The Bucks County Free Library resource guide for MAUS: A Survivor’s Tale I: My Father Bleeds History MAUS: A Survivor’s Tale II: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman One Book / One Bucks County 2005

Discussion Questions

Maus I: One

1. Why did the author call his first chapter “The Sheik”?
2. Why does the picture of Vladek riding his exercise bicycle take up so many panels on the page? What does it represent?
3. What conflict will Art have in writing this book?

Maus I: Two

1. What do you think about the characters speaking instead of the story being narrated? How does this affect the story?
2. We are seeing new animal characters in this chapter – pigs and cats. Do you think the author wants to portray each individual in a race or nationality as like all the others? How can you identify a specific character’s picture?
3. What have you learned so far about treatment of the Jewish people at the beginning of World War II?
4. Find some contrasts in this chapter.

Maus I: Three

1. Look at the story about Vladek’s father’s efforts to keep his sons out of the army on pages 45 and 46. What irony is present in this story?
2. It is interesting to see some of the ways the author separates Vladek telling his story in the present from the actual story in the past. Find some examples of these techniques in this chapter.
3. Do the diagrams on page 56 and the map on page 60 help tell the story? Why?
4. The author has characters wear masks at different times in the book. Vladek wears one on page 64. Why does the author use this device?

Maus I: Four

1. What are some of the choices that had to be made in this chapter? What would you decide in the same situation?
2. The author chose to show Jews who have been hung by the Germans. What other “noose” is tightening in this chapter?
3. Why are Art’s mother’s diaries so important to him? Why would he want them?

Maus I: Five

1. Why don’t Art and his father get along? Find reasons in this chapter.
2. “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” uses people as characters rather then animal. Why does the author do this? Why is Art portrayed as a prisoner?
3. What are some of the “mouse holes” in this chapter? How does this device help to support the cat and mouse metaphor?

Maus I: Six

1. Is the author’s use of real animals unusual? How does this add or detract from his sustained metaphor?
2. Vladek and Anja have escaped capture until this point. How are the “mice” finally trapped?
3. The author ends the book by calling his father a murderer. Why does he use such a loaded word?

Maus II: One

1. In some cases, survival can be a matter of luck. How has Vladek been lucky?
2. The holocaust is about one group trying to dominate another group. Find examples of a parallel in the Spiegelman family.

Maus II: Two

1. In this chapter Art is a human wearing a mouse mask as he works at the drawing board. What is it portraying? Why are there flies and bodies in the room and a guard tower outside the window?
2. Why does Art shrinks in size when he goes to visit his psychologist?
3. What is Art’s problem in this chapter? Why is he struggling so much?
4. Vladek seems especially eager to tell Art about how he helped to dismantle the gas chambers and ovens at Auschwitz. Why is this so important to him?

Maus II: Three

1. Is there irony in the title of this chapter? Why?
2. What is strange about Vladek’s comments about the African-American hitchhiker?

Maus II: Four

1. American soldiers are portrayed briefly. What does Vladek think of them?
2. The author places the pictures of the extended family at the end of the second volume of Maus rather then earlier in the two books. Is it effective? Does it add to the story?

Maus II: Five

1. What does the author mean by “second honeymoon”?
2. Why does Vladek call Art Richieu at the end of the second story?
3. Look at the picture of Art Spiegelman on the book flap at the back of the book. Why is he wearing a mask? Why does he show smoke rising from his cigarette next to a picture of a smokestack outside the window? Why does the pack of cigarettes say “Cremo”?