Close Reading

Hollington 1

Brian Hollington
Micheal Philips
English 1501W: Literature and Public Life
November 30, y
Close Reading of Maus: A Survivors Tale, Page 157
By page 157 of Maus: A Survivors Tale, the first volume of Spiegelmans
narrative is coming to an end. The work ends on page 159 (Spiegelman 159), two
pages later. Page 157 (Spiegelman 157) represents a change in setting, and a change
in tone as Vladek find himself and his wife at the entrance to the infamous concentration
camp Auschwitz. Up to this point, Spiegelman has slowly ramped up the suspense to
get here, including a number of dark and impactful moments, but from this point on and
into the second volume the mood expressed changes. Techniques utilized on this page
reinforce a sense of change in the narrative and allude to a bleak picture of things to
come. Spiegelman uses non-standard panels including a bleed, 2 uses of the Nazi
swastika, detailed shading, the imposing posture of the guards and guard dog, and the
use of Vladeks narration given in hindsight rather than showing Vladeks story continue.
These techniques are used in other places in Maus, but they are used here to show
change.

Close Reading

Hollington 2

The first thing that stands out when looking at page 159 is the image that fills the
page. This bleed is of the entrance to Auschwitz with the gates message ARBEIT
MACHT FREI a german phrase meaning work makes (you) free prominently
displayed in the middle of the page, with a nazi emblem emblazoned truck full of jewish
prisoners being brought into the concentration camp. In Understanding Comics,
Mccloud says about bleeds, time is no longer contained by the familiar lines of the
closed panel, but instead hemorrhages and escapes into timeless space (103). Bleeds
set the mood for the whole page by representing a setting rather than representing a
single event. Next to the truck there are pictured two guards with threatening
expressions on their faces and batons raised in the air. This is the last we see of guards
in this volume, but we will see much more of them in the continued narrative of Vladeks
story. At the bottom of the page is a vicious-looking guard dog jumping and snarling at a
jewish man who is manipulating the trucks rear door. This bleed also sets a dark stage
for the next volume of Maus.
Overlaying the bleed for the top half of the page is a horizontal panel of the truck
arriving to take Vladek and Anja to the camp. This is followed by an exchange on the
truck of him offering her food, her refusing to accept it, and finally his insistence than
she takes half. They are preparing for the storm that is coming. Spiegelman draws the
truck as very crowded and the faces of the characters with little detail.

Close Reading

Hollington 3

Spiegelman draws the swastika twice on the page. Both times it is on the same
truck, but the symbol is prominent and near the center of page in both examples. The
swastika isnt used frivolously in Maus. Each time it is used, it is a message written
directly to the reader. Spiegelman knows well the effect it has and the way it effects the
pages it is drawn on. If this page is representative of the future of Vladeks narrative, the
future of Vladeks narrative is not bright.
The page closes with Vladek narrating We knew the stories- that they will gas us
and throw us in the ovens. This was 1944 we knew everything. And here we were.
(Spiegelman 157). In the following two pages Vladeks conversation with Art concludes
in intense emotion over the destruction of Anjas notebooks and volume one is over. This
quote is where the narration of the story ends. From this point, things do not get better
until Vladek leaves the camp after the end of the war. Vladeks story gets darker and the
relationship between Art and Vladek is damaged. Arts tone through volume two is never
as friendly with his father or with the reader.
Page 157 uses numerous techniques to show the change that happens in tone
for both lines of the story, diegetic and extradiegetic.