Since finishing Maus, I have been interested in analyzing how Spiegelman treats Human Life in his graphic novel. In an offhanded conversation, Ms. Valentino suggested to me matter-o-factedly that Maus fits the bill, and illustrates the importance of Human Life.
But I disagree.
On this notion, I argue that the opposite is true, in that Maus illustrates the atrocious consequence of not holding Human Life as precious. This is quite a striking difference in substance, but these two methods do share in their ability to string the harp of moral consciousness regarding Human Life. But they diverge to an extent where, an argument for valuing Human Life--by perhaps showing human innocence, benevolence, or common ground--is more effective to improve quality of Human Lives, while an argument for the consequence of not valuing Human Life increases its quantity.
Consider the panels below,
Consider the panel above please.
This page quite neatly summarizes my stance on how ineffective Maus is in proving the value of Human Life--certainly better than my words can. In the panels, Vladek muses how amazingly similar a murdered human spends his last few moments to a dead dog. This is the one of the most terrifying pages in the book to me. It isn't the harrowed detail, the violent anecdote or even the dead human. It is the indifference Vladek shows to the dead human. It is one thing to love your brother or hate your enemy, but to be indifferent is to not show humanity. To be indifferent is to not not share in the burden of living and dying that comes with Human Life. It is to not care for the life or the death of another, who shares 99.99% of your genome. To be indifferent is to not be human.
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