[vr46]

That's a interesting observation on Spiegelmann, although I don't know how that could have been incorporated into the story, without him actually challenging his father in that way. There is a reference somewhere that the animal metaphors were inspired by the racial caricatures in American vaudeville and theatre, so there was some recognition there, aside from the complications that animal metaphor itself added to things.

[lopsotronic]

Maus is a great work, and a breakthrough for its genre, but I've always found the animal metaphor troubling for reasons I could never quite pin down.

It was only recently that I realized the problem I have with it: it's a tacit nod towards the broad thesis of secular colonialism (and later of Nazism): h. sap is naturally separated into different scientific kinds. Each acting according to its nature, and of course some of which should never be mingled.

I'm enough of an adult to separate metaphor in a work of art from actual reality, but not everyone is, and that metaphor - if you take it seriously - will have a lot of nasty and all-too-familiar second-order effects. Many of which we would recognize in the harsh lessons of the last century.

Hitler's not a cat, and Spiegelmann's not a mouse. They're humans, making human decisions. Tomorrow I could be Hitler, or you could be Spiegelmann. It can happen to anyone.