Graphic novels offer a perspective that other novels do not. They have pictures that have meaning to them making someone interpret different things from the picture. All pictures in these novels have deeper meaning than what is written on the page. In the graphic novel Persepolis written by Marjane Satrapi. The author of this book lived in Iran during the Islamic Revolution when she was 10 years old. The image that has deeper meaning then some people would think is bottom row left corner p.13 panel 4. Marijane is sitting in a chair at a table. She is wearing a long sleeve shirt with black polka dots on it and her hair is down. She has an angry expression on her face. Her eyebrows are farrowed and lips are straight. In her hand there is a plain cup and in the …show more content…
Across from Marijane is God. He has a long white hair and a long white beard. He is wearing a long white robe and he has his back to the reader so no one can see his expression on his face. Behind Marijane there is a big bush. The background of the whole picture is black. In the book Marjane is torn between religion and who she really wants to be. God visits her every night. He wants her to become a prophet, but she no longer wants to become a prophet. One day in class her teacher asked what she wanted to be she said a prophet and everyone laughed at her and called her crazy. Her teacher called her parents in for a conference to talk about what Marjane wanted to be, but her parents were not worried. Marjane wants God in her life, but she is torn because her family is non-religious. Her parents are in the protest for the present king to go down. After over hearing her
Throughout Satrapi’s memoir visual text is used to give the readers a visual or image to perceive the effects of the war. On page 3, Marji explains how the veil became an obligation for young girls to wear on their heads, and in the visual shown, these youngs girls are revolting against the government by using their veils as toys. Another effective visual in Persepolis, is the image on page 15 of the citizens running and their bodies burning because the government had set the cinema on fire; it creates a visual that pulls at the reader’s heart strings. This visual represents the suffering of citizens during the war because of their own government. Satrapi’s visuals create pathos within the memoir.
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.
Beata Drozd’s piece, titled Lady in Blue, shows a figure, split in two, with one half black and one white. It was created in 2014 for the exhibit i found god in myself; the 40th anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls. i found god in myself originally debuted at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Harlem, New York, but is currently at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. The piece, which is quite large, is a collage on canvas, and hangs on a wall; there are two sections of the piece, the top is a vertical rectangle, showing the figures from the hips up, and the bottom is a triangle showing clasped hands, one white and one black. Drozd creates visual contrast to symbolize
This supports the discussion of how her surroundings are already affecting her dreams of becoming a prophet, this also uprises the issue of self vs. self and how she starts to become flummoxed of who she truly is.
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
In Marjane’s second book about herself, she is living in Austria and speaks about her education there as well as a social life. Marjane lives in Austria for a span of four years where she experiences a lot of hardships and calamities. In this span of four year, Marjane has trouble housing herself when the family she lives with, the Zozo’s, kick her out. Marjane spends days on the streets and spends time with the Nuns who take her in. After a year or so, Marjane decides to live with her friends where she is opened up to the real world.
When writing any sort of narrative, be it novel or poem, fiction or non-fiction, scholarly or frivolous, an author must take into account the most effective manner in which to effectively convey the message to their audience. Choosing the wrong form, or method of speaking to the reader, could lead to a drastic misunderstanding of the meaning within an author’s content, or what precisely the author wants to say (Baldick 69). Even though there are quite a bit fewer words in a graphic novel than in the average novel, an author can convey just as much content and meaning through their images as they could through 60,000 words. In order to do that though, their usage of form must be thoughtfully considered and controlled. Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic memoir The Complete Persepolis, took great pains in the creation of her panels in order to reinforce and emphasize her narrative, much like a novelist utilizes punctuation and paragraph breaks. Through her portrayal of darkness and lightness, Satrapi demonstrates that literary content influences, and is primary to, the form.
In Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis, she uses effective graphic images to present her perspective of religion, loss of innocence, and gender roles in Iran. Religion in the world today is the belief in and worship of a God or Gods. Religion usually is not
Colonialism has a severely negative impact on those being affected due to unknown cultures and systems being infiltrated in their country. In the first chapter of “The Complete Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi, the author starts off with the Islamic Revolution and the changes it brought to her immediate surroundings. This reminds me of colonialism and the changes it brings to the colonized country. Colonialism started with the expedition of the Portuguese and Spanish to discover new wealth. Since then, the drastic after effects of colonialism are still felt today by the affected group. In the 20th century, colonialism plays a part in why some cultural groups are the way they are today. In conclusion, the change the Islamic Revolution did to Marjane’s immediate surroundings is similar to how colonialism affected the colonized countries.
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
“Persepolis” is a memoir written by Marjane Satrapi in the form of a graphic novel. The book is about her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution which took place during the 1980’s. These were particularly turbulent times in the history of the country and had a major impact on the day to day life of its citizens. During this time period in Iran, a theocratic form of government came into power after the Shah was overthrown. At first, Marjane like her compatriots rejoiced over the new government, as they felt that it represented the real representatives of the people of Iran instead of a royal ruler propped up by western powers. Through the novel, Marjane comes across as a curious and independent child, who is confused by the political upheaval and the mixed messages a child would get from what she saw around her. She describes the horrific incidents in the day to day life of her family, neighbors, and friends with childlike innocence but
Even in our present time we can see how culture principles and characteristic drive can cause conflict. Within a society, an individual does not exist. If an individual does exist, then they are no longer a part of the society causing rebellion. In I and Thou, Buber explains that the self becomes either more disconnected or more unified through its relationships to others. The film Persepolis is an adaption to Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis coming-of-age graphic memoir. It involves a young Muslim girl name Marjane as she comes of age within the environment of the Iranian Revolution. The film explores the actualization of Marjane through allegory to show how she must construct her identity within a foundation of westernization, religion, and gender.
Namely, Marjane describes, “I thought that by coming back to Iran, everything would be fine. That I would forget the old way but my past caught up with me. My secret weighted me down.”(268). Due to the events in Austria, Marjane feels depressed and weighted down. This is internal conflict because it reveals the impact of suppressing her feelings has done to Marjane. Identically, Marjane states, “I had suddenly become ‘a married woman,’ I had conformed to society, while I always wanted to remain in the margins...It required too many compromises. I couldn’t accept it, but it was too late.” (317) This reveals the triumph that society has on Marjane; and how it is the opposite of what she wants. Finally, Marjane has been through a lot of tragics that influence her internal
Currently, I find myself to use pictures to comprehend new information even a child as well. When I was learning about World War II in middle school, I discovered that the images of the war were very intriguing than reading a textbook in social studies class. In the book, Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, this piece of literature included so much history that had been tied into the novel displaying comic strips of what Satrapi imagined from her childhood, what had really happened and the life the people in Iran experienced in times of war. Not only the Iran-Iraq War has images that depict the tragic event, but the Holocaust can be taught through pictures as well. War and human cruelty in an image reveals a thousand words much more superior than
Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, is not a run-of-the-mill comic book. It is written with purpose. Satrapi wrote and illustrated this book to show Americans that their perspective of her home country, Iran, is askew. She believes Americans are too focused on the “fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism” (Satrapi ii), of the nation and that they forget to notice the normality and humanness of it. Since these two perspectives have vast differences, Satrapi wants to change their minds. 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.