Richard Hooker’s theology, especially his recognition of eternal law, his concern for freedom of choice, his defence of liturgical forms and ceremonies and the concept of adiaphora, things indifferent as expressed in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity supported the distinctiveness of Anglicanism but also offered incidental support to the art form of drama as expressed on the Elizabethan stage. In the play, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare the ideas that Hooker puts forth in defence of Anglican forms and traditions and his opposition to Puritanism is evidenced in the dramatic aspects of character, dialogue and plot.

Anglicanism owes its unique character to the way in which the Protestant Reformation unfolded in England. Its theological development can be traced through its relationship to the arts. The seeds of Reformation had already appeared in the middle ages, in people like the English scholastic, John Wycliffe, but it took developments in Rome to spark a revolt, beginning first on the continent. Many scholars point to the theology of the late middle ages as a a catalyst for the Reformation, because the focus had switched from faith and reason to absolute power in the papacy. The Italian Renaissance may have also indirectly ushered in the Protestant Reformation due to corruption, as in the sale of indulgences as a means of paying for St. Peter’s in Rome. It was the perfect storm of teachings on infallible authority and corrupt religious practises that made the Reformation inevitable. While Italy responded by embracing Humanism, demonstrated by the works of Michelangelo which celebrate the beauty of the human form, those in Northern Countries returned to the Scriptures. Statuary and paintings in churches came to be associated with the the corruption of Rome. Most imagery in Churches on the continent was destroyed or hidden in response to the Second Commandment “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:4). Iconoclasm did occur in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI but efforts to rid the Church of “popery” were interrupted by Queen Mary’s ascension to the throne. It was her attempt to abort the effort to reform the Church by returning it to Roman Catholicism, that may have contributed significantly to the formation of the English Church as it came to be known in the time of Hooker and Shakespeare. Peter Marshall suggests that “the frequent shifts and turns in government religious policy in the sixteenth century must have confused and disoriented people,” not really knowing whether they were Catholics or Protestants or something in between. The reign of Elizabeth I was a period of stability in the Church, but its retention of the episcopal system, clergy, cathedrals not to mention a rich liturgical and musical tradition, made it seem as though the English Reformation was a “myth that did not really happen.” It was out of this unique compromise between Catholic forms and Protestant faith that the English Renaissance emerged. While anthropomorphic religious imagery was still suppressed in the English Church, similar to the Protestant churcheson the continent, the traditions of music, drama and poetry were allowed to flourish.

Just as Richard Hooker endeavoured to delineate the purpose of Scripture as separatefrom human reason, Elizabeth I moved to separate religious content from the theatre. She issued proclamation in 1559 “against plays that featured matters of religion.” The primary purpose behind the proclamation was likely to keep the peace, but this mandated separation also unintentionally initiated the start of professional theatre in England. The law concerning religious controversy may also have been the catalyst for Shakespeare setting his plays in the Mediterranean, especially. Italy. There was safety from authorities by making the setting foreign. The gods of ancient Greece and Rome are often called upon in Shakespeare’s plays, another side-effect of avoiding religion on the stage. In The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker draws on an example from ancient Greece in order to illustrate the intersection between Natural agents and Voluntary agents, deliberately reinforcing the Thomist influence in his formulation of Eternal Law. He viewed the creation of art as a human activity dependent upon the law of nature and therefore part of his understanding of Eternal Law. He states that “the same thing happens in nature as in art. If Phidias had unyielding and obstinate stone from which to carve, however great his skill may be, his work will lack beauty which it might have had if it had been more pliant.” When Hooker references Phidias, he is also honouring a tradition that ironically had its rebirth in the Italian Renaissance. Although the ancient glory of Greece and Rome is often celebrated as the human achievement of a Classical age, Hooker views this as a path to humility before God. The law that comes naturally to the created world, requires human beings to apply reason as they discover their own laws. Hooker saw a way to salvation that was not solely dependent on Scripture and did “not exclude philosophy, art, or science.” While he could, as a Churchman with authority, offer his rebuttal to the Puritans through formal discourse, Shakespeare as an artist, was required to find both nuanced and entertaining means to communicate views that were compatible with Hooker’s.

