Nathalie Asked–Respondents: What do you think of the usage of dialect? Is Vladek the only one to speak in accented English? Is it effective? Confusing? Offensive?

I, for one, am a huge fan of Spiegelman’s usage of dialect in Maus.  Mostly it’s because of how it helps me to immerse myself even further in the story being told. Usually when reading literature where accented dialects are heavily featured, the reader must imagine the story since the information is consumed through words. Maus, in its comic form, gives you a visual to accompany the words. For me, the accented English provides a distinct voice to the narrative and completes the picture. The dialect is an expression of Vladek’s Jewish heritage and that helps to make the story that much more realistic. It’s a constant reminder to me that we’re relearning about the Holocaust through a survivor’s eyes.

The difference in speech also helps distinguish between the present and past at times while reading. We bounce back and forth between the two throughout Maus and just like the change in the shape of a bubble or frame helps to signal to the reader whether it’s a thought or speech, I think Vladek’s accented English pulls you back to the present with Art and away from the story’s setting in the past without being too huge of a distraction. As far as I can tell from what we’ve read so far, Vladek is the only one who speaks in accented English. When Art talks with Mala on pages 92 and 93 after Vladek goes to rest, they are in the present, but her English isn’t accented despite her being a survivor as well. Though we clearly know which character is speaking because we can tell by looking at the illustrations, if one was to erase the bodies of the Art, Vladek, and Mala and leave only the speech bubbles, it would be easiest to figure out which one was Vladek due to his accented speech. I find that especially interesting since, like we discussed in class, the characters all look fairly interchangeable due to the vagueness of their illustration.