Mice and Masks

There was a bit of discussion in class over the use of masks in Maus.  While there are many interpretations of the use of masks I find this one the most intriuging:

"Neither Art nor Francoise manifest any affinity for Jewish theology, and they clearly do not buy into the concept of racial Jewishness, but they do feel a deep, albeit guilty, connection to Vladek and what he represents.  So when Spiegelman decides to tell his father's story, he literally paints himself (and all Jews) in the same image..." [BOS 90]

So the masks could be a way of marking shared history either as survivors or attachment to survivors or those who died, and emphasizing third person perceptions (ie Vladek's concern that Anja looked Jewish) without making comment on the ethnicity/religion debate?

In any case the ethnicity/religion debate seems to trouble Spiegelman, or at least this is what some of my classmates, who had read ahead to the second volume, hinted at (specifically where his French-born Jewish-convert wife is concerned).  It's interesting that he would have this conflict in the second volume but not in the first.  Maybe it's because he had time between volumes to think about how he had chosen to depict people?  He may not have wanted to enter the ethnicity/religion debate but his choice of representation in his work kind of forced him to do so, or at least forced him to spend time thinking about it.

In any case it underlines that identity - the ones we choose for ourselves or the ones others marks us with - play a significant role in how we see ourselves and others may or may not interact with us.  In this way Vladek's story, and Art's own story, are quite universal.