Study Questions
Spiegelman's Maus

General Questions

1. Why does Art Spiegelman use animals to represent people? (Please see Spiegelman's article "Why Mice?") How does he use it? In what ways does he remind us that people are not animals, that different groups of people are not different species?

2. Describe the Artie-Vladek relationship. What does their past relationship appear to have been as Artie was growing up? How do they get along now? What impact does the making of Maus have on their relationship? How does the re-telling of his experiences affect Vladek?

3. Art Spiegelman, the real person and author of Maus, and Artie Spiegelman, the comic book representation of himself that he creates, are not the same. How does Art portray Artie? In addition, Maus is, after all, "a survivor's tale"; so why does Artie play such a big role in the story?

4. Describe the portrayal of Anja and of women in general in the narrative. What impact has she had and does she continue to have on Artie and Vladek? How does Vladek describe her? How does Artie represent her?

5. How does Art construct his narrative? For example, how does he begin and end chapters? How does he switch back and forth from the present to the past and the past to the present? Why are some elements/scenes/episodes placed where they are (since we can assume he's not giving us a purely chronological retelling of everything his father told him)?

6. Discuss Art's meta-narrative reflections (comments on Maus itself). How do these affect our view of the text?

7. Analyze the comics of the book(s). Forget about the story created by the words and describe all the visual aspects of Maus that impact us (beyond the animal metaphor)--panel size, panel detail and imagery, visual symbolism, and so forth.

8. What impact do paratextual elements have? (Paratextual here meaning things titles, subtitles, epigraphs, dedications, pictures, charts, diagrams, etc.)

9. What do we learn about the Holocaust as a historical event from Maus? What insights and perspectives does it offer us and what is it unable to show us?

10. At the end (sorry, spoiler alert), Art lays to rest his parents and, at the same time, Maus. Does this mean he is putting the Holocaust behind him? Suggesting we need to move on?

11. Many of us have been fortunate enough to listen to and even speak with survivors. If you had the chance to meet Vladek, what would you want to ask him? How about Artie/Art? Anja or Mala?

Volume One Questions

Introductory Questions

1. What is the subtitle for volume one? What does this suggest?

2. What is the epigraph that Spiegelman includes on the copyright page?

3. To whom is volume one dedicated?

4. Before the memoir proper begins, why does Spiegelman present us with the roller-skating episode from his childhood?

Chapter One

1. What does Artie note immediately about his relationship with his father? About Vladek and Mala’s relationship?

2. Where is Vladek from? Anja?

3. How does Vladek describe himself as a young man?

4. Why does Vladek say he chose Anja over Lucia? What other reasons are implied?

5. What does Vladek do during his first visit to the Zylberberg home?

6. Why does Vladek ask Artie not to include the story about Lucia in the book? Why does Art include the story anyway? Why does Art tell us that his father told him to leave it out?

7. What does Art mean when he says he wants to make the story more real, more human?

Chapter Two

1. What does Anja do for her former boyfriend? What happens to the seamstress? What does the family do for Miss Stefanska? How does Vladek react to this episode?

2. When he knocks over his pill bottle, what does Vladek say to Artie?

3. What happens to Anja shortly after the birth of their son, Richieu?

4. What do they see when they go to Czechoslovakia in 1938? What do they hear about what is going on in Germany?

5. What has happened back home when they return?

6. What does Anja say about non-Jewish Poles on page 37? How does the governess respond? Keep this episode in mind when we encounter the governess in chapter six.

7. Why do you think Art concludes the chapter in the way he does, just as Vladek is about to go to war (interrupted literally mid-sentence)? What do we learn by this brief return to the present?

Chapter Three

1. What episode opens chapter three? What do we learn about Vladek, Mala, Anja?

2. After dinner, what does Vladek try to complain about? How does Artie respond?

3. What was Vladek’s father’s military experience?

4. What does Vladek say about having killed a German soldier?

5. What happens with Artie as Vladek is telling the story about cleaning the stables?

6. What is life like for Vladek in the prisoner of war camp? What decision does Vladek make that gets him out of the POW camp?

7. What dream does Vladek have in the camp? What do we learn about this dream?

8. What has happened in Lublin just before Vladek’s arrival?

9. How does he get released in Lublin?

10. How does Vladek disguise himself to get back to Sosnowiec?

11. When he returns to Sosnowiec, how are Vladek’s parents described?

12. What does Vladek say about Anja and Mala?

13. Why does Vladek throw away Artie’s coat? Why do you think Art concludes this chapter in the way that he does?

Chapter Four

1. What are the conditions like for the family in Sosnowiec?

2. What does Vladek say at the top of page 79?

3. What almost happens to Vladek on his way to see Ilzecki?

4. What does Ilzecki propose to Vladek? How does Anja respond? What is the outcome, both for Vladek's family and Ilzecki's?
   As Vladek jumps ahead to 1943 and Richieu’s fate, what does Artie insist that Vladek do in telling his story?

5. What happens to the family at the end of 1941?

6. What happens to some of Vladek's black market business contacts? How does Vladek react, then and now?

7. What does Vladek say Anja was doing during this time?
   What does Vladek say about her diaries?

8. What do the Germans announce they will do with all Jews over 70 in May of 1942?
   What does Vladek say about their knowledge of Auschwitz?

