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Parental Relationships And History Essay, Research Paper

Relationships are often predicated on the historical context of human interaction. The Reader and Maus are stories about the way in which generational conflict is associated with the past. They also deal with the idea that exploration of cultural history introduces feelings of shame, guilt and blame. Artie of Maus is constantly in friction with the life he might have lived as a Jew in an anti-Semitic world and the one he lives as the converse of his Holocaust survivor father. The Reader s Michael Berg is perpetually attempting to displace himself from the guilt of Germans citizens of the Reich. Although the novels illustrate that victims and perpetrators are on antithetic sides of oppression, they provide reason to believe that children of victims and perpetrators live similarly. Each operates in a world of guilt and nostalgia for the history that they did not have the opportunity to define. With the devastation caused by World War II as the backdrop for their novels, Bernard Schlink and Arthur Spiegelman expose the generational conflict that occurs between the people that experience tragedy and the people that are taught it.

Maus is the autobiography of an artist living in America born to survivors of the Jewish Holocaust. In it the author, Arthur Spiegelman, explores what role the Jewish Holocaust has played in his life and how it has affected his self-image and his feelings of guilt. He does through his explanation of the book s writing process and a narration of his father s story. Artie, Maus s main character, is forced by his father to respect the Jews who escaped the Holocaust more than he respects himself. His father makes him feel guilty for spending money rather than living the way it was in the Holocaust. After he finds a wire on the street he asks Artie, Why you always want to buy when you can find? (Spiegelman116) Artie in other sections of the novel speaks of how his father would not buy school supplies for him(Spiegelman130) and how his father makes him feel bad for spending money. Thus, Artie feels guilty for doing what is normal or considered good in his generation.

This is a situation where the reasons for their, Artie and his Father s, generational conflict begin to surface. When Artie s father tells him to do something, Artie responds with his view on the situation. If the two perspectives are different, Artie gives his reasoning as to why he is correct. His father s reasoning always lies in how he acted during the Holocaust and how he survived. Artie believes he cannot fight with this argument even in situations where he knows he is correct. This makes Artie feel guilty for acting and reacting the way he does. Thus their communication leads to conflict and leaves Artie riddled with guilt. In one scene he says, I cannot forget it ever since Hitler I don t like to throw out even a crumb. Another example is when Artie and his father, Vladek, go to the grocery store, Vladek wants to return have eaten food to the grocery store. Artie says, I m not going to return a load of open boxes and partially eaten food. (Spiegelman 89) He doesn t want to return the groceries because he knows they will not be reused and they can afford to let the bad groceries go. Vladek nonetheless walks into the grocery store to return the used foods. In the grocery store it appears as if the manager and Vladek are arguing still Vladek comes to the car with the money. Artie tells him he was sure he d get kicked out of the store. Then Vladek says, he(the manager) helped me as soon as I explained to him my health, how Mala left me, and how it was in the camps. (Spiegelman 90) Vladek s ultimate reason for anything he does is how it was in the camps. This passing of guilt leads to obvious conflict because the guilty party is always at fault.

Artie is so guilty that he sometimes wishes he could have been with his father in Auschwitz and he didn t survive. This is the most interesting effect of the guilt and conflict. If Artie had gone through the pain of the Holocaust, he would not be guilty. His arguments and reasoning would be just as powerful. He tells his wife, I know this is insane, but I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through. (Spiegelman 16) This leads to the question why would he what to live through a reality he says was worse than my darkest dreams. (Spiegelman 16) The answer to this is I guess it s some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did. Artie feels guilty about being the person he is. He feels guilty about not being what his father wanted him to be. This makes him very defensive about what his is and makes him defensive towards what his father says and does and creates conflict that permeates through his relationships with the previous generation. This is why Artie reacts so fearful towards Vladek neighbors who bring him into their house and why he draws himself as a kid when he visits the psychiatrist. Artie is therefore extremely sensitive towards his guilt and perceptive to the actions of his father.

The Reader by Bernard Schlink is a story similar to Maus in that it is very concerned with the existence of guilt in post war generations. It is different in that the story is told by the child of a perpetrator not of a victim. It offers several explanations of why guilt manifests in victims and perpetrators and their children rather than narrating the experiences that form and define guilt. This is because its main character unlike Maus s has not been forced to deal with the reality of surviving and being a survivor. Artie is forced to do this everyday because of his interaction with his father and the recognition of his Semitic heritage. On the other hand, Michael Berg, the main character in The Reader, narrates only his story and attempts to give objective summaries of the past and those events he did

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