Maus 2
Essay Preview: Maus 2
Report this essay
Maus 2: And Here my Troubles Began is part two of Art Spieglemans recounting of his fathers experience of the holocaust. However, unlike in Maus 1 this graphic takes place just as much in the 1980s as it does in the 1940s. In this one, Art incorporates his experiences and last moments with his father, Valdek, in trying to capture and acquire as much information from his father as he can. In doing so the reader is introduce to the difficult and sometimes painfully frustrating relationship between Art and his father.
Arts need and want to show this relationship and the portrayal of his father post-holocaust is mainly to show the emotional repercussions his father endured because of the holocaust. Arts father is very conscientious about his money because he was so used to not having any during the war, he always tried to save. There is one part of the novel where Spieglman takes his Valdek to the grocery store and Vladek wants to return some already opened groceries and get some money back. He argues with the store clerk and Artie and his wife watch the whole thing. They are both ashamed and embarrassed of Vladek but when he comes back to the car he says “He helped me as soon I explained to him my health, how Mala left me, and how it was in the camps.”(90.D2) This shows both Art and the reader that gowing through something as traumatic and horrid as what Vladek went through, puts a whole different perspective on life.
As mentioned before Maus 2 deals just as much with Arts personal feelings and woes in writing this novel. He is torn between the success of his first novel and trying to come together and write another successful portrayal of his father hard times during the war.
In the beginning of chapter 2, Art tells the reader that his father died in 1982 of heart failure and that he is having a very hard time with his own life. He feels depressed and alone because the