Of Mice and Cats: Anthropomorphism and Narrative Empathy in Art Spiegelman’s Maus

Abstract

Despite the history of representing anthropomorphized characters in graphic fiction, the relationship between anthropomorphism and narrative empathy remains open to investigation. This article highlights Art Spiegelman’s use of anthropomorphism and ambassadorial strategic empathy, to elicit readers’ empathy, in his graphic novel
Maus
. Suzanne Keen’s theory of narrative empathy is employed as a theoretical framework. Spiegelman utilizes several textual and visual strategies to maximize reader engagement and empathic responses, such as defamiliarization and distancing, character identification, synecdochic representation, and simplified drawing style and iconic faces of characters which universalize the Holocaust as a human experience worthy of empathy.