The first volume of Art Spiegelman’s Maus includes a large half-page panel featuring the artist’s father, Vladek, at home with his extended family after he sneaks across the border from the Protectorate to the Reich. A small close-up frame of the older retrospective Vladek riding his exercise bike appears in the upper left, an inset in the larger picture of the Spiegelmans and the Zylberbergs at their dining room table in Sosnowiec. Though only one of the hundreds of panels that constitute Spiegelman’s memoir, that panel alone deftly demonstrates the intricacy of his narrative; his deceptively simple words and drawings create a layered meta-memoir that simultaneously depicts the present and the past, intersections of mundane moments of ordinary life and the horrors of the Nazi regime.
Overlaying the larger panel of the family at home in 1940 with the smaller image of the aging Vladek underscores the presence of the past that pervades the panels of Spiegelman interviewing his father decades later. Spiegelman further emphasizes the presence of the past with Vladek’s speech balloon, which breaks the border of the smaller panel to enter the scene in Sosnowiec. The spilling, or bleeding, of his words into that long-ago night may evoke in readers thoughts of the memoir’s subtitle: My Father Bleeds History. More than thirty years after the Holocaust, the wounds remain.
At first glance, the image of the Spiegelmans and the Zylberbergs around the dining room table is one of domestic bliss. When Vladek first speaks of the memory, he notes the lack of change—or what appears to be the lack of change. In his words, “When first I came home it looked exactly so as before I went away” (74). The unconventional syntax of his speech denotes that English is not his first language, but perhaps the most striking element of the sentence is the central placement of the word “looked.” The panel offers a look into a seemingly ordinary evening at home. The men’s suits and the women’s dresses and pearls typify their pre-war affluence, which Vladek mentions in the narration that concludes the panel. There Vladek says, “It was still very luxurious” (74).
Along with the family’s clothing, the dining room illustrates the luxury: the spacious hall that comfortably seats four generations, the upholstered chairs, and the wainscoting. But the words that conclude the panel undercut those creature comforts. The sentence that ends with “luxurious” is followed by these words: “The Germans couldn’t destroy everything at one time” (74). That line reminds readers that the destruction they don’t see in the panel is just around the corner, perhaps just outside the window that offers a view into the dining room.
Readers see the family through the panes of the window, which Spiegelman draws at an oblique angle, indicating that something is askew. The shift in Vladek’s final line—from “luxury” to “destruction”—shifts readers’ perspective on the scene as well. With Vladek’s final words, the dark, heavy window grilles become the bars of a cage. Readers see the family as the storyteller-survivor does, both as the happy family they were and the prey they would become.
Writing of Maus, Hillary Chute, author of Why Comics?, has observed that “the ways in which the past invades the present recollection, or vice versa, gradually grows more ominous” (346). That intersection of the present and the past, which Spiegelman so skillfully draws, may be particularly menacing to readers now. In 2020, we are as far removed from the publication of Maus as Vladek was from the Holocaust when he recounted his story to his son. Yet Spiegelman’s panels remind us that the distance of the past is scant. On the eve of an election in a democracy strained and polarized, that is ominous indeed.
Works Cited
Chute, Hillary. “History and Graphic Representation in Maus.” A Comics Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, UP of Mississippi, 2009, pp. 340-62.
The authors of A Writer’s Reference note that “[r]evising is rarely a one-step process” (Hacker and Somers 19). Editing for surface-level correctness is essential, but it isn’t the only step, and it shouldn’t be the first. Begin instead by re-seeing (or re-visioning) your analysis and considering its focus and organization. Ask these questions:
Is it a focused analysis rather than an overview of a scene in Maus?
Does it present a clear thesis?
Would the analysis benefit from a different organization? If the strongest piece of textual evidence appears in the first body paragraph, try moving it to the last one.
After you have addressed those questions, examine each paragraph one by one, from first to last.
Introduction
Does the first sentence name the author, Art Spiegelman, and the title, Maus?
Does the description that follows create a picture of the panel or panels for the reader? For more on descriptive paragraphs, see pages 45-46.
Does the description include pertinent terms, such as dialogue, narration, panel, speech balloon, and tier?
Is the description followed by a clear thesis? Can the thesis be a point of disagreement among reasonable people? (If the answer to both questions isn’t yes, revise accordingly.) For more on writing a thesis for an analytical essay, see page 69.
