The Narratological Maus

Abstract

The Complete Maus, a memoir graphic novel surrounding the events of character Art Spiegelman as he collects, records, and illustrates his father’s life pre-the Holocaust in Europe, his time in Auschwitz, and then life in the United States has been one of the focal Holocaust survivor testimonies and has redefined the genre it exists in as both a graphic novel, but also as a form of testimony. Like many popularized works dealing with the Holocaust, though, cultural preconceptions of Jewish people, genocide, and audiences’ desire to find morals within the work have made it so often audiences come to the piece with preconceived notions of how the plot should be presented and in what manner. By utilizing a narratology focus on the work, while also touching upon visual storytelling conventions in the comic, we can understand how The Complete Maus challenges genre conventions and the ability for an audience to apply preconceived notions upon the work as they read. The medium of the graphic novel facilitates a unique interaction between the audience and the text, that allows them to analyze the work on artistic merits, instead of preconceived presumptions of victimization in fiction or moral platitudes.