Past and Present Linking Techniques

In the graphic novel "Maus", by Art Spiegelman, Art uses lots of different techniques to convey the way that the past and present are linked together through memory. One reoccurring motif linking the past and present is the idea of spinning. There is the obvious exercise bike, which Vladek starts pedaling on as he beings his journey into the past, almost as if to signify the metaphorical "turning of gears" that is associated with remember distant events. Another less blatant instance of spinning is when Vladek begins spinning into a circle to show how he was inspected by the guards, and suddenly he is in the past. He says "He glanced and said 'Face left!'. They looked to see it if was sores or pimples on the body. Then again:'Face left!'" (Spiegelman 58). As he faces left the second time, the scene switches back to Auschwitz, almost as if Vladek is turning back into the past. Another thing that Spiegelmen does to link the past and present, is that most of the time he returns to the present from the past, the first picture has no border (examples of this on volume 2 pages 54, 48, 28, ect). He does this to show a return from the concrete and "set in stone" stories from the past to a more abstract and free period of time, where the characters can now change their stories. Because the characters are now in the present, the have free will and therefore control over what happens during this period.