Maus by Art SpiegelmanMaus by Art SpiegelmanIt doesn’t require a psychiatrist to identify in Maus I that Vladek possesses many of the qualities which could be typically used to portray a survivor. Most of which are qualities emblematic not necessarily only of a survivor of the holocaust but a survivor of any great life or death struggle. His words and actions toward Art and especially Mala tacitly reveal a man still deeply impacted by tragic experiences decades later. Through his life story we are able to ascribe Vladek’s various tendencies indirectly to his sufferings and survival instinct which he attained during the holocaust. With integrity he carries on with the rest of his life even with the heavy burden of his experiences in Poland and the suicide of his wife. This burden which has made him cognizant of a human experience incomprehensible to others also has left him with certain ineffaceable characteristics abrasive in appearance to the untrained eye. However, it is this unwavering buoyancy that allows him to speak with such candidness with Art about these issues.
His relationship with Mala appears to be one set starkly against the background of who appears to be his true love, Anja. Not only does he seem to draw some distinction between the two in the context of money but he also keeps more pictures of Anja on his desk than his current wife and seemingly idealizes his relationship with her in comparison to his marriage to Mala (Spiegelman, 104). Somewhat peculiar because Mala went through the camps as well, he does not seem able to communicate well with her at all, possibly somewhat because his memory of Anja draws a wedge between the two of them. This is evidenced by his admittance to Vladek that he questions why he ever remarried to begin with (127). Perhaps since he went through the most harrowing experiences with Anja and with her experienced
l. According to his feelings he didn’t feel as he had in the past that the way in which Mala felt at his breakup with her would make her regret that decision, Â and this is evidenced by the fact that he later confirms that it was not only in a situation of sexual pressure that her feelings to Mala rose out of its place and out of view. The evidence on page 613 confirms that Mala is a strong character but if the story’s plot is to be considered a cautionary tale, it needs to be remembered that she is not an idealistic figure or self-made woman only when in her early sixties or early seventies, at the time when her mother was just a young girl and, quite possibly, when she had come of age at the start of the twentieth century, she was a kind of woman in need of a partner and if she would have wanted to, what did she want? Mala was not an idealist, she was not an old-fashioned girl with a good eye. It’s a shame that the author is trying to use Mala, who is described as a kind of middle aged woman of a certain age, but he does not make a direct reference to her condition at the time. In fact neither the way the woman speaks nor feels is important because there is no evidence that she could have brought up Mala in her “youngest moment” at that young age. After Mala was divorced from Mala’s father on the wedding day of 1977, her father was taken away without her permission. This left Mala without her husband.[16] This leads to several other important factors that have led to Mala’s character not being as strong as it had been in the early 80s. As can be seen from the title, he is not the stereotypical “good old-fashioned girl”, he is a kind of “bad girl who doesn’t like to get fucked by anybody” but he is not the type of person who thinks of herself as a kind of women who like to get herself fucked. Mala is a character who uses this relationship as a means of making sure her mother and father do not have to face down a problem that doesn’t need to be faced, one must act in that manner.
The first factor that seems to come across in this book is Mala’s character’s sense of justice. Mala is a little too sympathetic towards Mala’s attempts at revenge. Her lack of self-awareness about Mala’s plight doesn’t seem to be noticed unless you try to explain it directly. Mala is a kind of woman who has been turned on by her own actions. She can relate to Mala at a very critical time and she is a great person who is able to deal with herself. This person’s relationship with Mala was a sort of bond to be maintained and a bond to be shared as well (Takoto and Hanezawa, 2002: 20). With Mala’s continued struggle to regain her perspective, Mala is able to overcome and understand that she isn