Category: Student Posts

Humanity is complex… that’s an easy one. Just to be more concise, I’ll base this discussion off the fact that society is complex.

Spiegelman makes the argument throughout the whole novel, that when social constructs are removed from the reality we perceive, all humans are essentially identical. We will all possess the same needs and look out for our own well beings. Let me elaborate on this newfound term.

Our society is comprised of multiple social constructs, which are simply subjective realities societies create, accept, and conform to. Examples of this can be culture, religion, marriage, socioeconomic status, art, race, ethnicity, and many more. If you sit and think about it, you’ll realize that almost everything is socially constructed.

When you take the time to remove every social construct from the situations presented in Maus, you realize that in the end, whether it be a Pole, Jew, German, or American, they are all human, and under the objective lens, are all identical and homogeneous.

In page 64 of the first book, Vladek takes advantage of the persona-malleability presented by the social construct of nationality, and by pretending to be a Pole, manages to board a train that will get him far away from the work camp.

Yet a better example of the homogeneity of humanity is shown in page 29 of the second book, where Mandelbaum, one of the richest people in Sosnowiec, is shown to be one of the most misfortunate people at Auschwitz, having horribly mismatched shoes, overly large clothing, and no spoon to feed himself. Auschwitz, in a way, eliminates the social construct of socioeconomic status among the prisoner population; this is key to understanding Spiegelman’s idea, since now that the construct had been removed, all subjective value given by socioeconomic status has disappeared, and all prisoners are at the same level, whether in the past one was rich or poor.

 

Hence, in theory, if social constructs are ignored, one quickly realizes that all individuals form part of an essentially homogeneous population… what makes it heterogeneous most of the time are our social constructs of diversity. Social constructs, although key to society and vital to our survival, are malleable and distort the objective homogeneity of humanity.

 

Spiegelman also shows throughout Maus that objectivity and rationality tends to be the best resource in times of distress. The living, breathing example of this in the novel is Vladek himself, who displays incredible ingenuity and resourcefulness in such deplorable conditions.

However, a notable example rises in page 64 of the first book, where Vladek passes off as a Pole in order to board a train and escape to Sosnowiec. In order to ensure his escape, he swallows any type of pride or subjectivity that obliges him to identify as Jew and does what is necessary to get himself on the train. He was objective, and he obtained his desired outcome through the most rational action possible. Conversely, if he had identified himself as a Jew and not “falsify” his ethnicity, he would have been sent back to the camp in a heartbeat.

Another example where Spiegelman hints the idea of rationality and objectivity as the best resource at times of need is in page 29, where an interaction at Auschwitz between Vladek and Mandelbaum, a very rich man from Sosnowiec. Mandelbaum had gotten the short end of the stick at Auschwitz and received ridiculously mismatched shoe sized, lost his spoon, and was given an obnoxiously large size of clothing. He asks Vladek for a spoon, but Vladek, in order to avoid both of them a beating from the guards, does not give it to him at the moment; Mandelbaum proceeds to crumple in a corner and plead to God for help. This is a moment of relative irrationality, because his best course of option at the moment is to actively continue to search for what he needs… even Vladek acknowledges at the end, that in such conditions, God would not help them, and that they were on their own.

This shows that Spiegelman believes that regardless of the existence of God, one must be rational and objective at all times and take the best course of action to satisfy one’s need. Mandelmaum’s need is eventually satisfied, but if it weren’t for Vladek’s thoughtfulness and generosity, he would have never been able to satisfy his need for a spoon and shoes.

Regardless of one’s position, identity, or status in life, it is rationality and objectivity which takes an individual to the optimum decision and the best odds of success at satisfying one’s needs.

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This might be a rough start for this assignment; a loaded statement with multiple possible interpretations. Don’t worry, I’ll explain:

Art Spiegelman develops a metaphor throughout both parts of Maus, where different animals represent different nationalities/ethnicities (ex. Mice represent Jews, Pigs represent poles, Cats represent Germans, etc.). We discover that this is a deeply engraved metaphor, and not the novel’s objective reality in page 64 of the first book, where Vladek passes off as a Pole by wearing a pig mask in order to board a train and escape to Sosnowiec.

In the illustrations, it is clear that Vladek, a mouse, is wearing a pig mask, and easily manages to convince the Polish trainman (a pig) of his false identity by bonding momentarily through their mutual dislike of Germans. If the book’s objective reality were to be that of different animals representing different nationalities/ethnicities, then the Polish trainman would have easily caught on to the fact Vladek was wearing a mask, which was made very obvious in the illustrations. This being the case, it is safe to assume Spiegelman is trying to communicate a very relevant message through this animal metaphor.

Given that a mouse passed off as a pig, reason tells me Spiegelman is implicitly stating that nationality or ethnicity is a relatively irrelevant way to classify and identify individuals. A well-crafted performance and presentation from a mouse led him to be identified as a pig by an actual pig; in literal terms, nationality is a construct that is irrelevant when assessing the subjective value of a life, as it is a personal variable that is malleable and misinterpretable to a certain extent.

If one were to be placed in a room with 10 individuals of different origins, it’d be nearly impossible to distinguish their nationalities/ethnicities; A Jew can pass off as a Pole, a Nicaraguan as a Guatemalan, a Brit as an Argentinian. In the end, this relates to the overarching idea that no matter where we come from, where we are, and we’ll be, we’re just humans after all.