paternal links in maus

Art Spiegelman once remarked about Maus, "From the book, a reader might get the impression that the conversations depicted in the narrative were just one small part, a facet of my relationship with my father. In fact, however, they were my relationship with my father. I was doing them to have a relationship with my father. Outside of them, we were still continually at loggerheads."

Just as Art seeks to reconnect with his father, Vladek himself spends his life under the shade of various father figures: his wealthy father-in-law, his dreamed up grandfather, the rabbi who consoles him at the POW camp, and the Catholic priest at Auschwitz. These men fuel Vladek's will to survive; they praise his ingenuity and identify him as a recipient of God's choicest blessings.

Vladek, though, does not seem to make his son feel this way. In fact, in a conversation with Pavel (his Holocaust-survivor-psychotherapist), Art says he remembers "arguing with [Vladek]... and being told that I couldn't do anything as well as he could." The entire discussion revolves around the duality of his damaged relationship with his father: his guilt and anger at feeling inconsequential next to him yet also his reluctance to place his father's deepest core in the light for potential ridicule.  

In a similar vein, it's interesting to note that Art dedicates the second book to his daughter (and to Richieu, who is also a child). This gives us a glimpse into the inner workings behind Maus. While it is a means for reflecting upon and mending the relationship with his own father, it is also a catalyst for Art's ruminations on what kind of father he himself will be. As he writes the tale of his father, he wonders: what kind of story will he impart to his own children? 

a bit of dark humor