maus book 2
Maus II by Art Spiegelman is a graphic memoir that continues the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor. It explores the strained relationship between father and son as they grapple with the weight of their shared history and the haunting legacy of the Holocaust.
While Artie and his wife Françoise are staying with friends in Vermont, Artie is sketching Françoise as different animals to figure out how to represent her in the book. Françoise says she that she should be a mouse. Artie briefly objects that Françoise is in fact French, so Françoise offers that she could be a rabbit. Artie insists that a sweet, gentle rabbit doesn’t accurately reflect the French’s anti-Semitism. Artie ultimately settles on drawing her as a mouse since she converted to Judaism to make Vladek happy.