Body Paragraphs
Does each body paragraph present textual evidence (words and images from the panel or panels) that supports the thesis? For more on supporting a thesis, see page 69.
Do the paragraphs include pertinent terms, such as dialogue, narration, panel, speech balloon, and tier?
Conclusion
Is the conclusion a well-developed paragraph? Does it reiterate the thesis without repeating it verbatim? For more on writing conclusions, see page 18.
After you have revised the paragraphs one by one, review the MLA section of A Writer’s Reference to ensure your document complies with style guidelines.
MLA Style
The MS Word file that you will submit to Moodle should comply with the format guidelines for MLA (Modern Language Association) manuscripts, including in-text citations with signal phrases (384), and works cited entries (392-423). You can use the MS Word file of my analysis, posted on my blog and in Moodle, as a template.
Remember that in addition to submitting your revision to Moodle, you will publish it as a post on your WordPress blog. Your blog post will omit the first-page information included in your file submitted to Moodle (your name, my name, course, section, and date). You will include in your blog post an image that documents some part of your writing process away from the screen, such as a photo of your reading notes or a page of your handwritten draft.
Works Cited Entries
The following list includes sample works cited entries for the secondary sources that we have examined in class. Note that in your MS Word file, your works cited entries will have a hanging indent; in other words, each line except the first one will be indented five spaces or one-half inch.
Bosmajian, Hamida. “The Orphaned Voice in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 26-43.
Chute, Hillary. “History and Graphic Representation in Maus.” A Comics Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, UP of Mississippi, 2009, pp. 340-62.
Miller, Nancy K. “Cartoons of the Self: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Murderer—Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 44-59.
Wilner, Arlene Fish. “‘Happy, Happy Ever After’: Story and History in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 105-21.
As you draft your essay, focus first on creating a clear picture with words. Let the reader see what’s on the page in front of you, then move from your objective description to your thesis: your particular claim, which you will support with textual evidence (words and pictures).
Although you will cite an authoritative secondary source in your revision, you don’t need to integrate that source into your draft. When you begin drafting an analysis, your aim is to examine the primary source (Maus) closely and develop your own interpretation of it. After you’ve done that, you’ll have a better sense of what secondary sources are relevant to your analysis.
A Writer’s Reference includes a sample student analysis of a coffee advertisement: “Sometimes a Cup of Coffee is Just a Cup of Coffee” (76-78).
“Wreaths of Reclamation,” by my former student Jacob Palmer, is shorter than your analysis will be. I offer it here as a well-written example of a comparative study of the forces of nature depicted in J.M.W. Turner’s painting Interior of Tintern Abbey and Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.
“Through a Glass Darkly: Girl at the Mirror and Grover’s Corners,” an essay that I wrote as a model for my students at Lenoir-Rhyne University, is a comparative analysis of Norman Rockwell’s painting Girl at the Mirror and Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town.
“The Well-Heeled Clichés of Madison Avenue,” an essay that I wrote as a model for my students at CVCC, is a meta-analysis: a study of a sample student analysis included in CVCC’s English 111 textbook, The Norton Field Guide to Writing.
In your analysis of Maus, you will cite a relevant authoritative secondary source: a critical essay, book review, or interview published in an academic journal or a well-regarded news publication. The handout on secondary sources that I distributed in class includes passages from some studies of Maus. That handout can be downloaded below, and the excerpts also appear in a later section of this post.
Quoting or paraphrasing an authoritative secondary source gives your writing credibility. It indicates to readers that your ideas are trustworthy and valid because your analysis is informed by the work of an expert.
Citing an authoritative secondary source also links your analysis to a study of Maus that preceded yours. Academic writing is knowledge-building. With your analysis, you are adding to the critical conversation about Spiegelman’s memoir.
Ask yourself, what has a scholar or journalist written about Maus, and how do my own ideas about Spiegelman’s memoir fit into the conversation? Your answers to those questions can serve as a starting point for integrating your own take on Maus with the ideas presented in a secondary source.
Locating Authoritative Secondary Sources
The GTCC Libraries website includes a research guide for Maus, which features links to articles, essays, reviews, lectures, and interviews.
You can also locate scholarly, or peer-reviewed, articles on Maus by following these steps on the libraries’ home page:
Click on advanced search.
In the first search index box, select subject. In the search term box to the right, type Spiegelman, Art.
