Subjective Time in Spiegelman's Maus - Essay

1. Introduction: Spiegelman's Maus and Ricoeur's concept of narrative time

Art Spiegelman is the author of Maus, a two-volume book in cartoon form. The book is an autobiography as well as a biography of Art's father, Vladek, who was a Holocaust survivor. Maus moves back and forth between scenes from Art's life in New York City and depictions of Vladek in the Holocaust. Spiegelman explores his father's past, his own past and his own present as part of the struggle he experiences in being the child of a Holocaust survivor.

Throughout the work, Spiegelman's story is closely twined with that of his father. Indeed, the narrative moves between time frames so frequently that story of father and story of son begin to merge, and Spiegelman's identity becomes closely associated with the life of his father. Paul Ricoeur's concept, which he develops in his essay "Narrative Time," is a valuable aid in understanding the role of these shifts between time frames in Maus.

According to Ricoeur, the measurability of time is not an inherent property of time; it is something humans impose upon time in order to analyze it. However, this need for analysis abstracts time and masks its true nature. There is more to time than simply linearity, a collection of measurable "presents" arranged one after another. Instead, Ricoeur characterizes time as "historicality"— "the emphasis placed on the weight of the past" (36). The individual throughout his life attributes different importance to different events. His history is thus colored by subjectivity: certain events stand out more than others, and as such exert more influence over the individual throughout his life.

This attribute of events possessing varying, instead of identical, importance is rather intuitive in the context of narratives. Trivial occurrences such as what a character had for breakfast are omitted, and instead the focus is placed on events which bear relevance to the present. These important events are connected via causality to other important events. Ricoeur explains this notion: "To be historical, an event must be more than a single occurrence. It receives its definition [as historical] from its contribution to the development of the plot" (37).

It is exactly such a string of historical events that constitutes the plot within a narrative. Plot is that "intelligible whole that governs a succession of events in any story" (37). Thus, a plot must be more than just a collection of events— it needs to be characterized by that subjectivity, that same emotional principle which assigns varying importance to different events. In this way, time and narrative depend on one another: narrative relies on time for its existence, and characters as well as readers understand time and their history through narrative.

2. Time in Maus

We will now attempt to apply this theory of time and narrativity to Spiegelman's Maus, in order to better understand the back-and-forth time scheme utilized by Spiegelman. Spiegelman began writing the cartoons in Maus I at least as early as 1973. However, the focus of this discussion is an excerpt from Maus II (pages 41-47), which is set after the death of Vladek in 1982. Within the span of only seven pages, Spiegelman relates his huge success with the first Maus book, his present-day depression and his continuing struggle to cope with his past with the help of his therapist. In addition to all of this there is a depiction of his father in the Auschwitz tin workshop being reprimanded by the Jewish foreman.

Spiegelman's choice to create his narrative in comic-book form is certainly a curious one. This becomes odder still when we consider the expressly non-comical topics which the book explores, including suicide and the Holocaust. The cartoon medium, aside from the effect of surprise and dismay it has on some readers, has very interesting implications for time representation within narrative.

The medium of the comic book allows for manipulations of temporality which text alone does not allow. Spiegelman utilizes both graphics and text to portray multiple time frames. In figure 1, for example, the writer draws his present-day self sitting on a pile of emaciated corpses from the Holocaust. The past in the image quite clearly merges with the present as fifty-year-old flies from the corpses buzz around the present-day artist. The balloon at the bottom of the frame reads "Alright Mr. Spiegelman … we're ready to shoot!" This phrase too alludes to multiple time frames: it fits in with both present-day Spiegelman, in reference to the movie offers he has gotten, as well as with mass shootings in the Holocaust. This effect of juxtaposing past against present would have lost a lot of its power (and coherence) without the drawings. The medium of cartoons enables this effect which text alone, or images alone, could not have allowed.

Figure 1 (page 41). Spiegelman utilizes both graphics and text to portray multiple time frames.

This meshing of the present with the past is repeated within the story, each time in the context of different subject matter. Throughout the narrative, Spiegelman manipulates content as well as form to demonstrate this connectedness of present and past. In a single frame, Spiegelman mentions his unborn baby and the death of 100,000 Jews (figure 2). Later on, again in a single frame he mentions his upcoming fatherhood and the death of his own father (figure 3). In these instances, the fact that Spiegelman associates such a personal, typically optimistic event as fathering a child with dark past events, indicates that his past still exerts much influence over his present. In addition, in figure 3 Spiegelman draws himself smaller than he does in the rest of the comics. He is climbing onto his chair like a child, in a pose that suggests he feels daunted by his impending fatherhood, perhaps a bit lost without his own father.

The form Spiegelman utilizes reflects this idea of past haunting present as well. In printed media, the convention is that each sentence deals with one topic. In cartoons, instead of the sentence it is the frame that serves as the basic unit of language. Spiegelman repeatedly breaks the expectation that readers accustomed to print media have of one cartoon frame addressing one single topic. This break from convention, in which one frame alludes to two distinct time frames as opposed to one, serves to further stress close association between past and present.

Figure 2 (page 41). Spiegelman associates his impending fatherhood with the Holocaust.

Figure 3 (page 43). A smaller-sized Spiegelman reflects on the loss of his father. 

