Title: Intergenerational transmission of trauma in Spiegelman's Maus
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2013, vol. 39, iss. 1, pp. [227]-241
Extent
[227]-241
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2013-1-13
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/129161
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This paper applies the concept of intergenerational transmission of trauma and Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory to Art Spiegelman's graphic novels Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began. It distinguishes between the vicarious trauma that was passed on to the narrator-protagonist Art and mediated to him by his father Vladek, the Holocaust survivor, and Art's personal trauma caused by his mother's suicide, reflected in Spiegelman's cartoon "Prisoner on the Hell Planet". It deals with the level of Art's identification with the victims of the Holocaust, pointing out the narrator's distance from this trauma and contrasting it with the nature of his original personal trauma, expressed in a different graphic and textual style. A significant part of the paper is devoted to analyzing the presentation of the Nazi genocide in the form of comics. We argue that the social status of this medium contributes to the narrator's uncertainty about its appropriateness and adequacy to express the tragedy of the Holocaust in its complexity. Finally the paper focuses on the connection between intergenerational transmission of trauma and the question of identity in relation to the protagonist of Maus.
Note
This article is part of the Student Grant Competition, project SGS4/FF/2012, University of Ostrava, "Intergenerational and Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma in Contemporary Jewish American Fiction".
References
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[2] Buhle, Paul (1992) "Of Mice and Menschen: Jewish Comics Come of Age". Tikkun 7 (2), 9– 16.
[3] Buhle, Paul (ed.) (2008) Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American Art Form. New York: The New Press.
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[13] Hass, Aaron (2001) In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Second Generation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[14] Herman, Judith Lewis (1997) Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.
[15] Hirsch, Marianne (1997) Family Frames: Photographs, Narrative and Postmemory. London: Harvard University Press.
[16] Hirsch, Marianne (2008) "The Generation of Postmemory". Poetics Today 29 (1), 103–128. | DOI 10.1215/03335372-2007-019
[17] Hungerford, Amy (2003) The Holocaust of Texts. Genocide, Literature, and Personification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[18] Kauvar, Elaine M. (1993) "An Interview with Cynthia Ozick". Contemporary Literature 34 (1993), 359–394.
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[20] LaCapra, Dominick (2001) Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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[22] McCloud, Scott (1993) Understanding Comics. An Invisible Art. New York: Paradox Press.
[23] Meskin, Aaron (2009) "Comics as Literature?" British Journal of Aesthetics 49 (3), 219–239. | DOI 10.1093/aesthj/ayp025
[24] Náhliková, Michaela (2009) "Will Eisner as a Cult Comics Writer: From The Spirit to The Plot". In: Arbeit, Marcel and Roman Trušník (eds.) Cult Fiction and Cult Film: Multiple Perspectives. Olomouc: Palacký University Press, 185–199.
[25] Park, Hye Su (2011) "Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale: A Bibliographical Essay". Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 29 (2), 146–164. | DOI 10.1353/sho.2011.0038
[26] Schwab, Gabriele (2010) Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press.
[27] Sicher, Efraim (2005) The Holocaust Novel. New York: Routledge.
[28] Spiegelman, Art (1986, 1992) Maus. A Survivor's Tale. Part I: My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon.
[29] Spiegelman, Art (1991, 1992) Maus. A Survivor's Tale. Part II: And Here My Troubles Began. New York: Pantheon.
[30] Spiegelman, Art (2004) In the Shadow of No Towers. New York: Pantheon.
[31] Staub, Michael E. (1998) "The Shoah Goes On and On: Remembrance and Representation in Art Spiegelman's Maus". MELUS 20 (3), 33–47. | DOI 10.2307/467741
[32] van der Kolk, Bessel A. and Onno van der Hart (1995) "The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma". In: Caruth, Cathy (ed.) Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 158–182.
[33] Versluys, Kristiaan (2009) Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Columbia University Press.
[34] Witek, Joseph (1989) Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar. Jackson, London: University Press of Mississippi.
[35] Wolk, Douglas (2007) Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007.
[36] Young, James E. (2003) "The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman's Maus and the Afterimages of History". In: Bernard-Donals, Michael and Richard Glejzer (eds.) Witnessing the Disaster: Essays on Representation and the Holocaust. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 23–45.
[2] Buhle, Paul (1992) "Of Mice and Menschen: Jewish Comics Come of Age". Tikkun 7 (2), 9– 16.
[3] Buhle, Paul (ed.) (2008) Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American Art Form. New York: The New Press.
