This picture had an effect on me...
“Art Spiegelman's MAUS: Working-Through the Trauma of the Holocaust” by Robert S. Leventhal discusses how Maus includes three separate narratives within one big overall story. These narratives include the story of Vladek during the holocaust and after its effect on him, Anje, who committed suicide after surviving Auschwitz and coming to America, and Artie himself in his struggle to understand his family origins and himself. “It addresses the constant resurfacing of a traumatic and "unmastered" past on a number of levels.” By this, Leventhal means the death of Artie’s brother, Richieu, the tragic suicide of his mother in 1968, and the murder of the European Jews. Leventhal discusses how the "broken" relationship between Artie, Vladek, and this unmastered past is exemplified in the broken relationship Artie has to his own Jewish heritage. Leventhal believes that Maus is a allegorical text, not merely to the extent that it treats the individuals as figures in a much more complex and global story, but because its structure includes a graphic image elucidating the text, as well as a superscript expressing the "topic" or "theme," the actual statements of the individuals in the frame, and often a subscript containing unconscious thoughts or afterthoughts. In Maus, the image is never left to stand alone, but is always caught up in the differential between narrative, image, dialogue and reflection. In this manner, an opening or aperture for critical thinking on the transmission of past trauma is created.
