Disconnect
Vladek seems cynical throughout the story, however you could also look at his character as a sort of conscience. There is a part in the story where Art is crying over his friends leaving him. Vladek's response although at first seemed insensitive, was actually more of a moral or lesson, he was trying to make Art understand and learn from his experience. You could say in some cases that he is terse, or rather unwilling to change his ways. Vladek's relationship with Art is complicated due to what the Holocaust did to his fathers overall personality. Art feels a constant disconnect to his father, which may possible come off as selfishness or rather more inconsiderate. Here in this way however, I think that as a reader we feel for Art. Some of us can connect to the ideas of not understanding our parents or visa versa.
Spiegelman does a great job of removing the reader from the characters found in the novel. By making them mice with no more than a mouth, nose and whiskers, Spiegelman creates anonymous people whom the reader can not fully identify with. There is a distance between the reader and the actual events of the story.
When I read a normal novel I find myself making up the visuals of the story in my head. Connecting and becoming a part of the characters so much so that it is hard for me to leave the story behind afterwards. I think that with the "cartoons" the reader is unable to visualize anything but the depictions of the characters. Whether they be mice, pigs, or cats, as a human reading the story it becomes more difficult to identify with the characters.
Art, also a mouse in the story is equally unable to completely connect, identify or agree with what his father says and does. His view, constantly affected by his fathers stories of the Holocaust, is tainted however will still not fully allow him to understand what Vladek went through. I think that Art experiences feelings of frustration that he cant control. And that his understanding and patience with his father wains throughout the novel.