[4] Caruth, Cathy (1995) "Recapturing the Past: Introduction". In: Caruth, Cathy (ed.) Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 151–157.
[5] Caruth, Cathy (1996) Unclaimed Experience. Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[6] Chute, Hillary (2008) "Comics as Literature? Holocaust Reading Graphic Narrative". PMLA 123 (2), 452–465. | DOI 10.1632/pmla.2008.123.2.452
[7] Chute, Hillary L. and Marianne DeKoven (2006) "Introduction: Graphic Narrative". Modern Fiction Studies 52 (4), 767–782. | DOI 10.1353/mfs.2007.0002
[8] Eaglestone, Robert (2004) The Holocaust and the Postmodern. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[9] Elmwood, Victoria A. (2004) "'Happy, Happy Ever After': Transformation of Trauma between the Generations in Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale". Biography 27 (4), 691–720. | DOI 10.1353/bio.2005.0006
[10] Franciosi, Robert (2003) "Art Spiegelman". In: Kremer, S. Lillian (ed.) Holocaust Literature. An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge, 1199–1207.
[11] Goggin, Joyce and Dan Hassler-Forest (eds.) (2010) The Rise and Reason of Comics and Graphic Literature: Critical Essays on the Form. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
[12] Gordon, Andrew (2005) "Philip Roth's Patrimony and Art Spiegelman's Maus: Jewish Sons Remembering Their Fathers". Philip Roth Studies 1, 53–66. | DOI 10.3200/PRSS.1.1.53-66
[13] Hass, Aaron (2001) In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Second Generation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[14] Herman, Judith Lewis (1997) Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.
[15] Hirsch, Marianne (1997) Family Frames: Photographs, Narrative and Postmemory. London: Harvard University Press.
[16] Hirsch, Marianne (2008) "The Generation of Postmemory". Poetics Today 29 (1), 103–128. | DOI 10.1215/03335372-2007-019
[17] Hungerford, Amy (2003) The Holocaust of Texts. Genocide, Literature, and Personification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[18] Kauvar, Elaine M. (1993) "An Interview with Cynthia Ozick". Contemporary Literature 34 (1993), 359–394.
[19] LaCapra, Dominick (1998). History and Memory After Auschwitz. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
[20] LaCapra, Dominick (2001) Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[21] Lentin, Ronit (2004) "Introduction: Postmemory, Unsayability and the Return of the Auschwitz Code". In: Lentin, Ronit (ed.) Re-Presenting the Shoah for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Berghahn Books, 1–24.
[22] McCloud, Scott (1993) Understanding Comics. An Invisible Art. New York: Paradox Press.
[23] Meskin, Aaron (2009) "Comics as Literature?" British Journal of Aesthetics 49 (3), 219–239. | DOI 10.1093/aesthj/ayp025
[24] Náhliková, Michaela (2009) "Will Eisner as a Cult Comics Writer: From The Spirit to The Plot". In: Arbeit, Marcel and Roman Trušník (eds.) Cult Fiction and Cult Film: Multiple Perspectives. Olomouc: Palacký University Press, 185–199.
[25] Park, Hye Su (2011) "Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale: A Bibliographical Essay". Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 29 (2), 146–164. | DOI 10.1353/sho.2011.0038
[26] Schwab, Gabriele (2010) Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press.
[27] Sicher, Efraim (2005) The Holocaust Novel. New York: Routledge.
[28] Spiegelman, Art (1986, 1992) Maus. A Survivor's Tale. Part I: My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon.
[29] Spiegelman, Art (1991, 1992) Maus. A Survivor's Tale. Part II: And Here My Troubles Began. New York: Pantheon.
[30] Spiegelman, Art (2004) In the Shadow of No Towers. New York: Pantheon.
[31] Staub, Michael E. (1998) "The Shoah Goes On and On: Remembrance and Representation in Art Spiegelman's Maus". MELUS 20 (3), 33–47. | DOI 10.2307/467741
[32] van der Kolk, Bessel A. and Onno van der Hart (1995) "The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma". In: Caruth, Cathy (ed.) Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 158–182.
[33] Versluys, Kristiaan (2009) Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Columbia University Press.
[34] Witek, Joseph (1989) Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar. Jackson, London: University Press of Mississippi.
[35] Wolk, Douglas (2007) Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007.
[36] Young, James E. (2003) "The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman's Maus and the Afterimages of History". In: Bernard-Donals, Michael and Richard Glejzer (eds.) Witnessing the Disaster: Essays on Representation and the Holocaust. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 23–45.