The past two weeks of ASTU have been very captivating considering the texts we have covered. Following on from reading Satrapi’s graphic narrative: Persepolis, we studied a follow up article written by an American literary scholar and an expert on comics and graphic narratives: Hilary Chute, who discusses the various styles that Satrapi uses in her narrative that can convey many different messages and have very special effects in contrast to novels and regular comic books.
The main theme of Persepolis and, by extension, Chute’s essay is the graphic narrative style used by Satrapi. In each section of Chute’s essay, the basis is the use of graphic style and the various messages it sends. A point in Chute’s essay that I want to expand on is ‘violence and the ordinary’. Satrapi effectively conveys the trauma that she went through with a very blunt tone, however I question whether this tone is more effective than dramatizing her life events when trying to have an emotional impact on the reader.
While conducting research for this blog I stumbled across another blog that fits in perfectly with our discussion: http://goo.gl/9LJnZG. This blog discusses Persepolis in relation to Chute’s essay. This blog raises some excellent points about whether Satrapi’s graphic narrative fully captures the terror and trauma that befell Iran and the effect that it had on the country and the people. It is accurate to say that Persepolis seems simplistic however Satrapi does touch on traumas in a forthright manner, which is the probable cause of the argument.
I would like to digress from Chute’s essay and discuss a topic that was surprisingly not mentioned in the essay; the role that religion and faith plays in Persepolis. We witness how Marji’s faith is tested with each death and trauma that she experiences also how she finds comfort in God’s presence, however when her uncle Anoosh dies, the use of graphic narrative helps the reader to understand how Marji feels and how her detachment from God left her feeling empty.
I must confess that I have found this blog post particularly hard to write because I find myself analyzing Satrapi’s Persepolis instead of Chute’s essay, so by definition I am analyzing an analysis.
References
“Hillary Chute.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., date last updated (16 September 2014. Web. Date accessed (09 October 2014). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Chute Jensen, M. (2013). Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis – by Sarah MacGregor Group A. [online] writingwomendotorg. Available at: http://writingwomen.org/2013/11/21/retracing-in-marjane-satrapis-persepolis-by-sarah-macgregor-group-a/ [Accessed 10 Oct. 2014].