In the second search index box, select subject. In the search term box to the right, type Maus.
Click search.
On the next screen, you will see a list of more than two-hundred sources. You can refine your search by choosing one of the limiters in the menu bar on the left. Selecting articles will narrow the list of sources to fewer than ninety; selecting peer-reviewed articles will limit the list to fewer than twenty.
Another Authoritative Secondary Source
If you watched the live stream of Professor Ruth von Bernuth’s lecture on September 28, you are welcome to use that presentation as a secondary source. Here’s how you would integrate one of her points into your analysis:
Ruth von Bernuth, Assistant Professor of Germanic Language at UNC-Chapel Hill, has observed that Jewish persecution in Europe coincided with the medieval pandemic but occurred before the plague as well.
Notice that the signal phrase includes the writer’s first and last name as well as her credentials. The paraphrase does not include a page number because the source is a presentation. The work cited entry, which would appear at the end of the analysis, lists the details of the event:
von Bernuth, Ruth. “Black Death and Jewish Persecution.” Guilford Technical Community College All-College Read Presentation, Microsoft Teams Live Stream, 29 Sept., 2020. Lecture.
Passages from Authoritative Secondary Sources
From Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University:
“[t]he Nazi flag. . . is never shown unobstructedly unfurled in Maus” (42).
From Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York:
“The Success of Maus is due to a double audacity. The first is the choice to represent the Holocaust as a cartoon, the second to cast its star witness as a victimizer in his own world, a petty tyrant at home” (48-49).
From Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University:
“Adam Gopnik has astutely observed that the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked’” (109).
From Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University:
The telling of stories is, of course, a primary means of ordering the disorder of experience; it provides a surface sensibleness that may be perceived as meaningful. Artie, however, will never make any sense or meaning of it all, no matter how many times he articulates the horror verbally and graphically; he can only shape an imitation, an illusion of meaning through the telling of the tale. (30-31)
In an MLA-style manuscript, the quotation above is indented one-half inch because it is one of more than four lines. The quotation marks are omitted because the indentation signals to the reader that the lines are taken word-for-word from the source. For more on presenting long quotations in MLA papers, see A Writer’s Reference (376).
From Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University:
“The most striking instance of representing past and present together in Maus I is the inclusion of the autobiographical comic strip ‘Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History’” (346).
Works Cited
Bosmajian, Hamida. “The Orphaned Voice in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 26-43.
Chute, Hillary. “History and Graphic Representation in Maus.” A Comics Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, UP of Mississippi, 2009, pp. 340-62.
Miller, Nancy K. “Cartoons of the Self: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Murderer—Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 44-59.
Wilner, Arlene Fish. “‘Happy, Happy Ever After’: Story and History in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 105-21.
Blog Response Assignment for Monday Students
Directions
Choose one of the article excerpts on your handout from last week—a phrase, a sentence, or two or more sentences—and compose a short piece of writing that presents the passage as you would if you were integrating it into your analysis of Maus. (See the examples below.) Choose a short passage other than the one cited in the examples below. In other words, do not quote or paraphrase Hamida Bosmajian’s observation about the Nazi flag.
Introduce the source with a signal phrase that includes the author’s first and last name and credentials.
Include the page number in the parenthetical citation, whether you are quoting or paraphrasing.
Type your assignment as a reply to this blog post. To do that, scroll down to the bottom of the post, and look for the image of the air mail envelope. If you don’t see it, click on the post’s title, “Citing Secondary Sources,” and scroll down again. Post your comment no later than noon on Friday, October 16.
Note: To avoid the risk of students duplicating their classmates’ replies, I will not make any of the comments visible until after the deadline.
Examples
Integrated Quotation
Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University, has observed that “the Nazi flag. . . is never shown unobstructedly unfurled in Maus” (42).
Integrated Paraphrase
Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University, has observed that the field of the Nazi flag is never seen in its entirety in Maus; it is always obstructed (42).
In class on October 14, the Wednesday students read an excerpt from an interview with Art Spiegelman, conducted by Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University. Chute, who is one of the scholars included on your handout from last week, is the author of several book-length studies of comics–including Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere–and is also associate editor of Art Spiegelman’s MetaMaus.