Shakespeare’s art for the stage, while valued by the Elizabethans for its entertainment value, reinforced themes and ideas that were compatible with Hooker’s theology. Elizabeth Cohen, in her essay, “The Visible Solemnity: Ceremony and Order in Shakespeare,” focuses on the evidence presented in Shakespeare’s History plays, Richard II, and 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V. She points out that Samuel Johnson affirmed that Shakespeare looked to Hooker for Ulysses’ statement on order in his play, Troilus and Cressida. Cohen offers evidence that these plays have a political purpose, focusing on the role of the monarch. Although Hooker presents The Laws as a theological work, one can discern that a defence of the monarchy may be the subtext. Hooker could clearly see that the Puritan threat to the liturgy, structure and ecclesiastical orders of the established Anglican Church would eventually lead to a threat to the monarchy itself. Although this could be characterised as political, it is important to note that this was in defence of Elizabeth, anointed by God to reign. In his history plays, Shakespeare “dramatises the struggle between the law and the lawless, and he does so in large measure through the characters’ attitudes toward ritual and authority.” Besides upholding the consecrated position held by the King, Shakespeare actively criticises the Puritans through the development of characters, such as Falstaff; however, this does not suggest that the character was developed as a stereotype any more than Malvolio in Twelfth Night, which will be discussed later. The characters are both tragic figures solely because of Shakespeare’s skill and brilliance as a dramatist. However for Richard Hooker, the Puritans were an ambitious faction who posed a threat to the Monarch, the established Church, and human freedom in society. Hooker’s problem with Puritans was that they were “turning insurrection into religion.” They were motivated by self gain, not religious conviction. The society that they envisioned for England was bleak, a theocracy devoid of decency, beauty or reason.

The Puritans were hostile to the theatre. They objected to plays for the same reason they objected to the liturgies in the Church of England, believing them to be “fraught with popish ceremonies.” They believed that the theatre experience would remind people of Roman Catholicism, and that being reminded, they would easily succumb to ungodly living. It is important to keep in mind that their first target during an earlier era in the Reformation, was the Mystery Plays which were amateur productions, developed locally in towns like York, Wakefield (Towneley) and Chester and were vestiges of the old religion. One would think that the Mystery Plays which depicted, for the most part, scenes from the Bible may have found some acceptance among Puritans, since they believed that the bible was altogether sufficient for salvation. However, it was not the content of the plays, but the delivery that was most objectionable. In modern times we think of plays first as literature, but this was not the case for the mystery plays or for the plays of the Elizabethan playwrights. Plays were performed often decades before they were ever published, so there was no literary component. Largely, it was the visual that the Puritans despised, as Anthony Munday warned, “There cometh much evil in at the ears,” “but more at the eyes; by these two open windows death breath into the soul.” Hooker, by contrast, identifies the eye “as the most active and receptive of all our senses, the organ by which to best make a deep and lasting impression.” There is no moral danger in looking because Hooker believed in the essential goodness of human beings, who through the use of reason, were capable of discernment. He directs this statement in support of the Anglican liturgies, ceremonies and vestments, but this also applies by extension to the theatre. Spectacle was an important component for the Mystery Plays, but as their productions waned during the Elizabethan era, the Puritans focused their attention on the burgeoning commercial theatre, that was urban and more sophisticated. Their clamour for innovation was really a wish for a theocracy that restricted religious belief and cultural expression. Russell Fraser believed that these reformers reserved the “fiercest hatred for the drama,” but this antipathy “extended progressively to cover and interdict all forms of art as the impulse [grew] to apprehend the kernel of things.” Hooker would have identified this “kernel” as “distinctive mode of human striving toward God.” He recognised that the Puritans were a threat, not only to Anglicanism and the Monarchy but also to freedom and life. Their wholesale rejection of “right reason” as means of exercising one’s conscious made them a dangerous cohort. Human beings by their very nature relied on “the light of reason so that they know truth from falsehood and good from evil.” For all their efforts to “liberate” the English from the ceremonies and structures of the Roman Church and eliminate expressions of culture and art, the Puritans’ efforts were an attempt to enslave rather than free human beings.

The Puritans had every reason to fear the theatre during the Elizabethan period, given the power of visual culture, ritual and acting. The Proclamation of 1559, which censored and restricted religious content in plays, forced dramatists like Shakespeare to find ways of expressing, in textual terms, ideas about politics and religion in subliminal ways. Of course, the Puritans would have described their efforts as insidious. Restrictions on arts and culture has often had a counter-intuitive effect, usually encouraging innovation and creativity, and the same could also be said about religious expression. Perhaps it is an indication of the way that human beings, as voluntary agents who search for the good, continue to express themselves and look formeaning in their world. The destruction of images in the Reformation guaranteed that art would emerge in some other form in the Elizabethan era. The rise of the secular commercial theatre proved to be difficult to eradicate because it was not something that could be burned, smashed or destroyed like artworks or religious texts. It had popularity and economic clout, and had official approval, which gave it some immunity from the Puritans’ wrath. The strong ritual component of theatre meant that it was accused of being like the Catholic Mass. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the Mass resembled the pre-Christian Classical dramatic forms of the Greco-Roman world. For example, William Shakespeare may have been a secular dramatist but he had a classical and religious education that influenced the theatre he created and inspired. He was educated in English using the Book of Common Prayer, but he also understood Latin, the language of the Catholic Mass, as well as that of Virgil and Cicero. England was a culture in transition, made more bearable because of the retention of “things indifferent,” which Hooker defends in The Laws, Book IV. Ritual in the theatre experience and likewise, in the ceremony of the Church was “an enhanced level of consciousness, a memorable insight into the nature of existence, a renewal of strength in the individual to face the world. It was both cathartic and had a eucharistic or sacramental element to it. Since the experience required impersonation through acting, it was considered a deception by the Puritans and therefore by its very nature, it was deemed an immoral activity. The Puritans may not have fully understood the power of drama because if they had, they would not have attacked it simply on religious grounds. Human beings have always engaged in storytelling in order to understand themselves, their relationships and culture. The Elizabethan Theatre was a celebration and exploration of ideas where the “general and perpetual voice of mankind” could be heard. The impact for audience members was emotional, mental but also spiritual. From their writings, it seems that those who opposed both Catholic traditions retained by the Anglican Church as well as the theatre may have only understood things on a superficial level. They were preoccupied with appearances in the same way that their approach to biblical texts was literal. If they had been able to look beyond “signs to causes,” in their own religious beliefs “at the root of the error,” they would not have been advocating for extreme reforms in the Church or the closing of theatres. Many of Shakespeare’s plays, including the history plays that have already been discussed, have subtle theological, political and religious connotations. That cannot be said for his play, Twelfth Night, which directly challenges the Puritans and their beliefs on a variety of levels.

