My summary to a critical essay of Maus

     I found an essay entitled, "Retelling the stories of the Holocaust in the 'Shoah' and 'Maus': distorted images of a monstrous past."  The article was mainly about how the Holocaust was such a traumatic event that it can not be truly represented in a film or by a piece of literature.  The essay examines a documentary film called the 'Shoah' (which means The Holocaust) and Maus.  The author discusses that Spiegelman portrays the Jews as mice because they were viewed by the Nazis as disgusting vermin that needed to be eradicated.  This becomes important, argues the author, because it brings an answer as to why the Nazis would kill innocent Jews for no apparent reason.  The author states that the Nazis did not view their actions as atrocious because they did not view the Jews as people, rather, they were just animals, so their lives had no significant meaning.  I though this was interesting because it is another example of how big of a role grand narratives have on a society.  We view the actions of the Jews as intolerable and insane, but to the Nazis, they were doing a necessary task; just as we would kill an insect that was unfortunate to wander in to our house.  Furthermore, by portraying the characters as animals, the author claims that Spiegelman puts the reader in to the shoes of those involved in Auschwitz.  The reader sees the different animals and automatically assumes their morals and beliefs and can even predict their future actions, just as people involved in the Holocaust could discriminate based on the people they encountered.  In addition, the author of this essay continually claims that there are no true survivors of the Holocaust because no one can survive a 'death camp' and that the Holocaust can never be accurately represented because the author will always choose what to put in a scene and his or her decisions will not always be accurate.  I feel the author puts it best when he says, "In that sense, Maus and Shoah represent possible methods for looking through Auschwitz – an attempt to create an image of the Holocaust that, although not entirely accurate, can successfully claim to hold more meaning than the impossible ‘true’ image."  This essay was very insightful and I am glad I found it.