Arcade of Memories

The importance of Anja Speigleman in Maus

One of the characters that caught my attention on the graphic novel Maus was Anja, the mother. Probably because of her life story which was marked by terrible events such as the Holocaust, the death of her son, and her suicide in 1968 and also by the image that she projected to her son and husband.

 In one hand there was her husband who saw her as the perfect woman. Vladek always felt that Anja bring out the best of him something that no one had done before. Maybe the fact that in front of his eyes she was perfect right after her death he burn all of her diaries maybe as a way to perpetuate this perfect image.

In the other hand, for her son Art she was a weak mother since he felt that she needed to feel loved and contained by the people who surrounded her.This emotional crisis was deepened with the death of Anja’s first son because she start doubting about her role as a mother.

For these reasons she is one the most attractive character of the comic, since we would never get to know her story from her point of view. But from two different perspectives and we will have to mixed both to create our own image of Anja Speiglman