A Brief Look at Women's Roles in the Bible and What it Means for Women Today- Part II

In part one of this article we looked at several examples of women in the Bible to see that women were often given positions of authority and considered prophets just as their male counterparts were. Of course, many in the church today will argue that that was merely the “Old Testament” and that everything changed in the “New Testament” which many know that this is not exactly the case; however, let us examine the argument all the same.

So, do we see female prophets even in the “New Testament”? Indeed, we do many times such as Anna; she is clearly called a prophetess just as her predecessors were (Luke 2:36). But, some will argue, that while women may have been present, they are only allowed to teach or prophesy, etc. to other women and not to men. But this seems problematic given the following passage:

Act 18:24 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.

Act 18:25 This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.

Act 18:26 And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.

Here we see that Priscilla was active in teaching and correcting Apollos; therefore this argument does not seem to hold accurate. They often also want to argue that she was only part of her husband's ministry and did so because she was under his supervision, yet we see clearly in Acts 21:9 that Philip's four daughters all served in the role of the prophetess, each being unmarried so again, this argument does not hold up.

Even without all of these examples of women in the Bible, we are given another passage that makes it clear that women were not only active in religious life of the past, but were intended to be so in the future as well: 1Co 11:5 “But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.”

How is it possible for a woman to be instructed to cover her head when she prophesies if she is forbidden from being a prophet? That simply would make no sense. In both the book of Joel and Acts we are told that the sons AND the daughters will prophesy (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17). In fact, the only position in which women were specifically forbidden from holding was that of the Priest (and likewise as head of the household for they are considered the priests of the home). Again there are varied reasons for this; however, this one prohibition does not bleed over into any other part of religious life so it would seem odd that many often tend to actively seek to keep women out of religious roles and to seclude them from ministries and being active in their faith when even the Bible itself never did so.

Considering all of this I think it is clear that women do have a very important role in religious life and that we are each called to our own gifts and that we can all be used as teachers, prophets, etc. regardless of our gender and perhaps we should take more time learning about the many examples of strong, intelligent women who commanded armies and prophesied through out the lands....would these women not serve as much better role models than the helpless snow white fairy tale, walking blow up doll beauty queen types that are pushed on girls and young women today?

A Brief Look at Women's Roles in the Bible and What it Means for Women Today- Part I

One of the questions that often arise for the church in the modern age is that of a woman's role in the church. In some societies women were given virtually no roles at all, where as in others the matriarchs were powerful symbols of their culture. Today, as we still tackle the extremes of sexism and the failures and successes of feminism, we are often left with a bit of puzzle to untangle. How much of a woman's role in the church has been defined by societal norms instead of Biblical guidelines? And what role did women actually play in the Bible? The most popularized portions of the Bible seem to focus on a few key people and were give the impression that women played very few roles, if any, in the religion, culture, and ministries of the Bible; but again is this actually an accurate portrayal or merely a view of the Bible through patriarchal colored classes? Perhaps we should best answer this question simply by letting the Bible speak for itself.

Let us first look at what is often referred to as the “Old Testament”. What role do we see women in through out the writings of law, prophecy, and the histories of Biblical times? Unlike what we are often lead to believe women through out the Bible were often given positions of authority by God, Deborah was a judge and even led the armies of Israel, likewise people tend to forget that the Children of Israel were led not only by Moses but by Aaron and Miriam as well although the popular retelling of these stories tend to often omit his sister's role.

Of course Miriam is not alone, Queen Esther was heralded for her intervention in saving the Hebrews so much that God granted them permission to have a festival in her honor (which is still celebrated today as Purim). Both Miriam and Deborah were referred to clearly as prophetesses (Exodus 15:20; Judges 4:4)

Aside form the well known examples of Deborah and Miriam we see other prophetesses in the Bible, who were not merely playing support roles, or ministering only unto women as the modern day church often claims, but spoke with the explicit authority as the messengers of God just as their male counterparts did, consider Huldah's prophecy to the King of Judah in 2 Kings Chapter 22 (and 2 Chronicles Chapter 34). This is a great example of a female prophet that is constantly over looked yet she clearly played the same role as many of the male prophets of the day did.

