Happy Endings Are Only For Fairytales

Maus ends without resolving all tensions that occurred during the novel.  When Vladek calls Art Richieu, there are many questions going through my mind.  Does it mean Art will never replace the void that Richieu left in their lives? Or maybe has Vladek finally accepted Art as a son that Richieu once was?

Art Spiegelman also ends Maus with Vladek and Anja’s tombstones dividing the last two panels.  He finishes his story with “happily ever after.”  We all know that the couple doesn’t have a happily ever after because Anja commits suicide in 1968.  Spiegelman could have possibly used the words “happily ever after” because the reality is that there isn’t a happy ending.  Not only was their reunion not a fair representation, but it is insensitive to those who lost their families and had nothing to go back to.  It shows that a story about the Holocaust cannot have a happy ending.  It is something so horrific and atrocious that there is no way that a happy ending could ever be possible. 

The Frank Family

Just like the Spiegelman’s, Anne Frank and her family had to go into hiding on account of Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the Netherlands.  The Franks were in hiding for two years until a German officer found their “Secret Annex,” and were betrayed by an anonymous tip, just like in Maus.  This proves how during the Holocaust it really was one man for himself, and how many friends and family members betrayed one another. Anne’s father, Otto, was the only family member to survive.  In so many cases, not one member of a family survived, so the use of Spiegelman’s reunion between Vladek and Anja is like that of a fairytale.