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Write 5 pages thesis on the topic guilt and representations of the holocaust in art spiegelmans maus.
Write 5 pages thesis on the topic guilt and representations of the holocaust in art spiegelmans maus. This is of great importance to the understanding of the holocaust. Most survivors are scarred forever by their experience of the holocaust, even though they may not be aware of it. Guilt, for different reasons, is a significant manifestation of this.
Maus speaks of the need to piece together histories. Fragments of such a history may have been lost irretrievable, but the remaining shards of the mirror remain. Maus is an attempt to do just this and in a way that seeks to portray a round picture of the survivors and their next generation. It is the story not just of Vladek Spiegelman but also his son, Art. The importance of this inter-generational aspect of the story lies in its assertion that the event of the holocaust is not one that can be forgotten easily. The guilt too is something that is shared, even though in different degrees. The desire to forget the holocaust is evident in the questions that are asked of Spiegelman in Maus 2: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began.
Many younger Germans have had it up to HERE with holocaust stories. These things happened before they were even born. Why should they feel guilty? (42).
The question of guilt is, thus, of paramount significance for not just the survivors but also the perpetrators of the guilt. It begins to acquire political significance, based on which countries construct their self-image.
The all-encompassing nature of the guilt, then, becomes a measure of the control that the concentration camps exercised. Michel Foucault argues in his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, that such feelings of guilt are engendered by structural factors. Such feelings help structures of power to maintain their authority without having to face any expenditure. Guilt is, thus, an economical method of controlling populations. For instance, in Maus 2: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History, there is an instance where Vladek’s father moves to the wrong side of a stadium where Jews were assembled to help his daughter Fela. He says, “My Daughter! How can she manage ALONE- With four children to take care of?” (91).
