Mausk

This past year, in 2022, the McMinn County School Board in Tennessee banned Maus, a Holocaust memoir created by Art Spiegelman between 1980 and 1991. At the meeting, a member of the board contended, “Being in the schools, educators and stuff, we don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff,” which reflected a flawed conflation of promoting and bearing witness. Indeed, the content of the Shoah is horrific and gives rise to visceral discomfort. The testimony of survivors is painful and grim. But, to prohibit the teaching of this history denies its existence and engenders an inaccurate and dishonest whitewashing. How then, does one interpret and present the specter of genocide?  Navigating this daunting material, Spiegelman embraces an uncanny approach relying on both image and text. The composite establishes a forum wherein the author constructs a metonymy of animal visages that represent disparate categorizations of people. This use of masks, both literal and metaphoric, acts as an artistic device to effectively convey meaning as it allows for a process of understanding that is oblique and incremental.

Spiegelman employs masks as signifiers of cultural identity. With a cursory glance, Jews are portrayed as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs, Americans as dogs, French as frogs, etc. While these characters might initially present as anthropomorphic, on closer inspection, they are always and already human, donning quasi full head masks (with no visible ties at first) that categorize them into discrete groups. The depiction is one of a cipher rather than a chimera; the mask tactic operates as a code that can be read as opposed to a hybrid creature that constitutionally embodies the qualities of two species. From the frontispiece of Chapter I, despite animal assignment, these beings have bodies, hands, traits, postures, and behaviors that are distinctly and exclusively human. They inter-species speak to and understand one another regardless of animal assignation. Spiegelman unequivocally draws this distinction as Anja is frightened by actual rodents while hiding in a storage locker in Szopienice: “AIEE!... Th-there are RATS down there!” (147) This is further affirmed by Vladek: “There, I’m starting to feel human again!” (271) thereby confirming he has been a person from the start. Consequently, both author and audience are together “in the know” and see beyond the disguise that Vladek et al are, in fact, people; former and latter are united in this privy understanding, establishing intimacy and trust. In collectively accepting this sign system, the resulting categorization provides a shorthand for the visual construction of ethnicity and nationality. Here, the cat-mouse cliché of predator and prey as well as the Nazi propaganda characterization of Jews as vermin (164) are immediately recalled and create an incipient framework of communally agreed upon indexes. The animal mask imagery allows for characters to conform to behavioral expectations anticipated by their social group, a role being played. The artistic device offers a seemingly facile means to present complex issues in an accessible manner, a convenient approach to depicting uncomfortable and irreconcilable realities. Like Kafka’s use of mice instead of people in Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk, Spiegelman is able to immediately ascribe qualities of vulnerability and sympathy to the Jews. Further akin to Kafka’s story, the use of mouse heads in Maus, creates a sense of distance and detachment that allows for a more objective examination of the story's themes. In other words, it portrays unimaginable, “unreal” events in a likewise fantastical way. One can better bear the barbarity because the veneer creates a layer of separation; the narrative is too horrific to be presented unmasked. 

While the use of animal masks literally shows the dehumanization of all people associated with the Holocaust, as the tale progresses, the limitations of the technique are laid bare. Ultimately this categorization and otherness are too reductive. Hence, Spiegelman embarks on his operation of “unmasking,” but by degree. In the face of complexity and atrocity, he uses masks to ease the reader in, allowing for an education by increments. As volume II develops, the author challenges the narrative orthodoxy he originally set forth, subverting the mouse-metaphor; he deliberately intimates the artifice of veneer. The bestial qualities evolve from prominent to vestigial and mark an important shift: identifying mice as humans rather than jews as mice. As whiskers and tails vanish while obvious mask strings materialize, the constraining cartoon characterization dissipates. The collusion of consenting to the mask model is disrupted, and both the subterfuge and the effectiveness of the metaphor as a normalized aesthetic device, are exposed. Eventually, masks can be donned and doffed at will. They become a mere figure of identity which is pliant, even manifold, rather than fixed. Spiegelman himself presents a “double-mask” as he occupies the roles of author/ narrator and character within the story. Meanwhile, on a single two page spread, a Jewish Israeli American wears the mask of a mouse; a (Christian?) American, a dog; a German American, a cat; a Jewish Czech American Holocaust survivor immigrant, a mouse; and a Jewish American second generation survivor, a mouse. (42, 43) While there exists some alignment in the representation, there are also distinct inconsistencies. The ciphers have lost their rigor, and the rules have become muddled and blurred. The insufficiency and failure of this signifier system is made clear and a corresponding truth emerges: identity (i.e. ethnicities and nationalities) is fluid, and as such, is a deficient justification for societal stratification, much less eugenics and violence.

