Maus: A Survivor's Tale Vladek Spiegelman Quotes

“No! You don’t know counting pills. I’ll do it after … I’m an expert for this.” (I.2.32)

Art and Vladek seem to be competing all the time over the smallest of tasks. Here it’s counting pills.

“It was this parsha on the week I got married to Anja … And this was the parsha in 1948, after the war, on the week you were born!... And so it came out to be this parsha you sang on the Saturday of your bar mitzvah!” (I.3.61)

The fact that Art only learns now the significance of the <em>parsha</em> he read at his bar mitzvah says something about Art’s lack of connection to his Jewish heritage.

“To your father you yell in this way? … Even to your friends you should never yell this way.” (I.6.161)

A loaded statement, considering how Vladek’s Holocaust memories show the fragility of family relationships and friendships under pressure.