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Understanding the the involvement of non-fiction in the graphic novel "Maus"

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Cover of the first volume of Maus

Source: Pantheon. Maus. 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus

What is a non-fiction graphic novel?
It is a graphic novel that can make a story fit into the terms of being non-fiction with the plot being part of a real-life event. But how can someone tell if a graphic novel is part of the subcategory of being non-fiction? If the readers could easily identify that the plot of the story is connected to a real-life event or if it is like a real-life event, then most likely it is a non-fiction graphic novel. Now it is up to the author to see how they can use the constructed medium like comics and somehow shape it into a non-fiction graphic novel that will capture readers attention as well as explain history or a real event. How can it be both non-fiction and a novel? Well, there are several examples…


One graphic novel that is considered as a non-fiction graphic novel is Maus by Art Spiegelman. In Maus, the readers watch as the protagonist, who they learn is Art Spiegelman himself, talks with his father about his personal experience in the Holocaust on multiple occasions. Now you could be thinking “I see how it is non-fiction and a graphic novel but how does this make it different compared to other novels?”. Art Spiegelman made the characters in his graphic novel mice and cats instead of keeping them human. The Jews in the novel were the mice while the Nazis were the cats. Now, this could also be a play on the stereotype about how mice and cats are enemies and Spiegelman probably thought about how this was an easy way to show the difference instead of keeping them human. There were also other characters in the novel such those who were pigs, which represented people who were not truly affected in the Holocaust compared to what Vladek and everyone else did. While Spiegelman was able to use the change of characters to explain his father personal experience, it could be said that the visuals of the comics were what brought the novel into the subcategory of being non-fiction.

Referencing back to Scott McCloud’s book Understanding the Invisible Art of Comic, there are connections that could be made from that to Maus. In chapter three of McCloud’s book, he mentions closure and how the readers are the ones who come up with what happens in between the panels. McCloud even states how “An equal partner in crime known as the reader” (1993, 68). Putting it back to Maus, there are multiple scenes where closures play a huge role in with the readers. Scenes such as when Vladek father went over the fence to be with Fela, it doesn’t show what happens to them after, it is only told to the readers (Spiegelman 1986, 91). Another scene with closure is when Vladek walked out in the early morning to see the group pay the guard towards the end of the book. Next thing the readers see is the sounds of guns shooting and Vladek running back to hide (Spiegelman 1986, 124). While the readers do not actually see them getting shot, the readers must conclude that the group was betrayed as they paid the guard but still was left dead.

Another thing that was mentioned in McCloud’s book and could be used in Maus is the type of sequence. There are six types of sequences but in Maus, only five are shown: “Movement-to-movement, Action-to-action, Subject-to-subject, Scene-to-scene, and Aspect-to-aspect” (McCloud 1993, 74).  This could be one of the easiest things to be pointed out to readers as they could tell the types of sequences with what happens on the page. An example of this would be when Spiegelman goes to his father house, this shows us an example of scene-to-scene as it “transport us across significant distances of time and space” (McCloud 1993, 71). Alongside the types of sequences shown in the book, it could also be said about the flow of time in the book is unique. In chapter four of McCloud’s book, the readers learn about time frames and how it is used in graphic novels. In Maus, readers could tell when there are either small changes of time or larger changes of time. Like mentioned at the beginning of the graphic novel, Vladek tells readers how he moved in 1936 and was married in 1937 (Spiegelman 1986, 22).



Works Cited
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. HarperCollins, 1993.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus. Pantheon, 1986.

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