The world of comics enables comic-artists to create a whole other dimension of consciousness. The scale of emotions is enormous, allowing complete freedom for the comic-book drawer to paint a world of new understanding. As coming-of-age memoirs, Persepolis I and Persepolis II tell the story of Marjane Satrapi’s struggle to realize her true self in a world torn apart by civil unrest. Marjane Satrapi’s minimalistic drawing style enables the books Persepolis I and Persepolis II to convey the gruesome concept of death in a larger-than-life manner.
Though the softer depiction of death would seemingly weaken the concept, it in fact amplifies death to a more vivid level. Audience participation is a huge aspect of the technique, as the reader unites text and picture to envision a scene beyond the ink on the page. Scott McCloud explains the concept of “amplification through simplification,” stating than once something is broken down to its basic meaning, an artist can “amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t.” Once an artist breaks down an idea to its bare minimums, only then is he allowed free range to the many different ways to visualize a concept. As a comic book artist furthers away from the “real life” depiction of an event, the reader is invited more readily to portray the sequence in whatever matter he wishes.
As the Iranian Revolution tears the country of Iran apart, Satrapi must learn to cope with the numerous images of death and decay rampant throughout the country. The audience can only imagine the tremendous amounts of death, exemplifying how small pictures extend their meaning out of frame. Just as outlined in Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud states that the “comics creator asks us to join in a silent da...
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...tion,” (86). Due to this clever technique, the Persepolis series leaves more of an intense and memorable impact on the reader. The amount of audience participation transforms Persepolis I and II into interactive stories. Satrapi’s depiction of death causes the reader to reevaluate his own perceptions of death, and realize the disastrous circumstances of the Iranian Revolution.
Works Cited
"Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)." GlobalSecurity.org - Reliable Security
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McCloud, Scott. "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art." Cartoon. New
York: HarperPerennial, 1993. 1-215. Print.
Satrapi, Marjane. "Persepolis 2." Cartoon. Persepolis 2. New York:
Pantheon, 2003. 1-187. Print.
Satrapi, Marjane. "Persepolis." Cartoon. Persepolis. New York:
Pantheon, 2003. 1-153. Print.
Persepolis is a inspirational story written by Marjane Satrapi in the perspective of a young girl’s life during a powerful, historical moment in Iran. The Islamic Revolution was a life-changing moment that impacted her view on the world around her and her innocence shaping her into the woman she is today. Not many people understand what it feels like to feel pain, hurt and abandonment as a child from major and minor things. The author writes this story and decides for it to be a graphic novel to allow the not only young readers, but also for those who do not understand what happens everyday in the world they live in. Satrapi uses all rhetorical stances, ethos, pathos, and logos to show problems, purpose and emotions.
Satrapi’s use of the graphic element of caption is done relatively well. The captions sets the tone of how Marji idolizes her uncle Anoosh; him being the one that she connects with most. “Luckily, one day they told me about me uncle Anoosh” (54). The caption on panel three of page 54 shows how highly Marji think of her uncle. When the reader reads that caption it basically lets them know that Marji was very happy, if not fortunate, that she has met her missing uncle. The word “luckily” hints
After Marjane learns that her great grandpa was an emperor of Iran, she pictures him living an extraordinary life as royalty. Her image includes her great grandpa riding an elephant with a crown and the sun shining with a castle in the background (Satrapi 22). This illustration of her imagination is comedic because it shows Iran’s past being perfect through Marjane’s eyes when, in fact, it was nothing like she envisioned. Her limited knowledge causes her to perceive things almost opposite of how they really are, while distracting the reader from the conflicts occuring in the country. Futhermore, Satrapi uses comedy to demonstrate that Marjane’s personality is similar to an average child her age, despite the environment she is living in . When Marjane’s father goes out to take photos of the revolution, her mother and grandma become worried about him, and they start to discuss the matter. They are clearly not talking to her, but
In the graphic novel, Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, Satrapi’s childhood was highly impacted by American culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of American culture on Satrapi’s view of the Iranian Revolution.
Persepolis is a graphic novel depicting the life of author Marjane Satrapi’s life throughout the Islamic revolution, starting from her childhood. At one point in the story, the Shah of Iran has left the country, and Marjane’s parents think that they will have new freedoms. Later, however, the country is bombed and fundamentalists occupy the United States embassy. After these events, Marjane is ultimately forced to leave the country without her parents to live in Europe. This was foreshadowed in arguably the most significant panel in Persepolis, the 7th panel on page 43. It features Marjane and her parents, sitting in the family’s living room, the news on a television in the background. They are discussing the fact that the Shah recently left Iran to live in Egypt. Around the panel’s frame is a serpent-like creature. In this panel, Marjane Satrapi uses the frame, and contrasting facial expressions and dialogue to show that the Shah is not the only problem in Iran, foreshadowing the unexpected events of unrest that fill the rest of the story.
