Stereotypes and Persecution in MAUS

I was first introduced to "radical existential humanist" philosopher and writer Frantz Fanon through required reading for my 'Hip-Hop Philosophy' class this semester, around the same time we began reading Art Spiegelman's MAUS for this class. Fanon explores a wide range of concepts relating to racism and decolonization in books like "Black Skin White Mask" and "The Wretched of the Earth," but I found his writings concerning the psychological effects of racial subjugation on its victims to have a special significance to Spiegelman's characterization of his father Vladek.

Fanon's background as a psychiatrist led him to look past the socio-economic effects of colonialism and racism on persecuted ethnic groups and into the ways in which their oppression affected the way they perceived themselves. As part of a far more complex set of theories that I have not the room nor the adequate understanding to elaborate upon, Fanon divided the subjects of his writings into two groups. The "colonists", written here in air quotes because a group designated as such need not literally occupying a foreign country, exploit and oppress another group on a broad, systemic level, and the "colonized" are the victims of said exploitation and oppression. As a result of the colonists' systemic abuse, Fanon argued, colonized people will adopt the mentality of their colonizers, thus subconsciously buying into their stereotypes and hate speech and in some ways becoming the exact thing a racist mind perceives them to be. Regarding the atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany, the Nazis would be considered colonizers and Europe's Jews the colonized.

Towards the end of Part One of Spiegelman's graphic novel (pg. 131-2 of the uncollected edition), the author explains the way he characterized his father.

"I mean, I'm just trying to portray my father Accurately!" says Art on the following page.

Even if his wife doesn't buy into the idea, the dialogue in this scene suggests that the reason for Vladek's irrational compulsion to save money is a result of the suffering he endures under the Nazi occupation of Poland, which is in no small way a reflection of Fanon's theories on the psychological effects of racially-based oppression.

This scene, and the association of Vladek's characterization as a man twisted into a stereotype by years of racism-induced self-hatred, is significant to work's overarching theme of the complexities of racism and prejudice, as well as Spiegelman's argument that the impact of the Holocaust is not limited to its immediate victims, but something that resonates through the ages due to the profound effect it had on survivors, the families they would go on to have and the people they would later interact with. The older version of Vladek becomes a reminder that the damage done by the Holocaust was not only unfathomable loss of life, but irreparable psychological harm done to the survivors and the effects of it on loved ones decades later.