Maus - All Suffering Does Is Cause Pain

The Maus graphic books are award-winning comics written by Art Spiegelman. They are non-fictional stories of Art and his father, Vladek. Spiegelman demonstrates that all suffering does is cause pain, it does not create noble people. Spiegelman exemplifies this through his characters, for example, Anja committed suicide after suffering for the duration of the holocaust. Anja's death along with the holocaust also made a huge impact on Vladek's life. After all of Vladek's traumatic experiences he takes it out on Mala and this shows shows the reader that Mala herself goes through a lot of pain. The suffering they went through proves that only only pain was caused and their lives were only more difficult.

Anja commited suicide after the suffering through the holocuast and this demonstrates that suffering does not create better people, instead, only pain is implanted. From the period of the holocaust, anja's mental state was not positive. She declares "but i don't care, i just don't want to live". Anja shows signs of depression. She had depression and anxiety before the war, which left her more vulnerable to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which impaired her ability to live a normal life. Spiegelman also show that suvivors, like anja, feel like they did not do all they could have to help their family and feel guilty for moving on with their life. Vladek described her before they were married as always being "anxious". Anja was unable to cope with the loss of her son and almost the entire family. Years afterwards she commited suicide. Therefore, this proves the point that suffering does not make her noble but traumatised and this disturbed Vladek enormously because without Anja, the love of his life, Vladek was at a loss.

The death of Anja along with the experiences Vladek gained from the holocaust put a lot of weight onto his life and has greatly affected his way of thinking. It is definate that vladek portray signs of miserliness and he also states that