So it does seem that God chose women for many roles during those times. If that is the case, we might ask why it is that we did not see more women in positions of authority in the past including the Biblical texts? I think this was a trend merely because of the atmosphere and conditions in which they lived after all it would not have exactly been safe for a woman to wonder the countryside alone as we saw many of the prophets or apostles do and likewise many political leaders often proved themselves on the battlefield which was not exactly suited to women at the time. I think a patriarchal tendency and cultural biases is why men have often over shadowed the prophetesses and other women of the Bible and history in general. But can this be used as reasons of excluding women now or is that merely the historical context and not a Biblical one? To better answer this questions, we will look at women in the Bible in the New Testament in part two of this article.

 

The Song of Songs (part three)

The time scale of The Song of Songs is unclear. If the language is taken as pure metaphor the romance between the two speakers could be a very fast one, but if only a portion of the imagery is allegorical then Dodi and Rayati would have to spend potentially months apart. Whether their separation is brief or lengthy, the two lovers definitely demonstrate a shift in their language in the second chapter of the poem. There is an intensity in the words where in Chapter 1 there was only allure and curiosity. Their desire for one another escalates to the breaking point, but in Chapter 2 the lovers have not yet consummated their relationship.

The chapter opens with Dodi and Rayati speaking more or less at the same time. Were The Song to be sung as a duet, both singers would likely be singing two parts of the same measure. Rayati begins by describing herself as "A rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys", which contrasts with Dodi's origins in the hills or perhaps beyond them. What is clear is that the two of them don't live in the same region, or at least that they both feel sufficiently separated from one another to liken unto such a separation. Perhaps they see themselves as being of two different nationalities, though they are both firmly Judaic/Canaanite in culture. Apart from one another, they describe each other as special, unique to those around them. Rayati is called "a lily among the thorns" and Dodi a lone apple tree in a grove of plain trees. In the religious reading, this passage describes the relationship between God and Israel as being exclusive to the rest of the world and being sweeter for it.

In their separation, the lovers fantasize about one another. Rayati imagines Dodi holding her in bed, with special attention paid to the description of his right and left hands. The image of the right and left hands of God are significant in Jewish mysticism, with the right hand representing Chesed (God's kindness) and the left representing Gevurah (God's strength). In the religious reading of The Song, Rayati, representing Israel, hopes for both the blessing and the protection of Dodi, representing God.

When Dodi returns from over the mountains, he comes to visit Rayati and implores her to come away with him. Their separation, if literal, seems to have been because of the winter. Dodi reasons that just like the coming of spring results in the blossoming of the fields, the returns of wildlife and the celebration of people, the new season should also result in the advancement of the lovers' relationship. It is in this segment that one of the most famous lines of the poem is found. Speaking together, at least as it seems in the text, Dodi and Rayati say, "Let us catch the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in bloom". Once again, the vineyard is used as a metaphor for happiness and prosperity. The lovers are expressing their readiness to move past all the obstacles between them. The time for hesitation has passed for them. In this passage, they are doing nothing less than conspiring to meet under cover of darkness.

There is a sense of danger to this story, of two young people flouting convention and tradition to be together. It is a very progressive piece of literature. If it is a secular story of two young lovers it is at least partially illicit and if it is an allegory about the relationship between God and Israel, then it posits that relationship as one in peril, even a forbidden one.

Shir Hodu: Jewish Song from Bombay of the '30s

Thinking of places sporting huge Jewish populations, one most likely doesn’t immediately settle upon India as a destination for the people in diaspora. It is though. And over the last three to four hundred years, there’s been a steady influx of Jews after encountering discrimination in other places or finding that the country they once called home was in the throngs of revolution headed by politicos not necessarily engaged with modern concepts of equality.

For whatever reason, Jews in India since the eighteenth century haven’t experienced any sort of discrimination. Embracing an Indian identity, though, has probably helped over time. With this sort of assimilation, though, it might be assumed that Jewish culture has been subverted by dominant ideas of personality and dominant social traits. In some cases that might be true, but it seems that there’s a large and vibrant community that’s been thriving for centuries. As an extension of that, over time, there’ve been various recordings made, not of ceremonies, but of performances rendered by Indian Jews. Some are reworked prayers and some devotional. But each is couched in an Eastern mode of music. Collected by Jewish Records, Shir Hodu asserts a religious independence, but one that’s inextricably linked to an identity culled from nationalism.

It’s an interesting confluence of culture and a good listen.

If one’s anticipating some odd Klezmer sounds – the Jewish equivalent of Polka, let’s say – then this disc is not one that needs further exploration. None of that genre is found here. Instead, it wouldn’t be too difficult to get an ear full of this stuff and figure it for traditional Indian music. Granted, the percussion elements included here aren’t as prevalent as in Indian classical music, but do serve to inform the song’s rhythms.

