Marjane Satrap

Conversations with Marjane Satrap

With the success of autographical movie Persepolis based on the graphic novel works based on her unique experience growing up in Iran and living in France as Iranian, the comic narrative style and memorable illustrations, Marjane Satrapi is one of the most known film director, graphic novelist alive. Her idiosyncratic drawings, funny narrations of the stories, and the memoir style recordings of her real life experiences in multimedia rooted from and are the by-product of her cultural background and her surroundings despite growing up in Iran, the contrast of which made her works close to the political satire when at the same time remains as light-minded and somewhat optimistic about the reality she is

situated in.
In her internationally renowned satirical graphic novel and later on, successful film, Persepolis, she states the difficulties she had to face as a child in Iran. The unique narrative and style of illustration makes the graphic novel readable and appeal to both Iranian and non-Iranian readers, as said in the article in Iranian Studies, the author mentions the work and how “her words provide a captivating story while her drawings provide resonance foe Iranian and non-Iranian readers alike.”(354, Malek) The misunderstanding of the political scene and confusions on whatever the current situation in Iran is like deeply influenced the perspective she took whilst writing the graphic novel in memoir style.

The difficulties of not understanding the situation is taken into the consideration by the narration of this film because the majority of the audience can engage in the feeling of struggles between wanting to change one’s self image for the purpose of earning the social acceptance an not feeling comfortable with choosing to transform into something they are not. The director clearly stated the struggles she had to go through during her years in Paris, as she could never completely fit in with any social circles in particular. The author moved to France in a very early stage of her life therefore she has very little sense of belonging to France or Iran regardless of how long the period of time she spend in either of the countries. The progress that the author made toward making sure of the balancing her life from living in the Iranian community that heavily focused

on the current political party in power, whereas the focus of the French community was based on the intellectual circles and small-minded students in general that do not necessarily possess any comprehension or have the concern for what is going one in any other places in the world. In this memoir styled comic book, she casually depicts the general topic of Iranian political situation and lightly touches on its intricate nature and states that it is something she would never completely understand at the young age before her family’s immigration, and she always feel throughout the comic book that she never knows the full of the facts and therefore she never has enough knowledge to make up her own mind about it nor is she able to make comments on the matter. The years she can recall growing up in Iran is somewhat suppressed by the authorities or who ever is in power, and the indifference and nonchalant tone in her narrative voice adds up to this effect.
She keeps her calmness in narrative voice when she describes her life after her family immigrate to France, with a tad more optimism. The room of argument may emerge upon the doubt over the presence of optimism that show in this part of the story and narration and whether it slowly wears off in the memoir, with her slight disappoint in the faint ignorance and slurs in the social circle when she attends university in France. Despite her early education in Iran, she is a vast reader in culture of US and Europe, therefore she has more knowledge in those fields. Her intellect makes her successful in making friends with her fellow university students and is able to chat with the rest of them without awkwardness in cultural barrier or shyness due to the relatively new language that she tries to adapt to speaking. She records her delight for the openness of the minds of the friends she has in contrast to the somewhat level-headed and strict environment that is constrained by her acquaintances and relatives from back in Iran. It is however evident that in later parts of the novel that she learns that there are still parts of French general public that lacks understanding of the other culture or ignorant toward the Islamic population. “The bending and blending into western culture and society mixed with her identity with one who has to adjust to fit into the rules of her native Iranian culture”( 254, Malek)
The depiction of the veil being obligatory to wear is just one example that Satrapi uses in her work to illustrate the constrains she experiences in her upbringing, but again, with the cool tone of her narrative, there is no criticism nor praise toward this order, the reactions of the people she knows, the depiction of rebellious acts that the others does toward the veil reveals the general attitude of the mass on traditions and the control that the Islamic power imposes upon the subjects that is the Iranians, it also demonstrates that despite differences in upbringings in western society and Iranian society, the rebelliousness and anarchism remains traits amongst teenagers. The main goal and the point that her memoir is trying to illustrate is simply shown by this strip of the comic, she shows that a lot of the media portrayal of the Islamic community and the miscommunication that they view them as stereotypical mysterious and religious fanatics in media and in real life, the attitude and reactions are exactly the same as the westerners do. The success in communicating this with the readers is achieved by the narrative and illustrations, especially through the illustrations of the people’s reaction toward the obligatory piece of clothes wear, and also a symbol of Islamic religion.
The comic lightness or relief which constantly merges within her work that is both evident in drawings and the narration also makes it success in communicating with readers about her confusions and difficulty in finding definition of her own identity in the whole cultural home in exile and her childhood in Iran.

It is seen as a touch of lightness on the whole subject of trying to convey her idea and facts into the story. Through her comic expression, some serious subjects like the politics and religion and the people’s reactions and actions in the whole environment makes the point of indifference come across, in comparison to the long time cultural wars on the Arabs and Islams due to ignorance, the material like this can be seen as a thorough examination of what the reality of Islams look like and how they truly do react to the whole religious thing. The mockery of fanaticism is apparent in the story and can demonstrate that the general public, especially due to the radical progressiveness developing due to the disappointment of people in Islamic power, does not partake nor appreciate these constrains that the religion and government imposes upon them. The way the article on how Marjane’s work reflect and represent the societal status said before and the same as the way that the article on Iranian studies says before about the same subject that “her illustrations and the comic style makes the whole appeal more relatable and accessible and it effectively reduces the

complexity and strips out the bits that are too serious or too remote to public’s understanding and just focus on people’s experience on it and reactions.” (323, Elahi) The comic style allows the author to do that unlike other media might be capable of, it shows both the narrator’s attitude and tone throughout the whole whole story putting emphasis on the experiences of this shift in culture environment or cultural exile to show the impact of these transactions and transformations on a human scale. This way the author also rid of the unnecessary bits and bobs on exactly what happens in the large scale that is unimportant to the point of the story. The fact that the article frequently illustrates the way that the society in Persepolis can always be perceived as a convex lens zoomed in on people and capture their actions, “the comic style allows the author to show all these reactions just by showing the expressions on the characters’ faces, the vacant expressions of the author, the aggressiveness of some of the relatives who are believed to be somewhat fanatic…”(316, Elahi)
Overall, the success of Persepolis on portrayal of the Iranian community and what it is like to be growing in the country, with the theme of finding one’s identity during the progress of cultural exile. The calm and unique narrative, symbolism which is the depiction of the veil, and the comic strip style all helps to contribute in her way to achieving the communication and getting her point across to readers universally alike.