Compare And Contrast Persepolis And Maus

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All throughout history there have been many different kinds of wars. Ranging from the United States Civil War to World War two, war has been a present and continuous issue during everyone’s life. Some people have lived through it, while others saw it through the press and news. Throughout this class we had to read the books Persepolis and Maus. Art Spiegelmen learned about World War two by interviewing his father while Majine Satrapi actually lived through the Islamic Revolution when she was a child. Both of the authors have been a part of different wars and it shows in their books. Maus and Persepolis are both graphic novels, but the stories are depicted in different ways because of the use of the different contrast of shading techniques by …show more content…

For example, a contrast that is easily seen in the story is between Marji’s childhood and adulthood. The first half of the book is completely based on Marji’s childhood, and the other part of the second book involves her childhood, at the very least, physically. On page 189, the reader watches Marji go through a major physical transformation. Readers can barely recognize her afterwards. If her teenage character needed to be compared to her childhood character, it would be difficult to tell that one grows into the other in a short amount of time. And that is another one reason why the book is drawn and colored in black and white. Marjane Satrapi grew up in a world of extreme circumstances and the book’s color scheme is easily reflecting the dramatic contrasts. It is stark, bold but simple visual black and white style, with occasional bursts of color, add an engaging and often unsettling dimension of reality and simplified truth (Liam).
After going deeply in depth into the two different novels, Maus and Persepolis proves to readers that these books are not the ordinary comic strips. The graphic novels show the harshness of war by using the harsh and dramatic color contrast of black and white all throughout the novels. Like the color schemes, the themes of the books are quite similar as well. They show what war is like, and how it has impacted their lives. With authors like Art Spiegelman and Marjane Satrapi, they help readers understand the harshness of war and how it can greatly affect someone’s

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