Point of View Anonymous 12th Grade

Art Spiegelman is an author, an artist, a son, a historian, and a survivor of trauma. In his book Maus, he constructs a dual narrative graphic novel where he attempts to understand these roles in the context of the holocaust and in the context of his family. Maus inherently distinguishes itself from other holocaust novels, it is neither a survivor’s story nor historical fiction based upon fact, but instead, it is the story of a survivor’s survivor. This, of course, offers complications to the narrative: How do you tell another person’s story without violating their truth? And, perhaps more importantly, how can you tell the story of someone you don’t understand without violating their truth? It’s important to acknowledge that Maus and Spiegelman act as different entities in this essay; Maus, as text, does not violation, but Spiegelman does because he is the creator of this text and was cognizant of his limitations as an author. Despite attempting to honor his father’s memory through language and illustration, Spiegelman inherently undermines--and thus, violates-- his father’s narrative by positioning himself as a witness instead of a bystander and then creating the text for consumption.

However, the intention to honor his father...