"Maus: A Survivor's Tale" is a comic written by Art Spiegelman which tells the stories of his Jewish father, Valek, living in Nazi controlled Poland. The story is told through Spiegelman's point of view while listening to his father recount what happened. Valek describes the terrible acts committed by the Nazis on the Jews. One particular passage of the comic describes Valek telling the story of when the majority of the Jews in his town were taken away to Auschwitz. Spiegelman uses various literary and visual elements to support his theme.  "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" was written to document the cruelties that were forced upon the Jewish people by using symbolism, perspective, color, and uniformity. 

The most striking aspect of this comic is that it tells a historical event, but humans are not even characters in the story. Mice and cats are used to portray the Jews and Nazis. Mice were chosen to represent the Jews because mice are often thought of as innocent and timid. Cats were chosen to symbolize the Nazis because cats are thought of as predators who eat mice. In the relationship between cats and mice, cats hunt, find, and kill mice. This relationship is similar to the one between the Nazis and the Jews and it is why these animals were chosen as symbols. A second symbol in this comic is a stationary workout bike. When Spiegelman goes to his father's house to interview him, Valek tells his story while working out on a bike. By the end of his story, Valek seems physically and mentally exhausted and says, " Well  It's enough for today. Yes, Artie?..." According to the American Psychological Association, many Holocaust survivors suffered with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other illnesses long after the war ended. Telling the story of how most of his friends and family were sent to Auschwitz exhausted Valek mentally, just like how the bike tired him physically. The exercise bike symbolizes the ongoing trauma that the Nazis left him with. This bike along with the cats and mice serve to symbolize the atrocities the Nazis committed on the Jews.

The perspective of this story also helps to support the theme that the Jewish people were oppressed by the Nazis. The story is told through the eyes of Valek Spiegelman, a Jewish man in Nazi controlled Poland. Because the narrator is a Jew, the reader can see firsthand what it was like for those who were being mistreated. If the story were to be told from a Nazi or third person's point of view, it would not have the same emotional appeal. Since the story is told from a Jew's perspective, the reader can see what the people who were oppressed felt, thought, and did during all of the atrocities. This helps support the theme because it appeals to the reader's emotions in a way that facts can not.

Another aspect of this comic that helps support the theme is the color. This comic is done in black and white and most of it contains dark shades of gray. Dark colors are often thought of as depressing, so it is clear why Spiegelman chose to do most of this comic in dark tones. In most frames, the Nazis are colored white while the Jews are displayed as black or dark gray. White is often thought to represent innocence and purity so it might seem odd that Spiegelman chose to draw the Nazis this color. However, the Nazis truly believed that they were doing good by cleansing their country of the Jews. Although the Nazis believed what they were doing was right, the Jews only felt sorrow and hopelessness. This is why Spiegelman chose to draw the Jews in shades of gray and black. The colors in this comic help to display the evils of the Nazis and the suffering of the Jews.

Uniformity is also used to help display the horrors committed by the Nazis. In this passage tens of thousands of Jews are ordered to meet in a stadium where it will be decided whether they can stay in the town or if they will go to a concentration camp. In these frames there are dozens of mice shown and they are all drawn the same way. They all have the same faces, shading, clothes, and bodies. This was done to represent how the Nazis demonized the Jews. The Nazis didn't see the Jews as people but rather as animals with no individuality. In concentration camps the Nazis shaved all the prisoner's heads and dressed them in the same bleak clothes. The repetition in the drawings of the mice shows how the Nazis stripped the Jews of their individuality. This is another aspect of the comic that is symbolic of the cruelty that the Jews were subjected to. 

The comic "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" uses various literary and visual elements to display the theme that the Jews were oppressed by the Nazis. It uses mice and cats to represent the Jews and Nazis and the unfair treatment of the Jews. Also, it is told in first person so that the reader can understand what the Jews felt while going through this experience. Dark colors are used to set a depressing and hopeless tone. Uniformity is used in the drawings to suggest the lack of individuality of the Jews. Many biographies have been written about the Holocaust because it is important to remember the past, good or bad. "Maus: A Survivor's Tale", however, brings a different and entertaining twist to Holocaust biographies because it is done in a comic format with animals as characters. Spiegeleman's purpose for this comic is to remind people of the terrible things that were done to his ancestors. His use of symbols, perspective, color, and uniformity do an excellent job of conveying this message.

