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Art Spiegelman's Maus As A Heteroglossic Text, Dane H. Minich

ETD Archive

According to philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, the modernist novel is the best literary form to exploit heteroglossia, or the coexistence of two or more voices within a text. It incorporates the speeches of the author, narrators, and characters, as well as languages that are indicative of social status, employment, epochs, and so on. In this essay, heteroglossia is applied to Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus to demonstrate that the comics medium is also a prime candidate for heteroglossic exploitation. Voice and dialect are examined in the first portion of the essay, including generational differences between the characters' language, the presence and …