Twelfth Night, written by William Shakespeare, is believed to have been written around 1601—1602 and was performed at the Feast of the Epiphany before Elizabeth I. The power of comedy is deceptive, because on the surface it is entertaining, engaging an audience in laughter but underneath serious issues and ideas are being explored and analysed. Many Puritan tracts were written condemning laughter and comedy. It is the collective experience in the theatre, of an audience viewing the players, that makes theatre even possible. Then as now, drama had a theological and political dimension that either reasserted or undermined “the code of conduct of a given society.” Shakespeare’s audience was not preached to but they were certainly invited to think about what they were seeing, hearing and experiencing in the company of others. It was an engaging and dynamic experience and therefore according to the Puritans, did not fulfil the functions of recreation. To begin with, the title of the play itself would have been an affront to the Puritans, since it marks a traditionally Catholic Festival, the end of the Christmas Season. A Festival, although a thing indifferent and therefore retained under the English crown, was a reminder of the Roman Catholic past. It is associated with carnival— “namely, emphasis on food, drink and sex, inversion of social roles, the taking time off work and the honouring of a saint.” Puritans would have felt equal amounts of disgust for theological reasons as well as economic ones. Festivals diverted people from their work, and instead encouraged “loitering and vain pastimes, and in refraining men from their handy labours and occupations.” Perhaps this attitude could also be explained by their own covetousness, since as Hooker pointed out, “they did not get the richest things and they often said as much.” For example, Stephen Gosson, a former dramatist, who wrote The School of Abuse, may have criticised the theatre because of his own limited ability. When he produced plays, they were doctrinal and manipulative, conforming with his distrust of audience members to think of their own accord. Other historical evidence of tracts and activities suggest that the Puritans’ motivation for opposition to the things indifferent in both the Church and in culture may have had more to do with social and economic disadvantages than with religious conviction.

In Twelfth Night, Malvolio, who is identified as “a kind of Puritan” is the most obvious challenge that Shakespeare offers in opposition to the Puritans. (II.iv. 126) The name, Malvolio, like some others in the play, such as “Sir Andrew Aguecheek” and “Sir Toby Belch,” are a commentary on his character, “Mal” referring to evil or bad. He is branded in the play from the beginning as someone who is outside of this society. Olivia, the aristocrat who employs him tells him that he is “sick of self-love” and “taste with a distempered appetite.” (I.v.82) He interrupts the festivities of Olivia’s uncle and his guest, and threatens to evict the uncle: “If you can separate yourself from your misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house. ” (II.iii.88-89) He patrols the morality of those under Olivia’s roof as though he owns the place himself. His misplaced ownership of Olivia’s household is easily taken advantage of when Maria, the housemaid, through the use of a letter, tricks him into believing that Olivia desires him. Shakespeare uses the character of Malvolio to ridicule the moral weakness of the Puritans. He is a character who has more belief in the Chance of finding a letter, than in God. (II.v.159) Not God but “Jove makes [him] thankful.” (III.iv.69) His attraction to Olivia “is not so much to her person as to her riches” While there is discretion with most visual elements in Shakespeare’s plays, in Twelfth Night, Malvolio’s costume of “yellow stockings” being “cross-gartered,” is specifically mentioned in the dialogue. Elizabeth I who enjoyed the debut of this play, “disliked the colour yellow because it appeared in the flag of Spain.” As well, cross-gartering was apparently a fashion favoured at the beginning of the seventeenth century with “old men and Puritans.” Hooker addresses the Puritans and sometimes goes as far as dismissing them, “our opponents say that our conformity gives Rome occasion to blaspheme…This hardly deserves a response.” However Shakespeare chooses to elicit pity for Malvolio by holding him up for ridicule. By allowing other characters to victimise him, Shakespeare exposes the Puritan weakness for material gain and their lack of religious conviction. By making Malvolio an object of shame, he publicly emasculates their power.