Postscript
In addition to Hillary Chute’s interview with Art Spiegelman, “Why Maus Remains ‘the Greatest Graphic Novel Ever Written,’ 30 Years Later” is another secondary source that you may cite in your analysis. You may quote or paraphrase the article’s writer, Michael Cavna, or you may quote or paraphrase one of the comic artists he interviewed for the piece. In your signal phrase, include the writer/artist’s first and last name and credentials:
Washington Post journalist Michael Cavna
Cartoonist Chris Ware, author of Building Stories
Comic artist Jeff Smith, creator of the Bone series
Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese
Sample In-Text Citations
Washington Post journalist Michael Cavna has noted that “amid the massive boom in graphic novels, it can be easy to forget how much of a game-changer Maus was.”
The sample above does not include a parenthetical citation at the end because the source is an unpaginated article on the web.
Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese, credits Art Spiegelman with“set[ting] the standard for the rest of us” (qtd. in Cavna).
The sample above includes a parenthetical citation with the abbreviation “qtd.” because Gene Luen Yang is quoted in the article written by Michael Cavna.It includes brackets because I altered the word “set” to “setting” to keep the sentence grammatical in my context.
For more on brackets and MLA in-text citations, see A Writer’s Reference (376, 384-92).
In the first weeks of the course, we studied Maus as a model for our literacy narratives. Now, as we turn to more formal academic writing, we will examine Art Spiegelman’s memoir as the subject for our second essay assignment, our analysis.
Analysis
Unlike a narrative, an analysis has an explicit thesis, which often—but not always—appears at the end of the first paragraph. A thesis is not a statement of fact; instead, it’s a judgment based on a close examination of the subject—in our case, Maus.
Statement of fact: The epigraph for Maus shows the young Art Spiegelman and his father talking but not truly communicating with each other.
Thesis: The cutting remark that Spiegelman’s father makes as he saws wood illustrates the communication breakdown between him and Artie; Spiegelman’s deft depiction of that gulf foreshadows the trials he will encounter: struggling to understand his father and himself as he aims to make meaning of their lives through his comics.
Notice how the thesis above addresses what Vladek Spiegelman says and also lets the reader see him sawing wood. As you plan your analysis, keep in mind that Maus is a multimodal text. You will address both the pictures and the words on the page.
For more on writing about multimodal texts, see A Writer’s Reference (70-78).
Where to Begin
Look back through the pages of your journal and note what aspect of Spiegelman’s memoir interests you most? Here are a few that might serve as your focus:
Vladek and Art Spiegelman’s father-son relationship
Maus as a dual memoir
Maus as a meta-memoir
The Nazi persecution of the Jews (leading up to the Holocaust, depicted in Maus II)
Anja Spiegelman’s depression
Anja’s diary
Turn back to the pages of Maus devoted to the parts of the story that interest you most. Ask yourself how Spiegelman makes meaning with both his images and his words. Your answer to a how question about those words and pictures could serve as your thesis.
Questions to Ask of the Words
Are the words in the panel dialogue, narration, or both? (Dialogue is presented in speech balloons; narration or summary is presented in rectangles.)
If the panel includes dialogue, what does the exchange between the characters reveal about their relationship? Do the words of the second speaker propel the narrative forward or disrupt it?
Are any words enlarged or in boldface for emphasis?
Questions to Ask of the Pictures–the Panels, Tiers, and Pages
Is the image in the panel a close-up or a long shot?
Are the panels and the tiers on the page roughly the same size? If not, why might Spiegelman have chosen one in particular to dominate the page?
Are any of the panels borderless?
Do any of the panels break the frame and spill into the gutter (the white space between the frames)?
Are any of the panels oblique or slanted?
How do these visual effects contribute to your perception of the story? For example: What mood or atmosphere does Spiegelman create through his combination of black and white, lines, and silhouettes? How does the size of a panel or as series of panels convey the passage of time?
Look back at the panel from Maus at the top of this post. Here Art Spiegelman presents a large panel featuring his father, Vladek Spiegelman, at home with his extended family after he sneaks across the border from the Protectorate to the Reich. A small close-up frame of the older retrospective Vladek riding his exercise bike appears in the upper left, an inset in the larger image of the Spiegelmans and the Zylberbergs sitting at the dining room table.
Note how with minor changes, the preceding paragraph could serve as an opening-paragraph summary that leads to a thesis.
