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The Mouse Brennan Reid
The symbol of the mouse is the most prevalent symbol in the graphic novel Maus, All of the Jewish characters are presented as mice, and since this novel is about the Holocaust during World War II, Jews make up the majority of the characters. Why the symbolism is important and how it relates to evil is what I’ll be discussing in this blog.
To start off, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, by J.C. Cooper reveals an interesting point about the symbolism of the mouse. In the Hebrew tradition, it says, the mouse symbolizes "hypocrisy ; duplicity". This is important because it is similar to the stereotypical view of Jews, which is that they are extremely frugal, money-loving to the point of scamming or back-stabbing you, hypocritical, and liars (These are very negative, and not at all true. Most stereotypes are not. However, this can be seen as the popular opinion of Jews throughout most of their history, and from which, or maybe they are caused by, the anti-Semitic feelings in the early 20th century.). This is significant, because although these stereotypes aren’t shown much in the novel, they creep up in certain times. One major example is when the author, Artie, and Vladek meet a black American character. Vladek, once the black American had left, began to make racist comments towards him. This can be seen as hypocritical, since Vladek himself was subjugated to the worst forms of racism imaginable in the form of the Holocaust. The fact that he would do this to another human being can be seen, on an individual level, as a character flaw, however, as seen through the symbolism of the mouse, it can be seen as Vladek acting out the stereotypes present in Jews. These stereotypes and the symbolism of the mouse all go back to the idea of dehumanizing the victim in order to desensitize the people to the horrors committed on them or to allow the people to turn on the victims themselves. In is a step in the process to complete dehumanization. This step is integral and allows the bullies (in this case the Nazis) to proceed down the path to destroy the Jews. Dehumanizing a population like this is evil, as it takes away their basic human rights, if we follow that definition of evil.
The mouse imagery also gives the Jewish characters an air of weakness. The author, Spiegelman, used the idea of cats hunting mice as the basis of his imagery for the story. The Jews were the mice, being hunted down and destroyed by the cats, or the Nazis. This imagery gives the Jewish people a characterisation of weakness; they are not powerful enough to defend against the Nazis, just as mice cannot fight off a hungry cat. Since they cannot resort to force to defend themselves, the Jews hide themselves wherever they can, whether it’s in barns, attics, or specially made hidden places, such as a coal shed with a false bottom. This relates back to the imagery; mice cannot fight a cat, so they run and they hide in the walls, in the floorboards, in the small cramped places that a cat could not go. In a literary sense, this weakness gives us empathy for the characters; we see that they cannot fight their way out and if they are found, that they are helpless to what the Nazis will do to them. That they would pick on the helpless and cute little mice makes the Nazis even more evil in our eyes. This can be seen as even more dehumanization, this time on the part of the author.
Dehumanization is, I believe, one of the worst forms of evil as it allows almost any other form to take place. It paves the way for genocide, it gives a reason for torture, and it takes away a person’s basic human rights. The symbolism of the mouse is used to show how the Jews were dehumanized by the Nazis and by the already prevalent anti-Semitic views, as well as to provide literary dehumanization in order to provoke empathy for the characters.
The symbol of the mouse is the most prevalent symbol in the graphic novel Maus, All of the Jewish characters are presented as mice, and since this novel is about the Holocaust during World War II, Jews make up the majority of the characters. Why the symbolism is important and how it relates to evil is what I’ll be discussing in this blog.
To start off, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, by J.C. Cooper reveals an interesting point about the symbolism of the mouse. In the Hebrew tradition, it says, the mouse symbolizes "hypocrisy ; duplicity". This is important because it is similar to the stereotypical view of Jews, which is that they are extremely frugal, money-loving to the point of scamming or back-stabbing you, hypocritical, and liars (These are very negative, and not at all true. Most stereotypes are not. However, this can be seen as the popular opinion of Jews throughout most of their history, and from which, or maybe they are caused by, the anti-Semitic feelings in the early 20th century.). This is significant, because although these stereotypes aren’t shown much in the novel, they creep up in certain times. One major example is when the author, Artie, and Vladek meet a black American character. Vladek, once the black American had left, began to make racist comments towards him. This can be seen as hypocritical, since Vladek himself was subjugated to the worst forms of racism imaginable in the form of the Holocaust. The fact that he would do this to another human being can be seen, on an individual level, as a character flaw, however, as seen through the symbolism of the mouse, it can be seen as Vladek acting out the stereotypes present in Jews. These stereotypes and the symbolism of the mouse all go back to the idea of dehumanizing the victim in order to desensitize the people to the horrors committed on them or to allow the people to turn on the victims themselves. In is a step in the process to complete dehumanization. This step is integral and allows the bullies (in this case the Nazis) to proceed down the path to destroy the Jews. Dehumanizing a population like this is evil, as it takes away their basic human rights, if we follow that definition of evil.
The mouse imagery also gives the Jewish characters an air of weakness. The author, Spiegelman, used the idea of cats hunting mice as the basis of his imagery for the story. The Jews were the mice, being hunted down and destroyed by the cats, or the Nazis. This imagery gives the Jewish people a characterisation of weakness; they are not powerful enough to defend against the Nazis, just as mice cannot fight off a hungry cat. Since they cannot resort to force to defend themselves, the Jews hide themselves wherever they can, whether it’s in barns, attics, or specially made hidden places, such as a coal shed with a false bottom. This relates back to the imagery; mice cannot fight a cat, so they run and they hide in the walls, in the floorboards, in the small cramped places that a cat could not go. In a literary sense, this weakness gives us empathy for the characters; we see that they cannot fight their way out and if they are found, that they are helpless to what the Nazis will do to them. That they would pick on the helpless and cute little mice makes the Nazis even more evil in our eyes. This can be seen as even more dehumanization, this time on the part of the author.
Dehumanization is, I believe, one of the worst forms of evil as it allows almost any other form to take place. It paves the way for genocide, it gives a reason for torture, and it takes away a person’s basic human rights. The symbolism of the mouse is used to show how the Jews were dehumanized by the Nazis and by the already prevalent anti-Semitic views, as well as to provide literary dehumanization in order to provoke empathy for the characters.