Another Personal Analysis of Maus

In last week's post, I analyzed page 41 of the second volume of Maus and elaborated on the reason Spiegelman portrays Jews as mice.  In this post, I would like to analyze the definition of race throughout Maus.  I want to write about race because we had an interesting discussion on the topic the day before this post was made.  

I would like to start with page 51 in volume I of Maus (it is displayed at the top of the post).  The page features a close-up image of an aggressive Nazi soldier in the upper right-hand corner.  The Nazi is portrayed as a monstrous cat with sharp, threatening fangs.  Meanwhile, the Jewish soldiers are seen as timid mice who are afraid to "[say] a word" to the Nazi soldier (Spigelman 51).  These features on the page most likely represent the ethnic stereotypes many Jews and Germans had against each other during World War II.  The Jews were probably afraid of many Germans as if the Germans were monsters that they should avoid.  On the other hand, some Germans may have viewed the Jews as a group of animals that are inferior to the German race.  (I am aware that there were also some Germans that think Jews are a threat that should be eliminated.  However, this perception is not clearly shown in page 51).

Page 51 of Maus I only represents one example of how race is defined in Nzai society.  In fact, Spigelman presents many other examples of the perceptions of race throughout his entire graphic novel.  Since the definition of race can depend on a society (as we had discussed before), Spigelman tries to reflect on his own struggles defining race in Maus.  Spigelman best demonstrates this in page 11 of Maus II.  The page shows Artie trying to decide "What kind of animal" his wife should be (Spigelman 11).  He is struggling with his decision because while Francoise is French, she had converted her religion to Judaism.  This section most likely shows how hard it is for someone to create a perfect definition of race.