Maus, by Art Spiegelman

There are a lot of factors to consider when looking at the use of caricature and stereotyping in Maus. On the surface it seems to be a pretty harmless visual device, stemming from a simple and compelling metaphor: Nazis and Jews as Cats and Mice, respectively. In this aspect, at least, I think the metaphor is working as intended. It highlights the powerlessness that the Jews would have felt, and even the particular manner of stylization highlights this effect: the Jew-mice all have rounded edges and non-threatening wide eyes, while the Cat-zis are all sharp and pointy and nasty.

But is it a good idea to be depicting the Jews all as an easily identifiable, ethnically distinct, and arguable inferior species, when that's exactly what the Nazis were doing in the first place? Is drawing Jews as a collective Race of Victims an insult to those who struggled through the holocaust, or is Spiegelman simply showing a group of people united against hardship? For that matter, is it fair to draw all Germans as snarling monstrous cats, even those who may themselves have been opposed to the war and the holocaust?

The issue only gets hairier when you factor in the Poles, French and Americans. If the choices of Cats and Mice for Germans and Jews carry deliberate connotations, It's natural to expect that the other animals would as well. But searching for deeper meaning, or hidden offense, where none was intended, may ultimately just be detracting from the overall impact of the novel. Maus doesn't seem like the kind of story that's trying to hide anything with a lot of complex literary layers; all the major themes are right there on the surface. Several chapters feature the author himself explicitly talking about his own desires and concerns about the book.

To me, the issue ultimately boils down to whether Maus would have been as successful had the characters all simply been drawn as humans (successful as a story overall, not in the sense of critically or financially successful). Of course, this is a question that is impossible to answer with any certainty. I know that the intrigue and novelty of a holocaust story about mice was part of what got me to pick up the book the first time I read it. And all of the usual considerations about caricature in comics apply here as well of course; although they could just as easily apply to stylized human characters. And then there's the possibility to consider that using cartoon mice may have caused some readers to write the book off as frivolous, childish, or insulting. Then again, maybe that's part of the point: to surprise people who don't normally read comics. I know a lot of my own family members who've read Maus, but wouldn't be caught dead reading a Superman comic.

All this talking in circles is basically my way of saying that I don't have a fucking clue what any of it "means". All I can say for sure is that I enjoyed the book, I think it treated the historical stuff respectfully, and that it told a more personal and compelling story than most of the other holocaust accounts that I've read (not that I've read all that many).