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DOCUMENT SCORE

Overweg - Maus 90 of 100

ISSUES FOUND IN THIS TEXT

Rewrite 17
PLAGIARISM

Checking disabled

Contextual Spelling No errors

Grammar 2
Wrong or Missing Prepositions 1
Faulty Subject-Verb Agreement 1

Punctuation 3
Punctuation in Compound/Complex Sentences 2
Comma Misuse within Clauses 1

Sentence Structure No errors

Style 12
Inappropriate Colloquialisms 7
Passive Voice Misuse 4
Wordy Sentences 1

Vocabulary enhancement No errors

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Overweg - Maus Rewrite

Jana Overweg
Mr. Bradley
Honors English 10
20 September 2017
Why Jews Were Mice
How and why is a social group represented in a particular
way?
1
As the author of a graphic novel, you 1 get more Personal pronoun in formal writing
2
opportunities to show, not tell, in your 2 writing. You 3 can Personal pronoun in formal writing
3
use the artwork to show certain things and express your 4 Personal pronoun in formal writing
4
ideas in a different way 5. Art Spiegelman, the author of Personal pronoun in formal writing
5
the book Maus, incorporated symbolism into his writing. [in a different way → differently]

The artwork in this graphic novel shows the Jewish people

in the Holocaust as mice, which is a metaphor for how the
Germans and Poles saw and treated them. The Germans
treated them as if they were no better than farm animals. In
Poland and all over Europe, Jewish people were persecuted
by the Nazis for their religious affiliation and background,
and Art’s dad, Vladek, was one of those Jews. In this
graphic novel, we hear Vladek’s story about how he
survived a prisoner of war camp, being a Jew in hiding, and
the infamous death camp, Auschwitz.
Art drew the Jewish people as mice because the
Germans were exterminating them like pests. In the death
camps, the Jewish people were gassed and killed by the
millions. Poisoning and killing in large quantities is 6 how
we get rid of pests. Vladek says to Art, “Zyklon B, a
pesticide, dropped into hollow columns. It was between 3 7
and 30 minutes-it depended 8 how much gas they put-but
soon nobody was anymore alive.” (Spiegelman 71) These
6
gas chambers were used to kill a horrifying amount of [is → are]
people, just like we would spray a beehive, or set out fly
strips. After all of these people were gassed, the Nazis
7
burned their bodies, not even burying them. It was other [3,]
8
Jews who had to carry the bodies to the ovens. These Jews [depended on]

were being exterminated 9 by the Germans, killed with

actual pesticide. They were treated as terribly as we treat
infestations of bugs.
The Nazis toyed with the Jewish people like a cat would
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toy with a mouse, and this is another reason why Art would
draw them that way. The German soldiers would have total
control of what the Jews could and could not do, and they
9

would kill anybody who did not conform to their ideas of Passive voice

what was acceptable. On page 65 of Maus, Vladek’s dad

says “They made us sing prayers while they laughed and
beat us.” The Nazis were eager to humiliate the Jewish
people for their enjoyment, forcing them to sing Jewish
prayers and beating them. This embarrassment
dehumanized the Jews and put down their religion, making
them feel ashamed and inferior. It was a tactic the Germans
used to make the Jewish people more submissive to the
wishes of the Nazis. The Jews were easier to control if they
were beaten down and dehumanized. The mice got batted
around by the cats, 10 and were lucky if they could escape
alive.
The German people looked down upon the Jews and
took advantage of them. When the Germans needed things,
they forcibly took them from Jewish people. When this
happened, the Jews thought they were going to get paid for
their stuff, but they rarely did. “Wait! I 11 haven’t 12 been
paid 13, yet.” Vladek’s father says. The German that was
seizing their property replied, “Please, 14 if you want to stay
alive, go back inside.” (Spiegelman 70). The Germans did
10

not value the Jews or their wishes, and they did not care [cats, ]

what the Jews said. We treat animals quite similarly. We

make them do whatever we want and get rid of them when
they are not valuable to us anymore. We do not often think
about what they want, nor do we place much importance on
it. The Jewish people were looked down upon like we look
down upon animals, and this is why Spiegelman
11

represented them as mice. Personal pronoun in formal writing

12
[haven't → have not]
Art Spiegelman could have also used the words of Adolf 13
Passive voice
Hitler himself as inspiration for drawing the Jews as mice.
14

On the copyright and publication page of Maus, there is a [Please, ]

quote from Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, which says
“The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not
human.” Hitler obviously 15 did not see the Jews as people,
and he treated them accordingly. The Germans treated
actual 16 animals better than they treated the Jewish people.
Art wanted to show that the Jews were treated much like
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vermin during the war, so he drew them as mice.

Art Spiegelman was symbolic in his writing and
illustrating of Maus. The metaphor of these Jewish people
being portrayed by Art as mice strengthened the book by
showing us how the Jews were so often degraded 17 for
their religion. Being openly Jewish was suicide in Europe
during World War II. If all the characters in the book were
drawn 18 as humans, we would not see this separation as
clearly. Spiegelman used his artwork to symbolize the
dehumanization of the Jewish population in the Holocaust, 15
Overused word: obviously
and he did a great job.
16
Unusual word pair
Word count:825

17
Passive voice

18
Passive voice

Works Cited
Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor's Tale. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1986. Print.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus II: And Here My 19 Troubles
Began. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991. Print.
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Personal pronoun in formal writing