The Holocaust as a Comic Book Metaphor: Maus II and Art Spiegelman by Timothy Sexton discussed how Spiegelman was able to draw/write the comic book Muas II with representation of the Holocaust through his characterization of the characters not as humans but animals. Sexton wrote, “The key to Spiegelman's success in avoiding charges of trivialization may possibly lie in his artistic choice to treat the Holocaust through metaphor.” Instead of making the characters in Muas II as humans but animals, he was able to avoid the questioning of the audiences if this is actually what happens in the Holocaust itself. Also, the audience are allow to not take the story into believing that it is the actual occurrences of the Holocaust. Sexton supported that “tradition-ally, the use of animal characters in an allegory are intended to draw stark distinctions between character types.” Animals tend to categorize and demonstrate who is who in the storyline. The readers could distinct that the Jews are the mice and the Germans are the cats. Furthermore Sexton states, “Spiegelman manages to take advantage of the filmic component of the comic book while also manipulating its inherent pulp components.” Because of the way how Spiegelman is able to draw the shadows and perspective look, the story itself is like more of a movie than a book with pictures. The audiences are allowed to picture the story continuous throughout their mind as a movie. Moreover, Sexton wrote that throughout many other cartoons, animals seemed to characterize human. For example, Bugs Bunny, himself, seems to be more of a human than an animal. People who not question why and how animals can talk because widely people accept the fact that animals can be humanize. Ever since as long remember, cats and mice were naturally enemies of each other. Sexton states that, “After thousands of hours spent watching Tom chase Jerry and Itchy carry out his sociopathic torture of Scratchy, the idea that cats and mice are actually conscious of their antagonistic relationship often requires a moment of lucidity to reject.” It was seemed natural that the Germans hated the Jews because cats and mice never gotten along. However, Sexton said, “Just as cats aren't really consciously aware of any antagonism toward mice-they are just food-Spiegelman's use of them serves to heighten the idea that maybe many Germans also weren't fully conscious of their own hatred of Jews.”

 Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/127349/the_holocaust_as_a_comic_book_metaphor.html?cat=37