Author Background James

Maus

Art Spiegelman

Pages 72-127

James Henderson

What is the cultural and educational background of the author and how did this background influence the book?  In what ways do the events in the books reveal evidence of the author’s world view?


Art Spiegelman has an interesting cultural and educational background going back to 1948 when he was born in Stockholm Sweden. Much of his life he spent working in the arts creating comics and drawing. The sole reason for the creation of Maus was Spiegelmans love for comics. Up until 1978 when Spiegelman decided to create a long comic about his father, a holocaust survivor (Art Spiegelman, Wikipedia). This was the biggest influence of the book because it was a real story about a family member which made the book much more powerful if it was just based on research. The story of Maus based on the Holocaust is the story of the horrible and tragic events between 1941-1945 where 11 million people were killed. 6 million of those people were jews which were killed by the Nazi Regime (The Holocaust, Wikipedia). 

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The Holocaust was part of Spiegelmans cultural history. His mother and father lived through it and so did his older brother who died during this time. All of these things were factored into the book he made, this made it a much more powerful than the average comic book. This comic book even went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. It showed lots of people the tragic events of the Jewish trying to survive the Holocaust and gave an idea of how horrible and gruesome it was like to be a jewish person trying to survive. Many clues in the book show us how Spiegelman feels about what happened. His conversations with his father throughout the book and the talking about his mother shows his emotions and the toll the Holocaust put on his family.

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