The work of three men specifically are covered on this set: Simeon Jacob Kharilker, Adib David, Zaky Solomon Isaac and Zaky Solomon Isaac. Even in the performers’ names, there’re obvious biblical references while still remaining distinctly Indian.

But the first two performers come off as slightly more polished than Isaac, which approximates the tone and feeling of any number of field recordings from the United States’ rural south.

The marriage of this culture and this faith is significant in the promulgation of religion.

There’re probably more than a few prayers that I’ve not recognized, but Kharilker turns in a rendition of “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, which uses the traditional melody, but still sounds spiced up enough to be traditionally Indian in scope. And that’s what makes the disc worth hearing. It’s a group of religious adherents understanding its past through a modern conception of self.

The Song of Songs (part two)

The secular reading of The Song of Songs identifies it not only as a great love poem, but indeed as an erotic poem. From its first passages it uses both frank and euphemistic language to describe the attraction between the two enamored speakers. This, of course, presents a problem for the allegorical religious reading. The sages and many scholars since have attempted to coax a more chaste meaning from the poem and they have done so by noting The Song's frequent references to the natural beauty of the land of Israel. If Shir Ha'Shirim is indeed a metaphor for the love between God and Israel, that love is depicted as no less intimate, exclusive and sacred than the love between a husband and wife.

I have decided to apply some of my own translations to this reading of The Song of Songs, as some of the older translations (as is typical) lose some of the meaning in their attempts to adhere to certain conventions. Most namely, there is a tendency in Hebrew to English translation to add verbs that are not present in the text to compensate for the difficulties of making English phrases out of Hebrew words in the past and future tenses. For example, the poem begins with a purely sensual line that is often translated, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" when in the Hebrew line there is no mention of the word "let" or "allow" or any other command verb. It is simply a future-tense version of the verb "to kiss". A more accurate translation is, "Would that his mouth kisses me- your adoration is better than wine".

This first line, excluding the title line, sets the tone for the rest of the poem. It is a luxurious piece that goes to great lengths to include multiple references to all kinds of finery. The lovers compare one another to wine, royal textiles, grand chariots and treasured spices. It almost feels like a precursor to a modern rapper bragging about how fine his girlfriend is. What's really interesting is that neither of the two loves in The Song of Songs are particularly wealthy. At best, they would be considered middle class. The male speaker is a shepherd and the female a worker in her family's vineyard. She even comments with some embarrassment about how dark her complexion is for having worked out in the sun all her life. For our purposes, I will be referring to the two speakers as Dodi (the man) and Rayati (the woman) from now on, as that is how they refer to one another.

At the beginning of the romance when Dodi and Rayati are first flirting, it is during a period of social awakening for Rayati. She has just been called into the company of the king, invited to "sit at his table" as the saying goes. It is never entirely clear whether this means Solomon has taken her as a concubine or not, though that always looms as a distinct possibility. As of the first chapter, things seem fairly innocent between the king and Rayati. Taken from her hard life as the last and least privileged child of her family and shown luxury, Rayati begins to want more for herself. She describes being forced through disrespect and malice to tend her brothers' vineyards and says, "But my own vineyard, I have not tended." This image of vineyards pops up elsewhere in the poem and is a clear symbol of personal prosperity, happiness and pleasure.

Rayati sits at the king's table, pondering her own fulfillment and how it relates to the young shepherd she calls Dodi. As she contemplates organizing a meeting with him she says, Nirdi natav rekho, "My spikenard (or possibly lavender) sent out its fragrance". The term Nird refers to a flower, most likely the spikenard, aka the muskroot, a plant that at that time would have been associated with India (it is not native to the Levant) and was used to make a perfume but also had some use as a prenatal health herb. It is very easy to read a sexual undertone in this line, especially since the lines that follow also more overtly reference body parts. For those looking for the religious reading, Dodi closes the chapter by referring to various features of the Israeli countryside as the couch and house he shares with Rayati. Plainly, if God and Israel are husband and wife, then the land itself is their home and bedchamber.

Maus: Part Four

By telling his story as both a direct account of the Holocaust and as a personal narrative of a Jewish family in 1980's New York, Art Spiegelman provided an example of how the experience of European Jews during World War II echoed through several generations. Few Jews of my own generation can claim great grandparents as most of them were too old to survive the concentration camps and ghettos of Nazi rule. This erased not just a generation but an entire history from the lives of millions. Unable to trace their lineage back more than one or two generations, post-war Jews were forced to build new identities from what little they had left. For people like Art Spiegelman, what was left was a family reduced to just a handful of people, all of whom bore the scars of genocide. All of Spiegelman's neuroses, all of his sadness and desperation come with the weight of that unfathomable tragedy.

