Since my first blog post, our class has been focused on the memoir Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi. I was reading the book for homework in the common area, and a friend came up behind me and asked why I was reading a Japanese manga. We laughed it off, but I was really surprised when I could not answer why the book was written in the form of a comic.

Persepolis was written in the perspective of a young girl in a comic. The form of a comic book is great for storytelling, it creates a much more personal connection with the reader as it is easier to read, and I personally thought it flowed really well. It took me many pages before I started to recognize the importance of the drawings along with the text, the entire memoir is embedded with hidden messages and ideas. One common example would be from the facial expressions and shapes of the characters despite the simplicity of the drawings. However, I think that the story includes significant amounts of bias surrounding Satrapi’s view. Such as, not fully showing the perspective of the lower class, such as their family maid Mehri, opposed to Satrapi being situated in a relatively high class. Writing her story in the perspective of a child, Satrapi had to rely on her memory in producing this text, which raises the question of the accuracy of the information, as well as traumatic events being presented in a biased way. Lastly, the comic drawn in black and white could imply the presence of good and evil, which seems to be very narrow minded by only looking to the good and the bad, however it further emphasizes Satrapi as the character of a child, and her ignorance at that time, slowly learning more about the world.

I am not a great reader. I often get distracted or bored of the text. One reason why I enjoyed the text was because they are based off stories in segments, which all link together in the end, one story is short and can be finished quickly. What took me by surprise was how the ending few panels of each story would give me goose bumps, shock me. Single lines such as “That night he (god) didn’t come.” or “My hands were wrinkled when I came out, just like grandpa’s.” would leave me on the edge of my seat and bring me to the next story. I think the reason why I would be so unsettled by each endings is because what Satrapi wrote is different from what I was thinking. Coming from Hong Kong, I never faced such issues, ever so rarely read it on the news, the biggest “revolution” we ever had was a peaceful protest. These stories from Persepolis really sticks to my mind, to not take what I have for granted, nor assume what others have experienced either. Her world, is truly a worlds away from mine.