The character of Feste functions in Twelfth Night as much more than simply entertainment, even though he is identified as a clown. The name of the character, as in the case of Malvolio, relates directly to the title of the play itself. Feste is derived from “Festival” and therefore connected to the Feast days that were offensive to the Puritans. Feste is the only character who frequently speaks directly of God or his saints. For example, he mentions St. Anne when confronted by Malvolio’s threats (II.iii.106) He has a comedic catechetical debate with his employer, Olivia, for mourning a brother that she knows is in heaven. (I.v.56-64). Olivia is not praying or mourning of her brother’s soul in purgatory. Only heaven or hell are the options here, which makes this an Anglican discussion. As well, Feste routinely refers to both Olivia and the other servant, Maria, as “madonna,” whose name is also a reminder of a Catholic heritage. Shakespeare is reminding his audience that these things that are indifferent are part of the Anglican tradition. Similarly, Hooker reminds the English that the ceremonies taken from their predecessors “are ancient rites and customs of the Church of Christ” that are not exclusively Roman but belong to them too. Feste’s impersonation of Sir Topas, the curate, comes dangerously close to breaching the Royal Proclamation against religious content. This deception is usually played for comic effect, which contrasts with the weight of Feste’s counsel for Malvolio: “I say that there is no darkness but ignorance.” (IV.ii.39-40) Feste catechises Malvolio as he did Olivia earlier in the play. The character of Viola/Cesario observes that Feste “is wise enough to play the fool.”(III.1.57) In the tradition of the last day of Christmas, which was about reversals and illusions, the character of Feste only appears to be an entertainer, in the same way that theatre appears to amuse. Viola truly sees his facade, largely because of her own.

The plot that involves a love triangle between Viola, Olivia and Duke Orsino would have been highly offensive to Puritan sensibilities. In the drama, Viola, who is twin to her brother, Sebastian, conceals her gender and identity. The Puritans thought that plays by their very nature promoted “hypocrisy and deceit,” “luring people into thinking a man is someone else.” It becomes even more complicated on the Elizabethan stage since women were not allowed to act; the role of Cesario required a young male to play a woman who in turn plays a man. The convention of males wearing female attire was also unacceptable to Puritans because of “the Biblical injunction against men putting on women’s clothing.” Both Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian are saved from the storm that takes place before Twelfth Night unfolds. In the opinion of Maurice Hunt “along with the salt waves and tempests, the Anglican God as defined by Hooker, realises his Providence through the agency of time, which Viola chiefly trusts to work her happiness.” Viola’s happiness is fulfilled at the end when she reveals her true identity. In the play, the Duke has really fallen in love with Cesario. His attraction to Cesario is seamlessly transferred to Viola in Act V, when he discovers the deception. Perhaps Duke Orsino’s pansexuality could be interpreted as Shakespeare’s provocative response to Puritan hysteria over the “inducement to sodomy” on the Elizabethan stage.

Richard Hooker’s teaching of Eternal Law offered Elizabethans an expansive view ofhumankind within the natural world of God, in contrast to the Puritan’s restrictive and warped view that would use Scripture to limit human freedom. Hooker’s doctrine of adiaphora went beyond a defence of Anglican ceremonies and ecclesiastical polity, “recognising that its denial erodes not merely institutional liberty, but individual liberty as well.” The Puritan’s disdain for ritual and ceremony retained in the Anglican Church after the Reformation, extended to the next nearest target which was the theatre. In spite of their best efforts to weaken the Church and eliminate the arts, the natural human need for beauty, as a thing indifferent, continued to enrich the practice of faith in the Anglican Church, and engender freedom of expression in the theatre.

The Complete Maus// Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (Vol. I and II) is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman that chronicles his father’s experiences as a Holocaust survivor. The historic storyline runs both behind and parallel to a contemporary narrative, which features the relationship between Vladek, Spiegelman’s father, and himself. The Holocaust is an historical event of human depravity and suffering but it was also a critical moment for the human spirit. Everything was literally stripped from the inmates at the camps; only their humanity remained. As a subject, the Holocaust continues to inspire both literary works and art works. It is important to remember the past, but it is equally important to recognize the lessons taught to us, vicariously, through the victims, in contemporary times. Viktor Frankl referred to the concentration camps as a “living laboratory” and “testing ground.” Many survivors, like Frankl, endured and transcended their surroundings. In Maus: a survivors tale, Vladek Spiegelman endured only to become a permanent psychological prisoner of the death camp experience. The features in the novel that will be discussed include character design and convention as well as identity, relationship, survival, and loss.