What's strange is that there's something uniquely shocking about the idea of a generation of Jews who don't have the specter of the Holocaust hanging over them. It occurs to me that the children being born today will grow up with little to no direct contact with survivors. All of the scrapping, paranoia and emotional clinging that stayed with the survivors and were passed down to their children will be so faint for 21st century Jews that they will be able to live mostly free of the greatest threat our people ever endured. This is a blessing above all else, but that doesn't mean that something valuable won't be lost as well. The potency of Holocaust stories is due in part to the human faces attached to them. Perhaps that's why Art Spiegelman insisted on including an actual photograph of his father from the end of the war. It may not be as powerful as sitting with the man himself, but at least we readers can come away from Maus with the image of Vladek Spiegelman himself and not just a representation of him as a cartoon rodent.

The last three chapters of And Here My Troubles Began are shocking not just because of the murderous scramble of the last remaining Nazis but also because of the desperation of the camp prisoners. Especially as the German army pulled out of Poland, abandoning camps like Auschwitz, the Jews were all so sick and hungry that few managed to retain their humanity. Vladek explains how every courtesy extended to him in those final days had to be payed for and just how often he had to fend off thieves and cheats among his own people. This is a part of the Holocaust that is rarely taught. Most narratives don't include the cruelty inflicted on Jews by other Jews, only a vague statement about dehumanization.

Still, there are glimmers of kindness throughout even these darkest moments of Vladek's story. He forms a brief but important friendship with a French prisoner that saves both their lives and partners with various other survivors after the last few dozen prisoners are abandoned to find their way to safety on their own. In the end Vladek is still forced to wander back to Poland alone, but it's clear that he wouldn't have even survived his long bout with typhus or the daily tortures under Nazi guard had it not been for the little moments of tenderness and generosity he encountered along the way.

The Song of Songs (part one)

In the supplementary texts of the Torah called Ketuvim, "Writings", there is a standout scroll called Shir Ha'Shirim, The Song of Songs. It is poem, likely meant to be set to music, that seems a bit odd among all the other clearly religious documents of the Bible. It is not a psalm or the story of any named figures doing something related to Judaism or the kingdom of Israel. Instead, it is a simple love story from the perspective of two common people. Many scholars have attempted to explain its inclusion in the Torah by reading it as an allegory for the sacred bond between God and Israel. It may very well be such a metaphorical piece, but the explanation may be a bit simpler than that.

Before getting into the actual content of The Song of Songs, it's important to understand its history and its structure. The poem has been linguistically dated to 9th century BCE North Kingdom, Israel. It is clearly the product of a writer who was worldly and educated. It not only shows an adeptness with the high literary fashions of the time, such as alliteration and long, complex lines, but it also uses a number of foreign "loan" words. This formatting and style differs greatly from the purely religious texts of the Torah, which are written in straight Toritic Hebrew. The Song of Songs was incredibly popular in its own time and long after. It would have been seen as a great cultural accomplishment for the Hebrew people, a poem that compared favorably to the highly respected Persian verse of the era. This would have been incentive enough to include it in the Torah, the great cultural compendium of Jewish civilization.

The Song of Songs has often been mistakenly attributed to King Solomon, mostly because of the ambiguous phrasing of the full title, Shir Ha'Shirim Asher L'Shlomo, which can translate as "The Song of Songs Which is Solomon's" but could just as easily translate as "The Song of Songs Which is For Solomon". Given that the poem is written in the Northern Israel dialect while Solomon himself was a native ruler from Judah in the south, it makes more sense as a gift or possibly as a critical message to Solomon from someone else.

The format of this poem is somewhat difficult in direct translation. There are two speakers in The Song, one male and one female. They trade lines in no set pattern. Sometimes the man takes one line then the woman takes the next three, while sometimes they alternate evenly. In the Hebrew it's very clear who's speaking, both because Hebrew conjugates verbs and assigns nouns based on gender and because the two lovers refer to one another with two unique designations. The woman refers to the man she loves as Dodi, "My Beloved", while the man refers to the woman he loves as Ra'yati, "My Companion". This naming convention is consistent throughout the poem but it is not a larger linguistic convention. Neither of those pet names are gender specific. Following along with both the Hebrew and English, it is considerably easier to understand what's going on in a given passage with these two words, Dodi and Ra'yati, in mind.

