In class, we discussed the way in which Art Spiegelman played off of Nazi racial theory in his choice to depict Jewish characters as mice and Nazi characters as cats. How else does he thematize race and ethnicity and, particularly, what Ian Haney-Lopez called "the social construction of race" in the essay you read for class? How does the image that opens Book II of Maus, Art's notebook filled with sketches of his wife Francoise as a mouse, a frog, a French poodle, and a moose, provide a commentary on racial thinking? What can we make of the use of masking in Book II as it relates to the same topic?
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