Most People Case

Most people will feel at times that their life is being manipulated or pushed by some unexplainable force. It's hard to understand why things happen, or why certain feelings seem to come out of nowhere, why we are who we are. But if one looks back at history, past and present, its likely connections can be made and one can get closer to determining this unexplainable force pushing their life in a certain direction. In Art Spiegelmans' Maus I and Maus II and Ari Folmans' Walk with Bashir readers dive into the trauma of two men and uncover the way its followed their life and watch the writers try to make sense of it all with the available memories and testimonies. Its easy to think that the holocaust was just an event in history that affected only those who experienced it, but the burden and legacy of traumatic memory continues to effect family. This is seen through Artie in Maus as a second-generation survivor. Its also easy to think that war is simply a time period, and once its over that period is over and the images and effects are left in the country it took place and soldiers can come home and enjoy life again. The reality is however, those who experience that trauma carry the long-term effects with them, pass them down to children, and cannot be kept silent.

Art Spiegelmans' novel suggests something more complex then the horror that was the holocaust. Vladek was a survivor to the core, but his survival is never emotionalized or dramatized and the tension between father and son shines through the novel. Artie among with other children of holocaust survivors have a presence and absence of Holocaust memory in their daily lives. In the opening scene of the first novel, Vladek, instead of comforting his son after his friends leave him mockingly remarks that friends are untrustworthy and "if you lock them together in a room with no food for week... Then you could see what it is, FRIENDS." (Maus I, p.6). Throughout the novel it is easily recognizable, starting by just the first pages that for Artie, being a second-generation survivor to Vladek was in a sense its own traumatic experience. To Vladek, his experience with the holocaust will always be worse that any experience Artie will have to go through and to Artie he was never good enough for his father. The panel in Maus I (pg. 97) shows a quick idea of Vladek and Arties past and present tension:

Vladek is stubborn, emotionally needy, compulsive, and insanely cheap, his attempts to see his son are masked with demands and explanations for not spending money. One cannot say

However that the Holocaust is the direct and only reason Vladek was the person he was, which Artie notes in response to Francoise suggesting the holocaust is what made him so anxious; "Maybe. But lots of people here are survivors... if they're whacked up its in a DIFFERENT way from Vladek" (Maus II, p.22).

Maus suggests that the life of a "survivor" is not always full of hope, and perseverance, with values and positivity passed down generations, This thought is misguided and such a past can have psychologically negative effects on the identity and lives of the parent and child. The distant and unlived historical event that was the holocaust produced a burden Artie carries because of his fathers and mother's actions and attitude towards him years after the holocaust. This burden is articulated in the most personal episode of Maus, entitled "Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History". Artie was 20, when he became another type of survivor- a suicide survivor, after his mother Anja swallowed pills, and slit her wrists.

In his portrayal of the event he imagines himself wearing concentration camp clothing, symbolically linking the trauma and legacy of the Holocaust to dealing with the loss of his mother. Although it was explained in the text that Anja had a past dealing with anxiety and possible depression it is impossible to exclude that the effects of surviving the holocaust and witnessing what she did had to do with her emotional breakdown. His life was abruptly changed; finding out his mother killed herself was as abrupt and cold as the doctor simply explaining "SHES DEAD." At the time Artie didn't feel his emotions, he didn't grieve or heal and was instead forced to disassociate himself and take care of his father and deal with the guilt and blame that comes along with being a survivor of suicide. It may not have been until Spiegelman forced himself to draw the graphics of his idea of what his mothers suicide scene looked like, and relive the memories of his fathers tears that he was able to begin to come to turns at the level of trauma losing his mother was. Like Artie, Ari Folmans' reconstruction of his traumatic memories that seemed to disappear is a form of therapy.

Like the Holocaust in Maus, we have all seen pictures of the war and heard the stories of war. War has become an everyday part of our life, not because we are a part of it, fearing that we could be next for the draft, or that a nearby town may be bombed and family members kidnapped. It's a part of our everyday life because for many, there is no recollection of being alive while the USA is not in some kind of war. It's a simple fact we grow up with: war happens. Even though the war story is about Lebanon and Palestine, the surreal event that is war is the same for every country- it destroys every attempt to narrate and make sense. War is a nightmare that lingers after you've woken up. For Ari's companions their nightmares different and illustrating their stories show that war affects each person differently based on their involvement. Frankel describes to Ari an even they were both their for, but only he remembers- shooting a young boy with an RPG dead a memory he holds clear. For Boaz, his shooting of 26 dogs because of his known incapability to shoot humans haunts him.

These different memories- shooting a dog vs. child show that each person's brain is independent from the others. Some can remember shooting a young boy probably forced to aim to the RPG at the men, and some can be tortured by shooting guard dogs and some like Ari can bury the bloody screams and images of thousands of innocent people dying in their subconscious as a form of defense.

This cognitive trait of disassociation Artie experiences during the suicide of his mother is explained in Waltz Of Bashir:

Artie was trapped in his own prison recounting the things he could