One important feature of the novel is the way in which Spiegelman renders his characters according to ethnicity but also according to religious affliliation. Goebels, who was the minister of propaganda for the Nazis, often referred to the Jews as vermin, which may have influenced Spiegelman’s design decision in the novel. Spiegelman uses the convention of depicting the Jews as mice, which are often referred to as vermin. It follows, then, that the Nazis would be cats, which are natural predators of mice. Poles are depicted as swine, the French as frogs and Black people as dogs. On the surface this convention would normally be whimsical and childish, but the juxtaposition of the sections of brutal narrative against the anthropomorphic animals heightens the reader’s sense of horror. At the beginning of Volume I, there is a quotation from Adolf Hitler: “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.” Spiegelman’s design is, in part, his response to this quotation, and to the denunciation of Mickey Mouse. By giving the animals human-like qualities, he is making a link to the instinctual basic needs of all animals, including human ones. It is the same basic need that forces Vladek to play out his camp experience later on in life. Spiegelman uses a system of classification for his characters but there are no stereotypes. Some, like the German guard who greets Vladek with “Guten morgan!” is regarded as having “even a little heart.” Spiegelman also uses animal ‘masks’ as a means of representing the idea of disguise. He depicts Vladek using a pig mask in order to conceal his Jewish identity. We are told that Anja cannot easily disguise her Jewishness, and in this case Spiegelman draws her with a tail. Later in the narrative, Vladek offers racist comments when Anja picks up a hitchhiker, who is depicted as a Black dog. This incident demonstrates that Vladek has not been able to reflect on or learn from the Holocaust experience when he was the target of racism.

Vladek’s identity as a Jew is subverted by his personality as a businessman. During his incarceration in the camps, he comes to rely on his practical intelligence as a means of survival. At one point in the novel, Art, in exasperation, says to Mala, his second wife, “In some ways he’s just like the racist caricature of the miserly old Jew.” Miserliness is his heuristic. There are indications that Vladek may not have always placed so much emphasis on his own abilities alone. He has a religious background. When he returns to his parents’ home, his father is depicted in the novel as wearing a yarmulke. Vladek notes that his father is not wearing a beard: “Your beard! What happened? You shaved it off? At the beginning of the novel, when he is a prisoner of war he tells his son that “everyday we prayed. I was very religious and it wasn’t else to do.” Until the end of the narrative there is no evidence of a religious identity when Vladek tells Spiegelman “It was crying and praying.” His praying seems to be more of fetish than a sincere desire to relate to God or ask for deliverance. Vladek’s own success at navigating the inhuman system in which he finds himself, helps to preserve and reinforce his hope. It gives him the illusion that he is in control. Vladek likes order and admires the Germans for that. He tells his son that “This the Germans did very good…Always they did everything systematic.” Unlike Job, there is no spiritual transformation for Vladek. He endures suffering but this never seems to break him and he never gives up control. He continues to negotiate even as he is being carried to the trains for deliverance. Vladek is a victim who somehow, through the world he constructs around himself, never completely accepts his plight. He builds a “hedge” around himself that is never really challenged, only reinforced by his own natural abilities and luck. The trauma he experiences fortifies this barrier, making Vladek distrustful of others, including those who are closest to him.

It is necessary to address the identity of Art in this discussion, as well. Art Spiegelman, whose lens we rely on for this story, is a “‘memorial candle’ to those who did not survive.” As a child of survivors of the Holocaust, he was expected to live for those who were deprived of education and whose lives were cut short in the Nazi death camps. He does not meet those expectations. Spiegelman sometimes depicts himself as a child, even as he anticipates fatherhood. It is only through the interaction with his psychiatrist that he graphically grows into an adult within three separate frames. Spiegelman is struggling with his own sense of failure, of not living up to his parents’ expectations. He is confronted with the photograph of his dead brother, Richieu, of whom his parents never speak. He admits that the photograph “was a kind of reproach.” As a ‘memorial candle,’ Spiegelman appears to have rebelled against the expectations placed upon him by becoming an artist. It is an area that he does not need to compete with his father.16 On the surface, Spiegelman seems to be so different from his father, but one cannot help but wonder about the purity of his motives for interviewing Vladek. Similar to Vladek, Speigelman is an opportunist. His motives may be as much for psychological reasons as monetary, but they are still about self-interest. He engages with his father only insomuch as it benefits him directly. Two years have lapsed before the interviews begin. Spiegelman is not above lying to his father regarding material that will be included in the graphic novel. Later, when Mala abandons Vladek, Spiegelman visits reluctantly, motivated by his need to learn more about the Auschwitz experience. This is not to suggest that he is a bad person, anymore than his father is. They are dealing with trauma in the best way they know how.