9. What does Vladek say about the Jewish police, about what some Jews thought?

10. What happens to Anja’s grandparents?
    What does Vladek then say about Auschwitz?

11. What does Vladek say about the registration to take place on August 12?

12. What happens to Vladek’s family at the “selection”?

13. How does this episode conclude?

14. What does Mala say about her experience during this time?
    What does she say about Vladek?

Chapter Five

1. Why does Artie not want to help his father fix his roof?

2. What does Artie say was one of the reasons he became an artist?

3. Discuss Art's comic strip "Prisoner on the Hell Planet."
   How does Mala react to the strip? What does Vladek say to Artie, and about his own reaction?

4. After they are relocated from Sosnowiec to Srodula, what happens to the family?
   Shortly afterward, what happens to many children in Srodula? What later happens in Zawiercie (where Tosha and the children have gone)?

5. How do they get arrested by the Gestapo and how are they able to get out of detention?

6. What does Vladek say about having to pay relatives to help them?

7. What happens to Anja’s parents? How is the final panel of this scene depicted?

8. What happens to the man who had turned Vladek’s family in to the Gestapo?

9. What kind of person is Haskel Spiegelman? What is his fate? How does Vladek feel about him?

10. What does Haskel say to Vladek about his encounter with “The Shooter”?

11. What does Avram say to Vladek during the last days in the bunker?
    What happens to the people who decide to bribe the Germans and leave the bunker?

12. What road do Anja and Vladek take when leaving Srodula?

13. What does Vladek have in his safe deposit box?
    How does he feel about Mala? Do you think his characterization of her is accurate?

Chapter Six

1. Coming as it does after the concluding episode of chapter five, what is the significance of Mala and Art's conversation at the beginning of chapter six?

2. What is Art worried about with respect to the portrayal of his father in his book?

3. What do Mala and Vladek say about the book Artie is working on?

4. What does Vladek say about Artie’s suggestion that he and Mala see a marriage counselor?

5. How does their former governess (Janina) respond when Vladek and Anja arrive? What then does Vladek say about Anja’s appearance?

6. How do various Poles they encounter in Sosnowiec react to them?

7. How does Vladek manage to get food and then a place to stay?

8. What does Vladek say about the Poles on the railcar?

9. What does Vladek say to Artie about Hungary?

10. What do they see while hiding in Motonowa’s cellar? How are these panels depicted?

11. What are Anja’s and Motonowa’s reactions to Vladek’s plan to get smuggled into Hungary?

12. How is Vladek’s cousin Miloch surviving? What happens to him and his family?

13. How do Vladek and Anja get caught?

14. What explanation does Vladek give for what happened to Anja’s diaries? Why does Art conclude volume one by calling his father a murderer?

Volume Two Questions

Chapter One

1. What has happened to Vladek as we begin Volume Two?

2. What does Art think about his relationship with his father and his attempt to write the book?

3. What are Art's thoughts about his brother, Richieu, who died in the Holocaust?

4. What insights do we gain in this chapter about the issues confronting the children of Holocaust survivors?

5. What does Art think about his, or anyone's, attempt to depict the Holocaust?

6. Why does Art say to Francoise, "in real life you'd never have let me talk this long"?

7. What has happened to Mala? How does Vladek react?

8. Francoise comments, "Maybe Auschwitz made him like that." Does Art agree? Do you?

9. What happens when they get to Auschwitz? Whom do Vladek and Mandelbaum meet there and what do they learn?

10. What does the priest tell Vladek about his tattoo number?

Chapter Two

1. What information do we get at the beginning of Chapter Two?
   How are history and the present intertwined here?
   How is Art depicted? How is his room depicted? Other people?

2. Discuss Art's meeting with his psychiatrist. What ideas and attitudes are expressed here?

3. Why does he call Art the "real survivor"?

4. The psychiatrist questions the point about all of the books written about the Holocaust, since people haven't changed. He even suggests that people may need a bigger, newer Holocaust. What does he mean, and do you agree?

5. At the beginning, what is Vladek's life like in Auschwitz? How does he get Yidl to treat him well?

6. How does he make contact with Anja? How is Anja managing?

7. Discuss Vladek's survival skills in this chapter. For example, how does he fix the Gestapo soldier's boot? How does he get Anja assigned to the new barracks?

8. Comment on the description of the crematoriums and cremation pits.

9. Art asks his father why the Jews didn't try to resist. How does Vladek respond?

Chapter Three

1. Why do they eventually leave Auschwitz? Is this the end of their troubles?

2. What is their journey back to Germany like? What is life like on the trains? How does Vladek survive?

3. Why does Vladek make the trip to the grocery store? Why is this trip interwoven with his story of the journey from Auschwitz back to Germany?

4. What happens to Vladek in Dachau? How does he eventually get out?

5. Discuss the incident with the hitchhiker.

Chapter Four

1. What happens on the final legs of Vladek's journey?

2. At what point do the camp survivors feel that they are safe?

3. How does the first farmer treat Shivek and Vladek?

4. How are the American soldiers depicted? How do they treat Vladek?

5. Discuss the photographs of Anja's family that Vladek shows to Art.
   How do Anja's and Vladek's families fare during the Holocaust?

Chapter Five

1. What is Vladek's situation at the beginning of Chapter Five?

2. Why do Vladek and Anja leave Poland after the war? Where do they go? Why don't they come to America?

3. How does Vladek secure work in Sweden?

4. What happens to Vladek at the displaced persons' camp after the war?

5. Why is Vladek warned not to go back to Sosnowiec?

6. How do Anja and Vladek finally get reunited?

7. Comment on the ending of the story.