Later we will dive into the story of The Song of Songs by each of its chapters, eight in all. We will be looking at both the secular and religious interpretations of this unique work of scripture.

Maus: Part Three

In the first half of And Here My Troubles Began, the second trade paperback compilation of Art Spiegelman's Maus comic strip, Art depicts himself in the mid 1980's when the first half of his award-winning graphic novel was a remarkably successful property. He's drawn as a human wearing a mouse mask, surrounded by other Americans who wear the animal masks of their ethnic heritages. When beset upon by journalists and marketing executives who all want something extra out of the first Maus book, Art literally shrinks into a child in front of them. Maus is every bit Art Spiegelman's search for own his place in the post-Holocaust world as it is a document of his parents' experience during the war. He wonders aloud whether or not he can actually capture the truth of life and death in Auschwitz, whether or not Maus says anything profound, or even anything that hasn't been said already in the countless books documenting Europe under Nazi rule. The responsibility of finding something meaningful in Maus may be up to us readers, not Art Spiegelman. He just recorded his father's words and tried not to spare any details.

The two aspects of Maus I've found most striking have been the technical schematics scattered throughout the two books and the depth of the depiction of Vladek Spiegelman in his last years. These two things balance each other out. Without Vladek's warts-and-all characterization the diagrams and matter of fact descriptions of things like the Auschwitz gas chambers would have only a fraction of the emotional energy behind them. By the same token, without the technical details Vladek would be just another long-suffering protagonist and not a stand-in for all of the survivors. The flesh of Maus balances the machinery.

Most famous Holocaust narratives put their readers squarely inside the concentration camps, ghettos and hiding places. They don't spend that much time in the before and almost none of them endeavor to reconcile the after. Maus spends at least a third of its time in the after and in doing so it transforms its hero, the survivor Vladek Spiegelman, into a very flawed person. It becomes increasingly clear that some of Vladek's least admirable qualities in the world outside the camps are what kept him alive in Auschwitz. He's a miser, a hoarder and a freeloader. His capacity for kindness puts him and those he loves in danger as often as it saves a life.

As we readers follow Art's experience with his father in the few years he has left, we end up feeling the same frustration Art does. The first two chapters of And Here My Troubles Began take place both in Auschwitz in the 1940's and in a Catskills bungalow community in the 1980's where Vladek retreats after his second wife, Mala, leaves him. Forced to stay several days with Vladek, Art and his wife Francoise are brought to their wits' end. Vladek is a difficult man and even though the book gives us a guided tour through the traumas that cemented his most irritating habits, he's still far from being the irreproachable hero of the story.

This humanization puts a special spin on the Holocaust narrative. It's important to see that the people who survived had full lives after the war. It's the essential piece to the survivor's puzzle. Like for Art Spiegelman, it has been the worry of post-war generations that they could never live up to the strength and accomplishments of those who lived through that darkest period in human history. The image of the Holocaust survivor is a variation on the traditional Greatest Generation ideal. To recognize that these people remained human, that they weren't so transformed by the war that they weren't recognizable as normal people, is arguably just as important as remembering the horrors they experienced so they will never happen again.

David the King: The Last Words of David

There's something jumbled and not quite clear about the last days of King David. The narrative of the Books of Samuel textually ends with Chapter 24, but David's story doesn't conclude until the beginning of the Book of Kings, which is itself a similar and likely contemporary chronicle of the reign of David's successor Solomon. Second Samuel ends at a strange point with David's purchase of a threshing floor in which he plans to build a sacrificial altar just prior to another war with the northern people in Israel. This comes somewhat confusingly a full chapter after the mention of the last words of David. Why is this? Why is David's story divided in such a strange way and why do his last words precede his death so far back in the narrative?

As we've been looking back at the Books of Samuel for the past several months, I have advocated an approach to this text as a profoundly political document. It was written during a time of great social strife and quite a long time after the historical reign of the House of David. Its purpose is to act as both a rough history narrative and as a religious commentary on the nature of leadership. It is deeply rooted in the aims of what can be called a fundamentalist branch of pre-Roman Judaism, a highly moralistic leadership that favored unwavering piety over the intrigues of the wealthy and militarily powerful. These books use David as a champion but are also careful to strip him of any chance of deification by turning him into a sinner. David's is a story meant to humble kings and to discourage anyone from pursuing a crown.