Vladek is introduced as someone who puts his own needs first. Spiegelman begins his graphic novel with a section devoted to Vladek’s love relationships. Lucia Greenberg, who is involved for four years with Vladek, satisfies his emotional and sexual needs; however he remains uncommitted: “her family was nice, but had no money, even for a dowry.” Anja Zylberberg, on the other hand, is educated and comes from a wealthy family. This satisfies Vladek’s need for social status and financial security. Spiegelman includes this material because it sets a tone for the way his father survives the Holocaust and thereafter, continues to live his life. In contrast to Viktor Frankl, Vladek dispassionately watches as Anja’s parents are taken by the Nazis, and reflects that his father-in-law “was a millionaire, but even this didn’t save his life.”While Frankl could have avoided the camps, he chose to remain with his aging parents to fulfil his duty of honouring his father and mother. This is not to suggest that Vladek is unfeeling. There are moments in this narrative when he shows compassion for others. The most striking example is his concern for Mandelbaum. He risks a business relationship with the Kapo by making a request for Mandelbaum, for an “extra pair of shoe, a belt and a spoon.” Mandelbaum recognizes that Vladek is God’s instrument in this situation. Juxtaposed to this story, Vladek says that “Newcomers were afraid of me. I looked like a big shot and the Kapo kept me close.” Vladek shows concern for Mandelbaum but he is also motivated by his own sense of power within the concentration camp. Vladek has the power to bestow gifts on Mandelbaum. It is important to maintain this power, since Vladek does not trust anyone. His relationship with his wife is one of power and control. Even before they are married, he thinks nothing of invading her privacy by going to her closet and recording the types of pills she is taking. In the camp, he counsels Anja, “Don’t worry about your friends. Believe me they don’t worry about you.” Anja’s friends prove Vladek wrong; they do worry about her and protect her when her life is at stake. Their concern for her is inconsistent with the way Vladek views his own relationships. This does not change Vladek’s own moral outlook as he is depicted in the contemporary timeline with Spiegelman. Throughout the narrative, one never gets a sense of suffering from Vladek. The camp experience is a challenge to his intellect and business acumen. He comes out of this experience of extreme privation with an over inflated confidence in his own abilities and a reinforced belief that he is in control.

Vladek Spiegelman believed that his survival was based on his ability to use his knowledge and skills to satisfy the need for food and personal security. When he entered the camp “the necessary protective shell,” that Viktor Frankl writes about, was already being formed. There is no evidence in this graphic novel that Vladek wrestles with an understanding of God in the way that Elie Wiesel, who was an observant Jew, does when he writes in Night, “Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent.” Moments of transcendence are not possible for Vladek as his religious beliefs seem rooted in magical thinking and superstition. In Maus: a survivor’s tale, there is no evidence of spiritual depth. When Vladek first arrives at the camp, a Polish Catholic priest comforts him by telling him that the number he has been tattooed with is 18 or “‘Chai,” the Hebrew number of Life.” This encounter gives him reason to believe that he will live. His dreams just happen to come true, so he comes to believe in them, as well. Frankl writes about a block warden who confided to him a dream that the war would be over by March 30th and as this did not come to pass, he was dead from typhus by March 31st Vladek gave external control to signs and dreams but this was never a guarantee of survival. It gave him hope but precluded any possibility of transcendence.

The loss of Anja looms large over this narrative. She is the one who survives to eventually take her own life. Frankl writes that “the thought of suicide was entertained by nearly everyone.” This is also true of Anja when she writes to Vladek “Each day I think to run into the electric wires and finish everything.” One gets a sense that Anja’s life was a difficult one after the concentration camp experience. Primarily, there is the loss of her first son, Richieu during the war. Spiegelman tells Mala that when he needed school supplies “his mother would have to plead and argue for weeks before he’d cough up any dough.” Vladek was paralyzed by the trauma of the camps. This behaviour became normative for him and “the threat of annihilation that defined the traumatic experience” continued to pursue him long after the danger was past. Vladek had acompulsive need that went beyond thrift and modest living. It is shocking, therefore, when we learn that he has burned Anja’s notebooks and has thrown away his son’s coat. The burning of Anja’s books is not depicted in the novel, but the incident with the coat occurs during Spiegelman’s first interview with his father. The burning of Anja’s books is reminiscent of the camp experience, where the Jews were gassed and then burned in the crematorium. In fact when Spiegelman learns what his father has done, he calls him a “murderer.” The incident with the coat is similar to the story that Vladek relates about receiving a new uniform with leather shoes. Incredibly, he is a prisoner in a concentration camp and what he remembers is looking “like a million!”Vladek is compelled to gain control and create external order to compensate for loss and for an existential feeling of emptiness. It is the only way that the universe makes sense to him.

It is fitting that Art Spiegelman’s design convention reflects the type of activity his father engaged in. For Vladek, it really was a cat and mouse game. He is depicted in the graphic novel as very human and therefore, very flawed. Victims of the Holocaust, like Vladek, deserved life, not because of moral superiority but because of their basic humanity. This terrible experience was Vladek’s primer for life and reflected an attempt to master, however unsuccessfully, a traumatic and horrifying event.

