Characters
This character is the one retelling their Holocaust experience.
Who is Vladek Spiegelman?
The concentration camp Vladek and Anja were put into and survived.
What is Auschwitz?
Every picture used to represent the Nazis, Jews, Poles, and any other place or idea is an example of this comic device.
What are icons?
The image of Auschwitz is this type of literary term, used to provoke strong emotion in the reader.
Visual Imagery
A good-looking, charming man
What is a sheik?
This character was the writer of the journals Art is looking for.
Who is Anja Spiegelman?
What is Sosnowiec?
The transition used when Vladek begins his story and the reader sees the flashback.
What is scene-to-scene?
This use of symbolism at the start of Chapter 6 foreshadows Vladek and Anja's fate.
What is the mouse trap?
The German police
What is the Gestapo?
This character is seen crying due to Vladek's behavior towards them.
Who is Mala Spiegelman?
The place where the prologue takes place in, as well as where the World's Fair took place when the war broke out.
What is New York?
This type of line is used when dark, human scenes are drawn in Maus.
This literary device is being used when Vladek deviates from normal syntactical sentence structure. Ex: "To your father you yell in this way?"
What is anastrophe?
An organized massacre, especially of Jews
What is a pogrom?
This character is the wife of Artie who converted to Judaism.
Who is Françoise Mouly?
The place where Vladek, as well as many other Jews, had to go to buy food, as well as where Mrs. Motonowa was a merchant.
What is the black market?
This transition is used when Vladek reassures the German children and their parents apologize (pg. 149).
What is moment-to-moment?
This literary device reflects a heavy German accent when speaking English, which is why correct verb tense and other parts of speech are occasionally ignored.
What is dialect?
Word meaning a schemer or crook
What is a kombinator?
This character was Artie's older brother whom Artie feels he can never compare to.
Who is Richieu Spiegelman?
The city where Vladek once had his textile factory and where the Gestapo arrest Vladek, Anja, and other Jewish stowaways.
What is Bielsko?
This transition is used when the panels go from focusing on Art to focusing on Vladek.
What is subject-to-subject?
The type of irony used when it turns out Vladek was the one who destroyed Anja's journals.
What is situational irony?
This word in Yiddish means crazy or senseless
What is meshuga?