For my High School Visual Art Thesis in the International Baccalaureate Program , I had picked Spiegelman's MAUS to write an extensive research paper on. It is approximately 4000 words. I thought of sharing it for this reading response as I feel I have exhausted multiple theories and perspectives I hypothesized and reflected upon in this essay.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR THE ESSAY
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TdZ_dVrC2FtMFVbLBsMyPMXELmBXDnzr?usp=sharing
Here's the research question and conclusion if you want to just get a gist of what the thesis is.
How does Art
Spiegelman effectively use the medium of the graphic novel to emphasize the
concept of racism in MAUS?
Visually, the comic is the epitome of simplicity, with depth of content. I discovered how he uses very
specific techniques such as closure and minimalism to create the needed diversion from focus on quality to focus on content. However, alongside the multiple techniques Spiegelman uses, his style of abstraction to depict the holocaust through mice, cats and anthropomorphic animals makes the content on the novel and the concept of racism much clearer to the viewer and makes it less harsh. Using the visual icon of a mouse; vermin, to represent the Jewish population, Spiegelman created a visual impact that no other method could have achieved. He created a sense a neutrality for the viewer, rather than repulsion; as would have been the case if the comic was made with humans instead of mice. People are eased with the image of looking at mass rat genocide, rather than being exposed to hundreds of dead human bodies. I looked at other instances in art where vermin had been used as an icon to show discrimination; such as The Eternal Jew film and Banksy’s Rat that prove to the viewer the disgust the visual image of vermin creates. I certainly noticed the strong impact of this visual metaphor. And despite the fact of MAUS being incomplete without Spiegelman’s brilliant minimalistic, black and white style through the comic, the comic would not have delivered the strong impact of making the viewer really understand the entire notion of racism without the visual metaphor of using Cats and mice. The level of importance of both these factors lie very close together making it difficult to distinguish which plays a bigger role, however I concluded that this comic, would have been seen as a “abhorrent” piece of work rather than a respectful, “Pulitzer prize winning” piece of work that created a big change in the way people perceived the Holocaust.
specific techniques such as closure and minimalism to create the needed diversion from focus on quality to focus on content. However, alongside the multiple techniques Spiegelman uses, his style of abstraction to depict the holocaust through mice, cats and anthropomorphic animals makes the content on the novel and the concept of racism much clearer to the viewer and makes it less harsh. Using the visual icon of a mouse; vermin, to represent the Jewish population, Spiegelman created a visual impact that no other method could have achieved. He created a sense a neutrality for the viewer, rather than repulsion; as would have been the case if the comic was made with humans instead of mice. People are eased with the image of looking at mass rat genocide, rather than being exposed to hundreds of dead human bodies. I looked at other instances in art where vermin had been used as an icon to show discrimination; such as The Eternal Jew film and Banksy’s Rat that prove to the viewer the disgust the visual image of vermin creates. I certainly noticed the strong impact of this visual metaphor. And despite the fact of MAUS being incomplete without Spiegelman’s brilliant minimalistic, black and white style through the comic, the comic would not have delivered the strong impact of making the viewer really understand the entire notion of racism without the visual metaphor of using Cats and mice. The level of importance of both these factors lie very close together making it difficult to distinguish which plays a bigger role, however I concluded that this comic, would have been seen as a “abhorrent” piece of work rather than a respectful, “Pulitzer prize winning” piece of work that created a big change in the way people perceived the Holocaust.
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