Because the Books of Samuel are so rife with the intentions of those with a particular point of view, the exact history gets fumbled in the politics and the story occasionally gets sloppy. There's almost something hasty about this text, a clear desire to drive home a moral even if doing so makes for a poorly edited narrative. Were David's story a modern one, the last line would almost certainly be his parting words of wisdom, "Ruler over men shall be the righteous". It's such a clean, concise statement that encapsulates all of the trials and triumphs described over the past two books.

Except that the text we have doesn't end that way. Following that pearl of pious leadership, David goes on to name some of his age's people of esteem. They're all military heroes and the family of nobility, 37 names that have, but for a few, never been mentioned before. The whole thing smacks of obligation, either on David's part or on those who compiled his story. Though I doubt it was the intention of the ancient scribes, this hollowness has a special meaning today. David's tragic life is littered with lost loved ones and soured relationships. His power and knack for leadership ultimately ended in the loss of so many loved ones, be they friends, lovers, trusted allies or even his own children. David lists "the mighty men that [he] had" but in these final days of his life he cannot claim to have Saul who was like his father, Jonathan his first true friend, Michal his first wife who saved him from death in his youth, or even Absalom his eldest son.

What kind of life is this that David, perhaps the most exalted king in the Bible, a man whose name carries so much glory that the Christians would take pains to link him with Jesus, has? Is this the sort of life we readers, as Jews or simply as people, should want? Of course not. David's life is a wreck. Though it's not mentioned in Second Samuel, David's very last act is to save his kingdom from yet another one of his over-ambitious sons by naming Solomon the new king. There is no peace for David, only obligation, only strife.

Whatever the compilers of David's story intended with the Books of Samuel, whatever political aim or religious message they hoped to convey, the most enduring aspect of those texts is the ruin power brings into the lives of those who pursue it. If Israel had never demanded a king, if it had remained a place of law and community, perhaps David would have been able to preserve the love in his life. Perhaps the sons of a poor country boy named Saul and a simple shepherd name Jesse could have been lifelong friends and soon family. Perhaps the naturally charismatic Absalom could have been a treasure of his community instead of a power-mad despot willing to kill his father for a crown. David's is the tragedy of glory, the Books of Samuel the tragedy of a society unwilling to take responsibility for itself.

Maus: Part Two

A lot of Holocaust survivor stories come down to a few good snap decisions and a lot of luck. So many people escaped death at the hands of the Nazis because they just happened to avoid getting caught one night or because they made a friend before the war who was willing to help them when the Gestapo came to town. For Vladek Spiegelman, that was exactly the case. The second half of My Father Bleeds History, the first of two trade paperback compilations of Maus, consists of Vladek watching his family dwindle before his eyes as the antisemitic laws in Poland become more ruthless and the Nazi extermination plan becomes more bald-faced.

There's an old saying, "No one really survived the Holocaust". In so many survivor's narratives, there is no jubilation at the end, no feeling of victory. The reality of the experience for so many people was that they had been stripped of their humanity by not just the Nazi party but by whole societies they once called home. Though many of them went on to make new lives, start families and rejoin the human race, the scars they acquired in the ghettos and concentration camps never went away. This is what happened to Anna Spiegelman, Maus writer and artist Art Spiegelman's mother. In 1968 she took her own life, an event Art Spiegelman captured in one of his early comics, Prisoner on the Hell Planet. That comic appears in the middle of Part I of Maus in full.

Anna's suicide puts a fine point on the emotional impact of the Holocaust on those who lived through it. According to Vladek's telling, which is the basis for most of what we see in Maus, Anna barely made it out of the war as it was. She shows early signs of mental breakdown as she and Vladek escape from town to town, hiding in the forests, barns and coal-filled basements of Poland in the year prior to being captured and sent to the Auschwitz death camp. Before Anna and Vladek are caught by the Gestapo they experience the killing or capture of their parents, siblings, cousins and even their son Richieu. At the moment when they learn of their son's death, Vladek speaks the lines that best capture the essence of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust: "To die, it's easy. But you have to struggle for your life! Until the very last moment we must struggle together."

Also running through the narrative of Maus is the natural end of Vladek's life several years later in New York. He suffers from heart disease and the very same stubborn, stingy attitude that helped him survive the war. Interwoven in Vladek's harrowing story of survival is Art's own search for the last vestiges of his mother's existence. He begs his father for Anna's journals and tries to connect with his step mother Mala. Art Spiegelman certainly did record a very detailed, important account of the Holocaust, but he also made sure to include the fact that there's so much more that was lost and will never be recovered.

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