earticle

영어

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which Art Spiegelman in Maus exposes himself to empathic unsettlement. Aware of the dangers of the ethical and ideological appropriations of the Holocaust, we examine three types of dissociation that the author uses in the graphic novel to refuse the reduction of the pain of others to his own understanding. First, Spiegelman dissociates himself in the face of the Holocaust. He throws himself into empathic unsettlement by wearing animal masks and using puns to disrupt the signification process. Second, the dissociation of the self leads to that of the world. By juxtaposing different time and space in panels, Spiegelman unsettles conventional borders of time and space. In addition, he places the system of representation in jeopardy by introducing photography into the comics. Last, the author disturbs the traditional narrative of ethics bifurcated into victims and perpetrators. He depicts characters who belong to an ethical gray zone and closes Maus with no consolation. Engaging in empathic unsettlement, he thus calls into question conventional representations of the pain of others.