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“Those aren’t rats. They’ve very small. One ran over my hand before. They’re just mice! Of course, it was really rats. But I wanted Anja to feel more easy.”
This quote comes from Book I, Chapter 6, when Anja and Vladek are hiding in Mrs. Motonowa’s basement. The image shows a close-up of a dark, hairy rat. The rat depicted is clearly a real rat, in opposition to the characters on the page who are anthropomorphized mice. By placing its mouse characters in a scene with real mice and rats, Maus reminds the reader that Vladek, Anja, and all the other characters depicted as animals are real human beings. This juxtaposition gives the lie to Nazi propaganda that likened the Jewish people to vermin, such as rats and mice, by pointing out their humanity.
“His place is overrun with stray dogs and cats. Can I mention this, or does it completely louse up my metaphor?”
Artie says this as he arrives at his psychiatrist Pavel’s office in Book II, Chapter 2. The illustration depicts Artie and Pavel as men wearing mouse masks, and Pavel has his hand on the back of a dog. Artie directly acknowledges that drawing people as different animals is a metaphor in this moment. His use of the word “louse” is also a metaphor, as “louse” is the singular form of lice—another form of vermin that Nazi propaganda compared to Jewish people. By pointing out that the animals are just a metaphor, Maus argues for the humanity of its characters. By showing Artie and Pavel in mouse masks, it further suggests that what makes us human is what is inside us, what lies beneath our outward appearances.
“And, God forbid, if someone got soup and someone spilled him a drop . . . like wild animals they would fight until there was blood. You can’t know what it is, to be hungry.”
Vladek says this in Book II, Chapter 3. The first image shows an anthropomorphized mouse in a striped uniform fuming mad because another mouse has bumped him and spilled his soup. The second image shows that mouse throwing the other mouse to the floor. Vladek suggests in his description of people fighting like animals that starving people deprives them of their humanity. The treatment of Jewish people, and others, in the concentration camp stripped them of dignity and care, making them behave like animals.