While masks denote, they also paradoxically conceal. Spiegelman exploits this Lacanian dual capacity of masking throughout Maus. By their very construction, these devices hide what exists beneath; although they can exhibit an outward presentation of identity, masks simultaneously and literally obscure a reality that pre-exists their apparatus. As a metaphor throughout the book, masking emphasizes a permeating sensibility of “the unknowable.” Initially as the animal heads signify ethnicity and nationality, they simultaneously thwart a deeper understanding of particular personalities. Often rendered with a simplified, blank, sameness, these masks frustrate the communication of nuanced emotion. As they relate only behind mouse disguises, true connection between Art and Vladek seems even more challenging. This extra layer underscores the separation between father and son. One of Art’s central projects is to bridge this alienation. The urgency to authentically perceive his father, to penetrate the surface and genuinely understand one another, becomes even more palpable. This absence of transparency, however, persists and Art bemoans, “I mean, I can’t even make any sense out of my relationship with my father… How am I supposed to make any sense out of Auschwitz? …Of the Holocaust?...I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams.” (176) Here, Spiegelman identifies the potential futility of his other, parallel endeavor as well; to comprehend and document his father’s narrative as a survivor of the Nazi regime. As a second generation survivor, the author’s mask resonates in these frames as it confirms his spatial and temporal distance and detachment from the actual events. The fundamental opacity of these experiences is reflected by this artistic device; not having been there, can the author ever see the truth, and consequently can the audience actually discern the reality of this difficult history through this mediated rendition?

Spiegelman’s use of masking confirms these extant doubts, and in their acknowledgment he establishes credibility with the audience. Contingent on the benefit of that faith, he is then able to push the limits of the metaphor, and in chipping away he introduces the possibility of a “way in,” an opening to authentic insight, albeit small and indirect. The panels of Art’s “shrink” Pavel, (203-206) a Czech Jewish survivor of the concentration camps, exemplifies a breaking down of this sign system. One such indication is that the text is not exclusively capitalized. Additionally, from the first frame, the text block and graphic indicate actual dogs, and lower on the page, even a drawn desk photo of a pet cat. Similar to the inclusion of actual rodents in Volume I, the metaphor is dissembling (and in a meta-reference, Art calls this out.) Moreover, Pavel never dons the mouse head nor a more specific indicator of his country of origin; from the outset he is clearly rendered as a man wearing a mouse mask with ties. Approaching laterally from the side, the audience perceives glimpses of the real human beneath: while his face is mostly hidden, there are teases of an ear, sparse hair, a balding head. These peeks pique interest and invite one to look more closely. There is, in fact, a truth that lays behind and is waiting to be discovered. This uncovering requires work. From the efforts in the therapeutic session wherein Art and Pavel probe the complexity of survival, a degree of clarity and peace regarding Vladek is achieved. Growth is possible, and Art literally transforms from a boy’s stature to a man’s following this sequence. Here, the problematic impenetrability of conceptualizing and representing the Holocaust is also faced as Pavel speculates “Look how many books have already been written about the Holocaust, what’s the point? People haven’t changed….” At first, Art mirrors this pointlessness: “…Samuel Beckett once said: ‘Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness….”  But, Art fights against this notion of utter opacity and futility and exclaims, “On the other hand, he SAID it.” Here, the author critically establishes the opening for understanding, even in the face of daunting challenges. Having gone through this process, the audience is now primed and receptive, as Spiegelman then illustrates the most detailed twenty pages of the tome, an unflinching and engrossing depiction of Vladek’s experience in Auschwitz. Indeed, the detail and the horror of the Holocaust are, at least in part, obliquely, “knowable.”

