The Primary Characters

• Art Spiegelman- (born 1948) A cartoonist and intellectual who has a strained relationship with his father, Vladek, who calls him "Artie".
• Vladek Spiegelman- (1906–1982) A Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust and moved to New York in the early 1950s.
• Mala Spiegelman- Vladek's second wife. She married Vladek after the suicide of Anja, his first wife, to whose memory she is made to feel she can never live up to.
• Anja Spiegelman- (1912–1968) Art's mother and Vladek's first wife, also Polish Jew who has survived the Holocaust.
• Francoise Mouly-(born 1955) Married to Artie. she is French but has converted to Judaism to please Art's father. Her representation in the book is thus complicated as to whether she should be represented as a Jewish mouse or a French frog.