once Artie used an extra match and Valdek yelled at him for his wastefulness. His life could never compare to how hard Valdeks was, and this fazed Artie. At the very opening of the story, Artie cries because his friends leave him when he falls off his skates and his father tells him that, If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week then you could see what it is, friends All things relate to the Holocaust for Valdek and this makes Artie feel guilty for not having such a hard life and for that tonicity of guilt Artie becomes angry and distances himself fr... ...in his life still plagued him. As a result he wrote Maus. It not only allowed him to enter into his fathers dry land, but too gave him an objective view of his relationship with his father. He spent many afternoons with his father in his pursuit of understanding. He became aware of the events in his fathers past, but still could not comprehend why his father could not put it behind him. He could not understand why other survivors of the Holocaust could convey on, but his father could not. Artie is overwhelmed by the events of his life. He is dealing with the death of his mother, and a father who cant let go of the past. He longs to understand the world of his father and talk to him once without arguing, but the walls have been built up too high that even after his fathers death, although more enlightened, he is just as confused as to who his father was.