Although with greater subtlety, Spiegelman uses the genre of his work as a mask as well. Maus initially presents as a comic book, replete with all the recognizable elements: speech bubbles, capital letters, panels, frames, and onomatopoeic sounds. The medium can be quickly identified, and the associated connotations of playfulness are conjured. The author himself alludes to Mickey and Walt Disney (with some irony) while the first page depicts childhood games. Comic books often signify collectively embraced notions of good and evil wherein the former inevitably triumphs after a melodramatic struggle. Here, the genre might indicate: the Allies beat the Nazis, and Art’s parents survived. These traditional narratives, coupled with likable anthropomorphic characters, are simplistic, recognizable, and easily approachable. These associations, even if subconscious, provide certain shortcuts for Spiegelman. The work eludes the often “too precious,” too onerous characterization of Holocaust art. One is compelled by a visually dynamic component while not mired in a burdensome word count. The structure of this genre also tempers the experience of the difficult content. While comics are intended to be consumed sequentially, their spatial nature allows for a more flexible reading. The linear expectation is not as didactic. The eye can jump around a facing two-page comic spread more easily than one of just text, following and rapidly processing various optical cues. One can take in gruesome scenes but quickly pivot to another frame without digesting the content whole. As the German cats raid the Srodula ghetto, Spiegelman illustrates horrific violence against a child as he is thrown against a wall (108); the gaze, however, is not forced to dwell and linger on this image and can hastily skip to another, a triptych of Tosha composed to draw attention on the opposite page. The audience might better bear these scenes, as one has more agency in this format. Moreover, the sphere of comics is, by definition a fantasy, emphatically not real. Consequently, it constructs a layer of distance, a per se mask, between the world of Maus and factual existence, thereby buffering the horror of events and themes depicted therein.

But similar to Spiegelman’s “unmasking” in regard to identity and knowableness, he also begins to break down the mask of genre that he initially constructed. Although he retains the framework and some associated advantages, the author starts to defamiliarize the medium. The narrative becomes less simplistic; characters, ethics, and outcomes are more fraught and muddled. The sequencing is also more elaborate than a classic comic as it frequently shifts temporally and perspectivally. When Vladek describes his experience in the Polish army fighting the Germans, the frames from the war and Rego Park are literally blurred with Art’s body extending across both. (48) Likewise, the visual language defies easy categorization. In contrast to comic book conventions, the illustrations in Maus completely lack color and the use of Ben Day dots (small dots in a grid pattern used for shading and texture.) Instead, the exclusively black and white drawings reflect a heavy chiaroscuro, resembling cruder woodblock prints. The aesthetic is flat and the articulation of emotion is limited. This is especially noticeable in the juxtaposition of the comic within a comic: Spiegelman’s own Prisoner on the Hell Planet. (100-103) His earlier work embodies a disparate visual language characterized by dramatic facial expressions, exaggerated renderings, a multiplicity of hatching textures and depth, and an overall pulsating energy. Hence, the minimalism of Maus diverges not only from conventional comics, but from Spiegelman’s own style as well. This schism is furthered in the ultimate publication of the work by Pantheon in two bound volumes, resembling a standard book format (originally it was serially published in Spiegelman’s Raw.) Yet, if Maus is not quite a comic book, what is it? Both the Pulitzer Prize Committee and the New York Times have struggled with the same incertitude. The former avoided complications and simply awarded Maus a “Special Citation.” The latter first assigned the work to the “fiction” category until Spiegelman wrote a letter insisting on “nonfiction” status. The author has also rebuffed the “graphic novel” label as “novel” is often associated with fiction. In eschewing a clear classification, Spiegelman encourages the audience to engage more actively; they must do more of the heavy labor. This ambiguity compels one to reexamine prior biases and assumptions as well as question the medium and the content therein, giving rise to a more profound exploration and intimacy with the material.

Curiosity is borne out of the unexpected, and Spiegelman’s dual operation of masking and unmasking allows new possibilities and insights to flow from this method of discovery. Using masks as provisional constructs, he identifies collective preconceptions, then moves to question and reveal the limitations of these very notions. In the wake of this schema, queries arise: How is identity determined? Can one actually understand historical horrors like genocide? Is it possible to interpret and present these events effectively and appropriately? While Theodor Adorno asserted the futility, even indecency of such projects: “…to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric,” through his strange but dexterous approach, Spiegelman offers tempered hope. The narrative reflects a work in progress, with Art achieving incremental successes. Embracing a hermeneutic sensibility, the author suggests that meaning is not fixed, but constantly renegotiated and reinterpreted. Similarly, understanding is not straightforward but rather obtained obliquely, requiring a dynamic dialogue that navigates multiple perspectives and interpretive strategies: personal, historic, and artistic. It is an imperfect and slow process about which Art laments: “I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dream…There’s so much I’ll never be able to understand or visualize…so much has to be left out or distorted.”(46) But, on the other hand, he CREATED it.