MAUS

Primary characters

Art Spiegelman
Art[c] (born 1948) is a cartoonist and an intellectual.[26][3] Art is presented as angry and full of self-pity.[3] He deals with his own traumas and those inherited from his parents by seeking psychiatric help, which continued after the book was completed.[10][27] He has a strained relationship with his father, Vladek, by whom he feels dominated.[28][3] At first, he displays little sympathy for his father's hardships, but he shows more as the narrative unfolds.[29]
Vladek Spiegelman
Vladek[d] (1906–1982)[31] is a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust and then moved to the U.S. in the early 1950s. Speaking broken English, he is presented as intelligent and resourceful, pious and moral, but also egocentric,[29] insensitive, neurotic, stubborn and sometimes absurdly miserly—traits that greatly annoy his family. He displays racist attitudes, as when Françoise picks up an African-American hitchhiker, whom he fears will rob them.[32] He shows little insight into his own racist comments about others in comparison to his treatment during the Holocaust.[24]
Mala Spiegelman
Mala (1917–2007)[33] is Vladek's second wife. Vladek makes her feel that she can never live up to Anja.[34] Though she too is a survivor and speaks with Art throughout the book, Art makes no attempt to learn of her Holocaust experience.[35]
Anja Spiegelman
Also a Polish Jew who has survived the Holocaust, Anja[e] (1912–1968)[31] is Art's mother and Vladek's first wife. Nervous, compliant and clinging, she has her first nervous breakdown after giving birth to her first son.[36] She sometimes told Art about the Holocaust while he was growing up, although his father did not want him to know about it. She killed herself by slitting her wrists in a bathtub in May 1968[37] and left no suicide note.[38]
Richieu Spiegelman
Richieu Spiegelman (1937–1943)[33] is Vladek and Anja's first-born son. During the war, Vladek and Anja sent him away to live with an aunt, somewhere they believed he would be safer than he was with them. He did not survive. Richieu is portrayed as an ideal child whom Art can never hope to live up to.
Françoise Mouly
Françoise (born 1955)[26] is married to Art. She is French and converted to Judaism[39] to please Art's father. Spiegelman struggles with whether he should present her as a Jewish mouse, a French frog, or some other animal—in the end, he uses a mouse.[40]

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