Art Spiegelman, the artist and writer of the Maus books, is the son of a Holocaust survivor Vladek and is trying to understand his father through interviewing him and depicting Vladek's experiences during the Holocaust.  Many words describe Artie as a character.  He is cautious because of his father's temper, determined to find out everything about his mother who survived the war only to commit suicide, and driven to illustrate his parents' experiences during the Holocaust.  Artie's guilt that he has had a better life than his parents and the brother he never knew plays a role in his relationship with his father and stepmother.  Artie is also committed to teaching his daughter Nadja about her Jewish family history, painful as it is. 

What words best describe the character Artie in Maus II?

In his graphic book Maus, Art Spiegelman writes about the Holocaust    to portray his father and mother and their experience in the Holocaust in order for him to understand his father.  Artie is persistent in asking his father for information, wanting to know every detail.  He is angry about Vladek and Anya's betrayal at the border which sends them to Auschwitz. Artie tries to be understanding with his father, knowing what Vladek went through.  He is devastated that his brother, about whom he knew nothing, is killed in the war, and that even though his mother survived the concentration camps, she committed suicide after the war.  Most of all, Artie is enraged at the idea that his father destroyed his mother's diary, her intimate thoughts by which he might have gotten to know his mother.  As an artist, this communication from his dead mother would have been the most precious possession, and yet his father destroyed it.  Artie is a loving father himself, and dedicates the book to his own child and his brother lost in the war.