How Shading in Maus Blurs the Line Between Past and Present
Maus , for those who don't know, is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman depicting a set of interviews with his father about his experiences during the Holocaust. It is titled "Maus" because this is the German word for "mouse." In this book, the Jewish people are depicted as mice, and the Nazis are depicted as cats, as an indicator of the oppressive power dynamics that were present during the Holocaust. The whole novel is hand drawn, and is in black and white. The shading, and the lightness and darkness of the panels is able to convey the emotion that Spiegelman is trying to represent. As I was looking online for panels to analyze, I found a blog post called " An Analysis of Pastiche in Art Spiegelman's [Maus: My Father Bleeds History] ," and there were two passages in this analysis that I found particularly interesting in regards to the following panel: Figure 1 - a panel from Maus "When watching a film or viewing an image, the past is...
Did you see how I did that?? Light on the left and dark on the right of my head? I'm a cinematic genius!
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