Resources

Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 1959.

Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

Spiegelman, Art. The Complete Maus//Maus: a survivor’s tale (Vol. I-II). New York: Pantheon Books, 2011.

Stoeber, Michael. “Spirituality and Suffering: The Book of Job.” Lecture. Regis College, Toronto, January 30, 2019.

The Holocaust Chronicle. Editor: David Aretha. Illinois: Legacy Publishing, 2009.

Wiesel, Elie. Night, trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.

Zaphir-Chasman, Edit. “Art Therapy from a Jewish Perspective” in Mimi Farelly-Hansen, Spirituality and Art Therapy. Philidelphia: Jessica Kingley Publishers, 2001.

Being human, by nature, is a creative state of existence. Creativity can lead us to God or away from God. In an effort to determine who we are before God, we construct a framework of understanding. This framework is at once a perfectly human thing to do and a very dangerous enterprise. It is a danger to self and to the wider community, and has in the distant and recent past led to oppression and genocide. In the Scriptures, this framework takes the form of language, which actually has its origins in pictorial form. There is great beauty in words and images but also potential for misunderstanding. The prohibition against images and the exclusive use of language in Judaism, Islam and Protestantism did not and has not prevented schism and violence since even “language is never precise and always ambiguous.” 1 This is what might be called a conundrum; in our efforts to approach God, we inadvertently distance ourselves from him. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ identification with the Father is understood as idolatry when it is just the opposite of that. He is the pattern of what a relationship with God should be.

The language in this Gospel, which in the past has presented a narrow, sectarian view of Christian faith, is better understood in a postmodern context.2 Postmodernism validates the experience of the writer, the artist, or the viewer. Paradoxically, the subjectivity of postmodernism gives way to universal truth. For example, if we consider a group of people creating a sketch from a living subject, each artwork will be different. Each person sees and creates through the lens of his own experience and emotions, and there is validity in each interpretation. People can also differentiate between their own work and the living subject. The creation only functions as a reflection on the experience of the subject. No one would mistake the reflection for the real thing; however, with regard to God, this is exactly what humans often do. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, demonstrates that “there is no gap between the creation and the Creator” except of our own making.3 A postmodern reading of the Gospel of John rejects a misconceived objectivity in favour of an awareness of subjectivity.4 Jesus uses the words, way, truth, life and light as metaphors for himself. That self is the “I AM”, that is God. Through a postmodern approach to the Gospel of John, Jesus can be understood as the way, the truth, the life, and the light.

When Jesus speaks of the way, he is talking about recognizing God. The way is not a particular religion or ideology. Religion is only a method of worship but it is not definitive. Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well that “the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” (John 4:21) He could also have included Rome or Mecca in this list. To those who make a fetish of religion and feel that they have a monopoly on the truth, this is disturbing news; however, it is just as disturbing to those in contemporary times who sometimes feel adrift. Humans crave certainty; it is one of our serious flaws because it makes us needy. Jesus is throwing all of it into question, so those who have been truly faithful will be left in uncertainty. It is important to note with whom he shares this information. Jesus, a Jewish male chooses to freely interact with a woman who is also an enemy. In the context of first century Palestine, this conversation should not be taking place at all. Jesus does not distinguish her from anyone else, because he “sees beyond gender and ethnicity.”5 For God such divisions do not exist because God sees beyond the superficial self. Jesus is the way that allows us to meet God face to face. The form that religion takes can never be mistaken for its function. That function can only be achieved through trust, just as the Israelites trusted God to lead them through the desert: “The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them alongthe way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light.” (Exodus 14:21) God was in the pillar but not the pillar itself. The way is walking by faith. Those who crave certainty also crave spiritual death and they make an idol of religion. A postmodern approach to understanding what Jesus means by the way, does not suggest that people should embrace Relativism. Humans need spiritual practices but “true religion is a means to an end, a vehicle for God-realisation, not a path to institutional piety.”6

Jesus refers to himself as the truth. This does not refer to creeds or dogma, nor is it about any historical fact. Jesus also uses the actual word as something outside of himself. He associates truth with “spirit” and “worship.” For example, Jesus states that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) Truth in this context is a way that one approaches God. Worship is only possible when we recognize our true selves in God. In the same way, Jesus’ disciples must also accept the truth of Jesus’ origins in a way that goes beyond heredity. Jesus states that he has “come down from heaven,” to which his disciples respond “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” (John 6:42) Jesus’ disciples derive a sense of stability and comfort from this enquiry. The truth of Jesus is something that goes beyond familial bonds and it extends beyond his Jewishness. At the same time, it is not a denial of his humanity. The truth, that is Jesus, is to be found in the “true self by grasping his life and death.”7 The life that we see in him is perfectly human. He is “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” to the point that he weeps in sympathy with Mary and the Jews who are mourning with her for Lazarus. (John 11:33-35) Jesus knows what the outcome will be, that Lazarus will be raised from the dead. Jesus brings the very human, universal experience of physical suffering and death into the presence of God. When Jesus weeps, it is God weeping in communion with human kind. This is not a simulation of emotion no more than the crucifixion is a simulation of death. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ crucifixion is the most critical place that God meets us face to face. Jesus says of his life “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 10:17) God transcends any power that impinges on mortal life. Jesus chisels away at the power of death by his free acceptance of it.

