Analyzing Maus

On page 108 of Maus by Art Spiegelman, the Germans are shown killing a great deal of Jews in Auschwitz, especially children only 2-3 years old. They were “swing[ing] them by the legs against a wall” (Spiegelman 108) while the children were screaming and crying violently. This large number of Jews killed in just this one scene amounted to a total of 1,000 people. This overwhelming number was a struggle to depict in the comic for Spiegelman because of his strong emotional ties to the war through his father. Because of this, the way he communicated this detail through both illustrations and words is one of great importance. In the second to last box on this page, the focus is on the long white curve which depicts the motion of the swinging rather than the child being murdered. His father states that “the children never anymore screamed” (Spiegelman 108) rather than simply stating that they were dead. By doing this, he gets his point across both clearly and strongly while leaving out the gory and overwhelming details of the situation. This same idea is demonstrated in the last box on the page in which the blood of the children is stained on the wall in the background. Art places the speech bubble on top of the blood stain in order to distract the reader from the brutal images while still conveying its importance. Art Spiegelman’s intentions throughout this novel were to express his thoughts towards the war rather than to give a history lecture about the gruesome deaths.