Re-Maus

        

        I have a very unique position reading Maus for 11 AP English this year, as I've already actually read Maus before. And I've not just read Maus before, but I've read it specifically for school and have had to analyze it before. And I've not just read Maus for educational purposes before, but I've had to do it 2023 before, meaning I've read Maus for school twice in one year. 

        As such, I have a very unique perspective on this book because I've actually been re-reading it instead of experiencing it for the first time like most people in this class have, and with the power of hindsight and knowing what happens next, I've noticed so much near the beginning of the book that I didn't understand the importance of until I was re-reading the book and realized it could only be understood after reading the book before.

        For example, most readers don't realize the Americans are represented as dogs until Chapter 4 of Part 2, but you can actually see an American dog on the very first panel.

Another thing is that on a first reading, I never understood why Chapter 1 in Part 1 is titled "The Sheik", but after reading the book and knowing that Vladek is religious, I realize the title is meant to match Vladek's religion as "sheik" is a religious term.

        And one of the most fascinating things I noticed near the beginning is Vladek leaving Lucia, which is an event that doesn't really seem to matter that much to the book because the story is mostly about surviving the Holocaust and Nazis, but after reading the book before and knowing the ending has Vladek sort of 'leave' or 'forget' Art in place of Richieu, it adds way more substance to Vladek leaving Lucia.

        While Vladek 'forgetting' Art in place of Richieu is obviously showing how Vladek never really forgot or moved past his trauma, it also mirrors Vladek leaving Lucia too. It was established that Art always felt that his parents loved Richieu more than him because he was an actual child they had to deal with the problems of, and Vladek tells Lucia that he's leaving her to be with Anja because he loves Anja more and hasn't had to deal with problems from her like he has with Lucia, which shows that Vladek has always been someone who leaves people he's emotionally intimate with for people he loves more that he hasn't had to deal with problems from yet.

        Along with realizing many things near the beginning that I didn't realize the significance of until after having already read the book, I've noticed many cases of repetition or parallelism that I never noticed on my first read of the book.

        While it's definitely possible for a reader to have noticed these instances of repetition while reading the book for the first time, considering the influx of story and material someone would be experiencing on their first read of the book, it's very unlikely they would be able to put together these details. However, on a re-read of the book and by already knowing the story, it would be way easier to focus more on the subtle details of the book and connect the parallels. But that's enough preamble, here's the massive list of cases of repetition I noticed on my re-read of the book that I never noticed on the first read.

• Vladek uses the "Heil, Hitler" salute twice to blend in, once when he sneaks onto the German official train instead of the Polish train on page 140, the second when the kids accuse him of being a Jew on page 149.
• The Americans first appearing to Vladek with their flag on page 111 behind them mirrors the Nazi's first appearance to Vladek being through their flag with the swastika on it on page 32.
• Vladek gets told by another Jew he's lucky upon first entering a prison twice, once with the rabbi telling him he can see the future due to Parsha's Truma on page 60, and secondly with the prisoner in Auschwitz telling him his number is lucky and will allow him to survive on page 28.
• The Swedish being moose on page 125 and the French being frogs on page 93 are foreshadowed when Art is testing out designs for Francoise and has a moose and frog as potential animals for her on page 11.
• Chapter 1 of Part 1 and Chapter 3 of Part 2 both end with Vladek being drawn as completely black and being obscured.
• The cover of Chapter 5 in Part 2 and the poster of Vladek looking like Rudolph Valentino (wait a second) on page 13 are very similar.
• The picture Vladek has of Anja on page 17 is askew on the page, like the real-life picture of Vladek on page 134 that Anja kept is also askew.
• Felix screaming in the middle of the night on page 59 is like how Vladek screams in the middle of the night on page 74.
• 
  

        And there's probably even more cases of repetition that I just need a third reading of the book to realize. If I had to summarize reading Maus for a 2nd time, it's really changed my perception of the book from a great and deep story about intergenerational trauma that talks about the Holocaust and the strained relationship between a father and son, to a great and deep story about the struggle of life and power of love and intergenerational trauma that talks about the Holocaust, the geopolitics of Europe in the 1940's, racism, the strained relationship between a father and son, and so much more. 

        While reading the book once was really enjoyable and opened my eyes to the concept of intergenerational trauma, I think that did a disservice to this book that talks about way more than just what we cover in class, and I would highly recommend that my other classmates re-read the book in the future at some point to see just how much more there is to this book than just "Holocaust bad" and "trauma spreads".