To what extent does Vladek’s trauma affect his relationship with Artie?

Though Art was born in Sweden after the war and did not experience the Holocaust firsthand, his life has also been deeply affected by these unspeakable events. To begin with, Art is directly affected by secondary "aftershocks" of the Holocaust, in that Vladek's personality and parenting style were clearly influenced by these events, and Art's personality and lifestyle choices were in turn clearly guided by his father's personality and parenting style. Art describes a specific instance of this transmission to his wife:

[Vladek] loved showing off how handy he was... and proving that anything I did was all wrong. He made me completely neurotic about fixing stuff...One reason I became an artist was...it was an area where I wouldn't have to compete with him.

Art is also affected by the past in less direct ways. To begin with, he feels almost completely consumed by the horrible specter of the Holocaust. As a child, he sometimes fantasized that the showers in his house would spew gas instead of water, and he would often ask himself which parent he would save if he could have only saved one from Auschwitz (he usually picked his mother). In many ways, he feels guilty about the fact that his parents were forced to live through Auschwitz, whereas he was born after it ended, into a far more comfortable and easy life.