Considering "Maus": Approaches to Art Spiegelman's "Survivor's Tale" of the Holocaust - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817313761 ISBN 13: 9780817313760

Publisher: University of Alabama Press, 2003

Synopsis

In 1992, Art Spiegelman's two-volume illustrated work Maus: A Survivor's Tale was awarded a special-category Pulitzer Prize. In a comic book form, Spiegelman tells the gripping, heart-rending story of his father's experiences in the Holocaust. The book renders in stark clarity the trials Spiegelman's father endured as a Jewish refugee in the ghettos and concentration camps of Poland during World War II, his American life following his immigration to New York, and the author's own troubled sense of self as he grapples with his father's history. Mixing autobiography, biography, and oral history in the comic form, Maus has been hailed as a daring work of postmodern narration and as a vivid example of the power of the graphic narrative. Now, for the first time in one collection, prominent scholars in a variety of fields take on Spiegelman's text and offer it the critical and artistic scrutiny it deserves. They explore many aspects of the work, including Spiegelman's use of animal characters, the influence of other "comix" artists, the role of the mother and its relation to gender issues, the use of repeating images such as smoke and blood, Maus's position among Holocaust testimonials, its appropriation of cinematic technique, its use of language and styles of dialect, and the implications of the work's critical and commercial success. Informed readers in many areas of study, from popular culture and graphic arts to psychoanalysis and oral history, will value this first substantial collection of criticism on a revered work of literature.

About this title

Review:

"An engaging and informative collection of new and fresh essays on what is proving to be a major cultural document of the twentieth century." - M. Thomas Inge, author of Comics as Culture

About the Author:

Deborah R. Geis is Associate Professor of English at DePauw University and author of Postmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American Drama.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0817313761
• ISBN 13: 9780817313760
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 232