Vladek’s Resistance and Indifference in Art Spiegelman’s Maus

Abstract

The life of a Holocaust survivor is a very complex one. Art’s representation of his Holocaust survivor father Vladek in his Memoir Maus is a reflection of a tough reality that has created the character Vladek. However, I would argue that there is a conflict between the author Art and the text Maus in terms of the representation of Vladek where Arts seems to be lost in depicting his father’s heroic evolution through the stage of the post-traumatic stress disorder. I contend that Art’s representation of Valdek in Maus is a kind of misrepresentation of a war hero. Maus has got powerful persuasive elements as proofs of Valdek’s heroic resistance and adaptability to face the threats of dominant racist ideologies and to successfully overcome the post-traumatic stress disorder. The comics form of the text support Vladek’s heroic capabilities to the fullest