Chapter 4 of Art Spiegelman’s Maus I includes a large half-page panel featuring the artist’s father, Vladek, at home with his extended family after he sneaks across the border from the Protectorate to the Reich. A small close-up frame of the older retrospective Vladek riding his exercise bike appears in the upper left, an inset in the larger picture of the Spiegelmans and the Zylberbergs sitting at their dining room table. Though only one of the hundreds of panels that constitute Spiegelman’s memoir, that panel alone demonstrates the intricacy of his narrative; his deceptively simple words and drawings create a layered meta-memoir that continually moves backward and forward, from mundane moments of ordinary life to the horrors of the Nazi regime.
From that opening paragraph, I could develop an analysis essay with evidence from the panel to support my thesis. In simplest terms, the essay might look like this:
Introductory paragraph: Summary followed by thesis.
Body paragraph 1: Topic sentence followed by an examination of words and/or images (textual evidence) that support the main idea of the paragraph, the topic sentence, which in turn supports the thesis.
Body paragraph 2: Topic sentence followed by textual evidence (words and/or images) that supports the main idea of the paragraph.
Body paragraph 3: Topic sentence followed by textual evidence (words and/or images) that supports the main idea of the paragraph.
Conclusion: A restatement of the thesis that doesn’t repeat it verbatim.
In addition to returning to the essay’s thesis, many effective conclusions do one of the following:
Include a quotation from or reference to a primary or secondary source, one that emphasizes the essay’s main point or puts it in a different perspective. We will examine some secondary sources in class. You will address one of them in your conclusion or in one of your body paragraphs.
Place the analysis in a different, perhaps larger, context. For example, you might end your analysis by linking it to the pandemic or the current social or political climate.
Consider the implications of the analysis. What does it imply, or involve, or suggest about parent-child relationships, about storytelling, about memory, or about totalitarian regimes?
The authors of A Writer’s Reference note that “[r]evising is rarely a one-step process” (Hacker and Somers 19). Editing for surface-level correctness is essential, but it isn’t the only step, and it shouldn’t be the first. Begin instead by re-seeing (or re-visioning) your literacy narrative and considering its focus and organization. Ask these questions:
Is it a focused narrative rather than an overview of reading or writing experiences?
Does it include at least one scene?
Would it benefit from a different organization? If your narrative unfolds chronologically, try beginning in the middle or the end. If it begins in the middle or the end, try reorganizing it chronologically.
Grammar, Punctuation and Mechanics, and Word Choice
The items listed below are the ones that I noted most often in your drafts. Review the ones that are trouble spots for you.
active verbs/voice, 153
apostrophes, 275-78
capitalization, 293-96
colons and semicolons, 271-73
commas, 259-71
end punctuation, 283-84
hyphens, 291-92
italics for titles, 301
lay, lie, 182-83
like, as, 146
numbers expressed as words, 299
paragraph length, 53-54
pronoun case, 196-97
sentence fragments, 207-13
standard idioms, 166
than, then, 149
that, which, 149
there, their, they’re, 149
to, too, two, 149
verb agreement with subjects, 171-79
who’s, whose, 150
who, which, that, 150
Conclusion
What word, idea, or image in the first paragraph might you return to in the final paragraph? The authors of A Writer’s Reference recommend bringing readers full circle with that strategy (Hacker and Somers 18).
Avoid concluding your narrative with a platitude: a phrase or sentence that’s been uttered so often that it comes across as neither interesting nor thoughtful. For example: It made me the person I am today. Who is that person? Write who that is, rather than the platitude, which tells readers nothing.
Also avoid the phrases “in conclusion,” “to conclude,” “in summary,” and “to sum up.” These can be useful, even welcome, in oral presentations. But readers can see, on the page or the screen, when a short essay is about to end.
MLA Style
The MS Word file that you will submit to Moodle should comply with the format guidelines for MLA (Modern Language Association) manuscripts. A Writer’s Reference includes a sample MLA paper (see pages 427-432). You can use the MS Word file of my literacy narrative, posted in Moodle, as a template. Your literacy narrative will not include a works cited list unless you quote or paraphrase a source.
Remember that in addition to submitting your revision to Moodle, you will publish it as a post on your WordPress blog. Your blog post will omit the first-page information included in your file submitted to Moodle (your name, course, section, instructor’s name, and date). You will include in your blog post an image that documents some part of your writing process away from the screen, such as a photo of your reading notes or a page of your handwritten draft.
Jane Lucas 