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The Truth of a Madman: the Works of Art Spiegelman

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The Truth of a Madman: the Works of Art Spiegelman Philip Smith The Truth of a Madman: The Works of Art Spiegelman The Truth of a Madman: The Works of Art Spiegelman [The Holocaust was a] watershed of human history, the death-knell of the Enlightenment, the proof that Western Civilization didn’t work. It’s like the old Looney Tunes cartoons where the character runs past the edge of a cliff and keeps running through midair. It takes a while to notice there is no ground left to run on [...] Western Civilization ended at Auschwitz. And we still haven’t noticed (Art Spiegelman 1999, 15). One day you will speak of all this, but your story will fall on deaf ears [...] You will possess the truth, but it will be the truth of a madman (Anonymous S.S. officer to a Jewish prisoner in Elie Wiesel 1989, online). by Philip Smith Doctoral Thesis Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy Loughborough University 30 June 2013 Revision submitted 15 August 2014 © by Philip Smith (2013) Abstract: Art Spiegelman is one of the most important figures in the history of American comics. His work Maus (1980 and 1991) is arguably the landmark text in the field of comic book studies. Given the relatively recent reissue of his first collection Breakdowns (2008) and the publication of his interview/essay collection/scrapbook Metamaus (2011), it is likely that his work will continue to be the subject of critical interest. This thesis concerns the collections Breakdowns (1977 and 2008), Maus (1980 and 1991) and In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). It represents the first book-length extended study of Spiegelman’s three major works. The central argument put forth in this thesis is that the Spiegelman oeuvre articulates and manifests a madness which its author perceives to underlie supposedly ‘rational’ society. In support of this thesis I will employ critical models from the following fields: Holocaust studies, trauma theory, the anti-psychiatry movement, theories concerning the representation of madness, formalist analyses of comics, and Genette’s narratological taxonomy. Keywords: Art Spiegelman, madness, Shoah, Holocaust, comic books, trauma, 9/11. Page 1 of 358 Philip Smith The Truth of a Madman: The Works of Art Spiegelman Contents Contents ................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Spiegelman Studies: Maus ............................................................................................. 11 1.2 Spiegelman Studies: Breakdowns and No Towers ......................................................... 26 1.3 Narrative Terminology................................................................................................... 34 1.4 The Holocaust ................................................................................................................ 41 1.5 Trauma ........................................................................................................................... 54 1.6 Anti-Psychiatry and the Madness of Reason ................................................................. 66 1.7 Madness ......................................................................................................................... 74 1.8 The Wild Man, The Fool and the Signifyin(g) Mouse .................................................. 81 1.9 Selling Comic Books and Selling Out ........................................................................... 88 1.10 A Breakdown ............................................................................................................... 93 2. Formal Experimentation and Emotional Breakdowns ......................................................... 98 2.1 A Brief History of the American Comic Book .............................................................. 99 2.2 A Copy of a Copy of a Copy: (Auto-)citation in Breakdowns .................................... 107 2.3 On Not Erasing Pencil Lines: Formalism in Breakdowns ........................................... 116 2.4 I’m not sick but I’m not well: Madness in Breakdowns .............................................. 132 2.5 Lunatics taking over the Asylum: Healing Art ............................................................ 134 2.6 On the Precipice: Drawing Madness............................................................................ 140 2.7 Playing the Fool: Underground Comics and the Carnival ........................................... 148 2.8 Surviving the Survivors ............................................................................................... 153 2.9 The Sleep of Reason .................................................................................................... 160 2.10 In That Sleep of Death What Dreams May Come ..................................................... 171 3. Historiography and Survival in Maus ................................................................................ 173 3.1 The Day Spiegelman Sold Out .................................................................................... 174 3.2 Talking in Screams ...................................................................................................... 182 3.3 ‘Funny Aminals’ .......................................................................................................... 185 3.4 A Writing Table on a Mountain of Corpses ................................................................. 198 3.5 Drawing blood: Violence in Maus ............................................................................... 203 3.6 Putting Things in Boxes: Maus’ Narrative Structure ................................................... 209 3.7 Mediated Space: Vladek .............................................................................................. 219 3.8 Mediated Space: Artie .................................................................................................. 229 3.9 Trauma: in the Maus of Madness................................................................................. 234 3.10 A Good Place What I Made: Survival and Resilience ............................................... 242 3.11 The Signifyin(g) Mouse ............................................................................................. 247 3.12 Looking up to Father .................................................................................................. 255 3.13 The Best did not Survive............................................................................................ 261 3.14 The Fractured Storyteller ........................................................................................... 266 3.15 Writing Silence .......................................................................................................... 270 4. The Story of a Story: In the Shadow of No Towers ........................................................... 272 4.1 The Story of the Story of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks .................................. 275 4.2 The Revenger’s Tragedy .............................................................................................. 282 Page 2 of 358 Philip Smith The Truth of a Madman: The Works of Art Spiegelman 4.3 Threats of Future Past .................................................................................................. 288 4.4 In Superman’s Shadow ................................................................................................ 291 4.5 Gassing Iraknids: Editorial Cartoons in No Towers .................................................... 296 4.6 This Land is My Land .................................................................................................. 302 4.7 A Man Who Eats French Fries ..................................................................................... 305 4.8 If We Shadows Have Offended ................................................................................... 310 4.9 In the Shadow of That Mouse ...................................................................................... 314 4.10 Surviving Survival: No Towers and Trauma ....................................................... 316 4.11 We are but Dust and Shadow ..................................................................................... 321 5. Conclusion: Divinest Sense ............................................................................................... 325 5.1 The Second-Generation Survivor ................................................................................ 325 5.2 The Scholar and the Madman ...................................................................................... 330 5.3 The Future of Spiegelman Scholarship ........................................................................ 335 5.4 Final Words .................................................................................................................. 337 6. References .......................................................................................................................... 340 6.1 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 340 6.2 Webography ................................................................................................................
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