Less is More, the Use of Color is Persepolis

Hi Readers,

Over the past few weeks in my ASTU class (Arts Studies) we have been discussing the graphic novel, Persepolis: The Story of Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. Set in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s during the Iran Revolution and Iran-Iraq war, Satrapi reveals her experiences growing up during wartime. Not only are her words effective in portraying the trauma and violence she witness and encountered, but also her illustrations are filled with deep meaning and emotion, which only bolster the readers understanding of her childhood. Yet, Satrapi’s drawings are simple: black and white, with little to no detail.

Color adds emotion. Red symbolizes love, while green can mean envy. So why did Satrapi choose to exclude it from her graphic novel? Though the main character, Marjane is flooded with emotions (despair when her uncle dies, anger towards “the veil”), they are expressed through the lack of color, rather than presence, as if it is almost impossible or Marjane is incapable of share those feelings, through words or illustration.

Another argument I would make is that the use of solely black and white strives to blatantly show the reader what happened, as if there are no grey areas, no exceptions. Everyone is affected by war, just because one is not actively participating in such conflict does not mean their homes and communities will be spared from the fighting and changes. Marjane’s family feels the effects of civil unrest when they go grocery shopping, when they have to start covering their faces, and so on.

One very intriguing idea pointed out by Hillary Chute is that “the visual emptiness of the simple, ungraded blackness in the frames shows not the scarcity of memory, but rather its thickness, its depth; the “vacancy” represents the practice of memory, for the author and possibly the reader” (Chute, p.98). The lack of color itself shows the depth of Satrapi’s memory, which links back to one of her main themes of “never forgetting”.

Though the use of black and white makes many statements and allows the readers to interpret her meaning behind the text, but what if Satrapi used color as well?

How would the use of color change the way people read the book? Would it be less or more effective in telling Satrapi’s story?

Please let me know your thoughts below.

Works Cited:

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis:. New York: Pantheon, 2003. Print.

Chute, Hillary. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.”Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1,2 (2008): 92-110. Web.