Maus II: Thoughts

Re-reading Maus II has gotten me a bit farklempt. I can't even discuss the trauma of seeing page 72 again. The binding on my book is basically non-existent, and I'm considering removing it just in case I should read the book again, so I don't have to see it. Not that the entire narrative regarding the actual process involved in the "Final Solution" isn't awful, it is...but for some reason, this page always sends me into the fetal position taking deep breaths.

What I love about Maus II is the chance to see more of what the family's life is like in the present. Particularly the part beginning with Page 14, where Art & Francois are driving to see Vladek and they have a long discussion about Richieu and how growing up with "the ghost" of a brother who died during the Shoah affected Art growing up. It is interesting how Art is almost jealous about Richieu. He says that he wished he could have been in Auschwitz so he knew what it was like, and so he could really understand what his family had been through. As we see later in the story, Art is even seeing a professional to talk about his issues of being a child of Holocaust survivors. But growing up with the lingering memory of the little boy, who died so young that he never had a chance to be a disappointment to his parents, was clearly difficult for Art. Richieu is sort of put upon a pedestal in the house (at least in Art's eyes) and Art felt that he could never live up to the ghost brother. Sibling rivalries are difficult enough but how can you compete with one who, if they hadn't died, could have grown to be the "perfect son." I wonder if Art felt a sense of pressure growing up, to do all the things that Richieu never had a chance to do, to be and become all the things that Richieu could not. We see throughout both volumes that Art feels that he hasn't lived up to his parents expectations and dreams for him. I wonder how it felt for him when his father, as he depicts in the last page as Vladek is ending his story with his "happily ever after," calls Art by his dead brother's name, Richieu. Did it hurt? Or was it perhaps a compliment, a Freudian slip by Vladek, letting him know that he is proud of his son? Art doesn't tell us, but its inclusion in the story tells us that it did have meaning for him, whether positive or negative.