It is events such as those discussed above from the life of Spiegelman, as well as some from the life of his father, which constitute the narrative's plot. Spiegelman chooses to present only those events he deems relevant to the story he is trying to relate. The reader gets a very strong sense of the historicality of the events, that is, their influence on Spiegelman in the present and the role they have in the plot. Very easily we can imagine how in his youth Spiegelman could have placed different emphasis on the events in his life, attributed different emotions to them, thus rendering the narrative of his life completely altered. It is, however, that somewhat elusive, subjective quality which colors Spiegelman's life, which makes him associate his father and the Holocaust so closely with his own happiness and well-being. Spiegelman himself touches upon this notion in figure 4: even though he is successful in his current life, events from his past dominate his present to the point of depression— his "father's ghost still hangs" over him (figure 3).

Figure 4 (page 43). Events from his past dominate his present to the point of depression.

It is thus quite evident that time in Maus is not portrayed as "a linear series of 'nows,'" but as a much more complex scheme of temporalities, influenced to a great extent by the perspective and emotion of the author. This nonlinearity is apparent not only in the pendulous portrayal of time we have shown thus far, but also in the reprise of certain patterns and themes from the past in the present. Figure 5 portrays the feeling of inferiority he holds in respect to his father, who made Spiegelman feel inadequate in his youth. Five pages later we encounter a depiction of Vladek in Auschwitz (figure 6), where the foreman of the tin workshop expresses discontent at Vladek's capabilities. The foreman is ill-content with Vladek; Vladek is ill-content with Spiegelman. Even though the events are separated by decades, they not only figure in the same plot but also closely mirror one another. We may deduce, by the fact that they are bound by the same narrative, that Vladek's treatment of Spiegelman was influenced at least in part by the foreman's treatment of Vladek. This repetition of theme is yet another way in which time frames come together.

Figure 5 (page 44). Vladek made Spiegelman feel inadequate in his youth.

Figure 6 (page 47). The workshop foreman reprimands Vladek for his inadequacy.

Another theme which recurs throughout this excerpt, traversing generations, is guilt. In excerpt 5 above, for instance, Spiegelman discusses with Pavel, his therapist, his unstable relationship with his father. Spiegelman says, "No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz" (44)- he feels inferior in comparison with his brave survivor father. Pavel suggests that Spiegelman, as a successful author, feels guilty for proving his father wrong about Spiegelman's inadequacy. Vladek's past was so difficult that Spiegelman attempted throughout his father's life to compensate for his father's past by being as deferent to Vladek as possible, even if it meant demeaning himself to do so.

Further addressing the subject of guilt, Pavel goes on to suggest (figure 7) that Vladek was harsh on Spiegelman as a result of the guilt Vladek felt for surviving the Holocaust. Two other frames of the comics (42) discuss the guilt Germans feel in relation to the Holocaust. Yet another frame depicts a businessman asking Spiegelman if he would like a bigger percentage of the earnings, to which Spiegelman replies, "I want … Absolution" (42). Spiegelman repeatedly refers to his own past, his father's past, and even to the broader past of the Jews and the Germans for answers to the guilt that burdens him personally.

Figure 7 (page 43). Guilt traverses generations in Maus.

This exploration of the themes of the narrative leads us once again to question Spiegelman's choice of form, the comic book. A careful inspection of the cartoons reveals the author's very intimate relationship with the subject matter. Why, then, did he choose to utilize such a generally impersonal medium? The form of cartoon has two major associations: one is the cartoon as political criticism; the other is cartoon as comic strip, for the purpose of entertainment. There is, to be sure, much to criticize about the Holocaust, but this doesn't seem to be Spiegelman's intent, as shown in figure 8:

Figure 8 (page 42). The medium of cartoons provides the distance necessary to cope with such difficult subject matter.

Instead, it seems that Spiegelman wrote the book for personal relief, for catharsis. Certainly Spiegelman recognized the medium for its connotation as a means of entertainment and escapism (in fact, in an interview for the television program New York Voices he cites among his influences horror comics). Maus is a narrative about the process of coping; the medium can be seen as yet another way of coping. Through the representation of people as animals Spiegelman distances himself somewhat from the painful subject matter. Through the use of words reminiscent of action-hero interjections like "BAM!" and "POW!" (figure 9), Spiegelman creates the comic relief necessary for dealing with such heavy topics on such a personal level. The comic book becomes the forum in which Spiegelman is able to merge temporalities in the way he does, an act that could have been made much harder using conventional print media. All of these devices of form are valuable for Spiegelman to be able to create out of these events a plot, to connect via causality his life with such a dark past.

Figure 9 (page 46). Comic relief in Maus.

Thus medium and content, graphics and text, come together in Maus to create this intricate twinedness of present and past. It is only through constant references to his past that Spiegelman manages to relate the narrative of his own life: it is this quality of inseparability of time schemes that breathes life into that "intelligible whole that governs the succession of events" in Maus. Spiegelman throughout his life interpreted his and his father's histories; while some events fell into obscurity, the rest, the ones which influenced him and remained with him, are immortalized in his books. There are few traces in his narrative of straightforward, linear time. Instead, Spiegelman succeeded in relating a narrative rich in layers, emotion and personal history, where past is inextricably and intimately woven with present.

Works Cited

1. Ricoeur, Paul.  “Narrative Time.”  Critical Inquiry 7: 1 (Autumn, 1980): 170-171.

2. Spiegelman, Art.  Maus II.  New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.

Works Consulted

1. Roman, Rafael P. "Interview with Art Spiegelman." Thirteen- New York Public Media. Web. 7 December 2010.

2. Spiegelman, Art.  Maus.  New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.