The story Persepolis uses the medium of graphic novel and the perspective of a child to convey her message. The events of Persepolis are very dark and in some
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. Vol. 2. New York: Pantheon, 2004. Print.
If I took the text and images as separate elements, I might not have realized the levels of emotional Satrapi portrays or the significance of the larger context of the Iranian Revolution. It is only after reading several graphic narratives that I have realized the multitude of elements that must be acknowledged and understood while reading such texts. This mixture of unique image and text creates a versatile platform that can be an expressive form of art for marginalized persons who feel that they are trapped by the normative literary cannon. As Michael Pagliaro argues in Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?, graphic novels are useful as people from different backgrounds “can find their experiences authentically and respectfully portrayed” (35). I would further contend that people who occupy privileged positions can also, through graphic narratives, understand representations of marginalized persons who may appear separate or unlike them, as I was able to through Persepolis. Thus, graphic narratives foster a form of expression and understanding that is prime for working to debunk stereotypes, exploring authentic diversity in writing, and ultimately “writing against the
In America, many have come to recognize Iran as a terrorist nation, but in reality, many Americans stereotype Iranians because they misunderstand the country and how it got to that point. In Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, she gives her readers an inside look of Iran by writing about her childhood during the Iranian Revolution and the changes in her life during that time. The frames in Satrapi’s graphic novel draw similarities and differences between advertisements and the Iranian culture. After analyzing the Satrapi’s graphic novel to advertisements we will look at the similarities and differences of how graphic novels and advertisements use words and images to establish the visual rhetoric.
...humanize death and let the reader feel that death is a person who he can deal with. Also, she constantly uses imagery in her lines and she painted a perfect scene of what is going to happen when everybody dies, so the reader would have almost a clear image that will comfort him. Another literary element she was awesome in using is style. Dickinson’s organization had a hidden meaning of faith after death. Also, her punctuation use was so smart to show the eternity after death. Over all, using this combination of literary styles helped her to deliver her ideas easily and clearly after spending some time contemplating behind the lines. It is one death but different perspectives.
There are many times when problems in a country affect one's life. Persepolis by Majarne Satrapi recounts the coming-of-age of a girl during a period of war. Utilizing a graphic novel to illustrate, Marjane recalls the struggles of her family and herself living in warfare. For instance, in Persepolis, Marjane's external conflict result in her internal conflict.
Thus, it is crucial that she effectively communicate this humanness of Iran to the literary audience in America. Since the literary devices in a work are needed to correctly convey a message, she found it necessary to include these and manipulate them in her favor. Satrapi uses the innocence of a child along with morals in her pictures and a relation of cultures to effectively communicate her message. It is necessary to examine how she manipulates such literary devices in order to gain a full understanding of the text. To begin with, Satrapi writes Persepolis from a child’s point of view.
In the novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Satrapi’s childhood was highly impacted by American culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the affect American culture had on how Satrapi viewed the Iranian Revolution.
Persepolis 2: The Story of Return is anchored around how Marji is affected by the social injustice that occurred during the Islamic Revolution. Growing up as “a westerner in Iran and an Iranian in the West,” (Satrapi 274) changes and molds her into the young woman she is at the end of her journey. In this second chapter of Satrapis life she moves away from the comfort of Iran and finds a life in Vienna. Marji desires to find her purpose and identity during her brief time here and faces many battles with language barriers, people and herself. Marjis past from Iran haunts her and instills the idea that she needs to make something of herself while in Austria. Finding that Austria took her down a darker path where the light was scarcer and the
The full-page panel on pg. 120 in “The Cigarette” parallels Satrapi’s descent into the basement with Iran sinking deeper into the war with Iraq. To me, the one-page panel emphasizes the scale in which the violence and death devolved significantly. On the bottom of the panel, Satrapi leaves through a door, as if trying to put that out of her mind when she goes to smoke the cigarette. The leaving through the door also seems to signify the aftermath of the destruction, with Satrapi commenting, “When I think we could have avoided it all. . . It just makes me sick. A million people would still be alive” (Satrapi 120). Persepolis devotes itself to detailing the wasted and undesired loss of life found during the regime, from Niloufar to Taher to Uncle Anoosh . . . Rest in peace Uncle