Jesus says that he is the life. This declaration is perhaps the most revealing for some and difficult for others because God is the sole source of life. Jesus promises eternal life, which is a “conscious awareness of God” in the present and “not life in the world to come.”8 He refers to himself as the “bread of life.” (John 6:35) Bread was and still is a staple that is basic to human sustenance. (In some cultures, such as the Calabria region of Italy, the word for bread is used as a metaphor for someone who is virtuous.) Jesus is saying that the life that is “a manifestation of God” continually depends on God without interference or interpretation. 9 It is not enough that “the breath of life” came from God at the beginning of the world.” (Genesis 2:7) By conflating“bread” and “life,” Jesus is saying that living with God is not extraordinary, and that it is essential to human existence. For Jews then as now, blood was prohibitive, “for the blood is the life” itself. (Deut. 12:23) The removal of blood was required for meat to be kosher. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus states “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood you have no life in you,” he is not referring to the Eucharist. (John 6:53) This declaration is startling to his listeners on two counts: the consumption of any blood is prohibitive, and cannibalism is considered a terrible evil. Jesus is speaking about an apocalyptic time that is referenced in the (Deut. 28:53-57, Jer. 19:9, Lam. 2:20 and 4:10, Ezek. 5:10) As the gospel was written between 90 and 100 C.E., John is referencing a past event, but the horrors of the Roman invasion in the first century C.E. are echoed throughout Jewish history. The flesh that Jesus refers to is spirit since “it is the spirit that gives life. The flesh is useless.” (John 6:63) It seems like a contradiction, but Jesus, in the Gospel of John, is often misunderstood when he uses language metaphorically. People who turn to God for sustenance are less likely to feed on one another through exploitation and are less likely to succumb to xenophobia and tribalism.

Light is a theme that is introduced in the Prologue of John’s Gospel. It is often coupled with darkness, as “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”(John 1:5) On the surface, the duality between light and dark, good and evil seems too extreme for a postmodern understanding. It seems to lack nuance and condemns those who are unwilling to see past religious identities and ethnic origins. John says that Jesus “himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” (John 1:8) This is consistent with the statement “I am the light of the world.” (John 9:5) Jesus, as the Son of God, testifies to the light, is the light itself, and shares that light with humankind. (John 11:9) It is important to consider the nature of light when we analyse Jesus’ teaching. We cannot see light; we can only see what is illuminated. This illumination originates with God, but does not exclude humanity from sharing in his divinity. 10 When people are in darkness, they are overshadowed by their own delusions, pretensions and misunderstandings. They are the architects of their own undoing. This is not God’s condemnation but a choice to remain in darkness, confident that the barriers that they have erected between themselves and God are justified. In John’s Gospel, those who are identified as the “Jews” are people who conspire against Jesus, but they are also the ones who “worship what [they] know for salvation comes from the Jews.”(John 4:22) In the past, the message about “salvation” was subverted by an anti-Semitic, literal interpretation of John. In a postmodern interpretation, the “Jews” in John’s Gospel stand in for all “those humans that cling to their pride in themselves, those humans who cannot accept that self-understanding presented in the revelation of God in Christ.” The Jews could not see God, in the same way that today many Christians and all people may not see him when they choose to block the light, insisting that their version of God is actually God.

Jesus, in the Gospel of John, is a “disclosure of God” and not a veil. 11 Viewed from a postmodern perspective, this gospel may be the most universal of all. Jesus, as both the Creator and the Created is at once in the world and outside of it. He is a faithful Jew who frequently takes part in the religious life of Jerusalem. Conversely, he also goes about deliberately healing on the Sabbath and making “I am” statements, which infuriate the authorities. (John 5:5-18) Within the framework of his fully human existence, he challenges the wisdom and law of the day in order to bring people closer to God. Jesus performs signs and experiences glory in order to demonstrate through his life and death the timelessness of God. At the Resurrection, his response to Mary Magdalene is worth noting. When he tells her “Do not hold onto me,” it is not simply a matter of protocol. (John 20:17) When we cling to our ideas about Jesus, we can easily delude ourselves into believing that the theology and religious practices are something other than the worship of God. This is when we cease to love him and we cease to love and serve others in the ways that he taught us. This is also the place where we can easily be seduced into living lives of judgement and bigotry. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, rescues us from these pitfalls, by reminding us that there is nothing dividing us from God.

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