Intra-Ethnic Conflict and Ritual Morphing: A Psychoanalytic Study of Othering in Post-Holocaust Jewish Identity in Art Spiegelman’s Maus

The paper investigates Art Spiegelman’s Maus from a psychoanalytical perspective by drawing on the concepts of Thomas Ogden’s “analytic third” and Jessica Benjamin’s “intersubjectivity” to expose the trauma-driven intra-ethnic conflicts that lead to psychological othering within Jewish Holocaust survivors. The study also explores the idea of ritual morphing as practised in Spiegelman’s narrative, highlighting the unconscious alterations and psychological mechanisms embedded in the behavioural patterns of Holocaust survivors and their descendants. 


Drawing on Benjamin’s concept of intersubjectivity, the paper analyses the relationship dynamics between Art Spiegelman and his father, Vladek, which disrupts their father–son relationship through shared traumatic experiences. This disruption enables the recognition of their psychological and cultural differences and induces ethnic conflict between them as a Polish Jew and an American Jew. Vladek’s PTSD and Spiegelman’s inherited trauma (intergenerational PTSD) create a doer–done-to dynamic that ruptures their familial bond, intensifying underlying shame, guilt, and depression. The paper further engages with Benjamin’s theory of mutual recognition to examine Vladek’s hypervigilance, which reflects the traumatic dominance that shatters the capacity for mutual recognition, leading to a reproduction of Holocaust trauma within the Jewish community across generations.