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The Aftermath

Throughout the volumes of "Maus", Spiegelman includes many frames that display the true characteristics of Vladek. Through the narration of Art, us readers view Vladek as a burden to Art and consider him to be clingy and even a little annoying. With the experiences that Vladek has gone through, he should be viewed as an astonishment to everyone, but that is simply not the case. Vladek is not a perfect survivor because after everything he went through, he is still racist as he treats African Americans the same way that the Germans treated him. While Spiegelman depicts Vladek's flaws, he also reveals how his experiences have changed him. Vladek's constant attentiveness branches from the Holocaust and makes him the person he is because he doesn't know any other way to live. For example, in the frames shown, Vladek is counting his crackers and later on even tries to return food to the supermarket because after experiencing starvation he is now extremely resourceful. While Art may get annoyed of his father easily, he can't help but feel sympathy for him because of the unspeakable horrors that he went through during the Holocaust. Within the volumes, Spiegelman repeats moments and frames like these to exhibit the many ways in which Vladek and other survivors were heavily affected by their experiences and to show how they'll always feel confined by the Holocaust as they can never truly escape it. 

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