Persepolis is an autobiographical comic book of Marjane Satrapi’s life as a child growing up in the time of the Islamic Revolution. The Revolution of 1979 was meant to empower the oppressed masses of Iran and cleanse the country of the influence of Westernization (Tiefenbrun 2010: 272). Instead, the revolution resulted in a “xenophobic revolt against modernism (including the modern idea of women’s rights), against the ‘West’, against all foreigners and against jews” (Tiefenbrun 2010: 272).
This battle between the pre-revolutionary modern Iran and the post-revolutionary fundamentalist Iran is a very important theme in Persepolis (more on this theme later in the essay) (Satrapi 2013: ONLINE). It is, however, only one of the many-layered themes that play a role in understanding the cultural, historical, social, political and personal narratives in the comic (Satrapi 2013: ONLINE).
It will therefore be the goal of this essay to identify, decode, question and interpret these themes and their messages so as to develop a deeper understanding of this particular autobiographical comic and other comics (of this nature) in general.
Messages as complex as the ones hidden in the text of Persepolis, reveal their meanings though the detailed analysis of the signs and codes that they present to the reader. This study of signs and sign systems is more commonly known as semiotics (Smith 2005: 227).
Roland Barthes, a theorist of Semiology, states that a sign is made up of a signifier (the physical property of a sign) (Cazeaux 2000: 371) and a signified (the concept or meaning we associate with the signifier) (Cazeaux 2000: 372).
Take, for example, the title of the comic “Persepolis” (the physical word) which is the first signifier the reader ...
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.... The result, however, was much more than an understanding of the themes of Persepolis. Instead the readers of this essay acquired an entirely new perspective on the depth of meanings in the story of Persepolis.
The analysis used semiotic signs and codes to discover an underlying meaning in the title ‘Persepolis’, to realize how the comic form added so many layers of meaning to the novel, to open our eyes to the real struggles of another culture and most importantly, to realize that all aspects of life and forms of representation (e.g. the autobiographical form) hold meaning when being combined with systems of thought (the semiotic analysis) and, in particular, how objects which pass for ‘natural’ or ‘everyday’ (e.g. the veil) in cultural life are in fact constructed in accordance with certain ideological values (e.g. fundamentalist values) (Cazeaux 2000: 371).
In Marjane Satrapi’s memoir, Persepolis, the characteristics and qualities of revolution are portrayed through rhetorical devices such as visual text, similes, and pathos. Satrapi’s use of rhetorical devices enhances and supports her expression of the revolution in Iran. Persepolis was Marjane Satrapi’s way of allowing people to see how the revolution in Iran affected her family's lifestyle and her upbringing. This memoir also allows the readers to analyze how war changes the way of the people and government in a country.
There are several elements of symbolism in the story; however, “The deeper levels of this story are disclosed by examining not only what is implied through the irony but also what is indicated by symbolism and repetition” (Holla...
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi captures life in Iran during the 1980’s through a child's eyes. Marjane Satrapi grew up during a time when both the Islamic Revolution and the Iran/Iraq War took place. Personal experiences are expressed through themes including revolution, imperialism, nationalism, religion and loss of innocence and affect Marjane personally as she grows up.
Education is an important part in the development of young woman’s life. In the novel’s The Complete Persepolis and A Woman’s Story, the culture of the young woman affects the education they receive, allowing for a strong emphasis on self-education, which helps shape the relationship between mother and daughter. In A Woman’s Story education is the key component to social development, while in The Complete Persepolis education is imperative for enlightenment. This social development through education in A Woman’s Story helps establish the importance of self-education between mother and daughter.
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
“Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return” is a graphic-novel as well as a memoir, which molds the life of Marjane Satrapi with the use of illustrations and words. 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 fam...
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of an oppressive regime on the child Marjane Satrapi as depicted the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
There are many different influences in the world today; a big one that most people in the world face is religion. Religion is an influence that people first encounter during their childhood. They grow and learn to have faith. People’s perspective on religion is affected by their culture, their family and the events they witness during childhood. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is the story of a young girl growing up in Iran, during the Islamic Revolution, and the war with Iraq. Throughout the novel religion develops along with the plot, in good and bad ways. In the story Marji loses her faith and it changes who she is, religion also changed her lifestyle by the government putting religion into the law. Religion is a topic that people label as
During our class discussions, the issue of identity in Marjane Satrapi’s novel, Persepolis (2004), became a contentious issue. The question was asked whether Persepolis might be understood to being in-dialogue with western ways of seeing and did the effects of modernization influence the identity of Marjane’s protagonist in Persepolis. How does the novel involve the issue of identity? I will extend the argument and, through the exploration of Marji’s changing ideologies, I will attempt to prove that Marji is caught between the traditional eastern culture and western modernization.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is a graphic novel written by Marjane Satrapi that illustrates the issues with growing up an Iranian child during times of conflict and political unrest. Following the childhood life of Satrapi, a first-hand view of unrest is given to the audience in a simple art form and well-paced story that is easy to follow and stay interested in. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is a prime example of why the genre of graphic novel functions well as a vessel to convey the issues in the Middle East while still telling an entertaining story of Satrapi’s childhood. The importance of graphic novels as a genre is often lost in the association with comic books, although graphic novels offer a much more comprehensive view
Satrapi’s first chapter in “The Complete Persepolis,” The Veil, guides us through her country’s revolution against the
The first theory used to analyze this magazine is the semiotic theory, developed by C.S. Peirce. This theory is used to find the meaning of signs and claims it is all in the meaning of the signs used. “A sign refers to something other than itself – the object, and is understood by somebody.
...t is how religion plays a part in enhancing the understanding of themes in Persepolis.
Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, makes important strides toward altering how Western audiences perceive Iranian women. Satrapi endeavors to display the intersection of the lives of some Westerners with her life as an Iranian, who spent some time in the West. Satrapi, dissatisfied with representations she saw of Iranian women in France, decided to challenge them. In her words, “From the time I came to France in 1994, I was always telling stories about life in Iran to my friends. We’d see pieces about Iran on television, but they didn’t represent my experience at all. I had to keep saying, ‘No, it’s not like that there.’ I’ve been justifying why it isn’t negative to be an Iranian for almost twenty years. How strange when it isn’t something I did or chose to be?” (Satrapi, “Why I Wrote Persepolis” 10). In acknowledging both Eastern and Western feminism, Satrapi’s novel humanizes the female Iranian perspective in a way that can easily digested by Western audiences.
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.