Monthly Archives: October 2015

Hello readers,

This past week, my ASTU class has read and discussed a scholarly article called The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis’, by Hillary Chute, who is a literary scholar and expert in the genre of graphic narratives. Throughout the article, Chute examines a variety of aspects present in Satrapi’s Persepolis including its feminist standing, the style of its illustrations and how it affects the audience’s interpretation, and the process of “never forgetting” in Marji’s narration (Chute 97).

One of the many unique qualities of Persepolis in my eyes is Satrapi’s use of two narrators: Marji, the child protagonist, and Marjane, the older and more experienced narrator. As opposed to being one sole act of recall that we typically see in memoires, Persepolis shows the audience her “state of being of memory”, and her development of perspective as she grows up and reflects back on her previous self (Chute 97). A benefit of experiencing the narrative through a ten-year-old’s eyes is getting to see the simplistic and minimalistic visual interpretations of events that in reality are horrifically traumatic. A section of the article that was of particular interest to me examined the ease in which Marji, the child protagonist, visualizes and stylizes occurrences of horrific trauma so casually. By using black and white, and drawing with clean lines and literal translations, Marji takes violent events that people are not even used to reading about, let alone seeing, and overtly illustrates them with simplicity and innocence. For instance, when Marji learns that one of her prison heroes, Siamak, has been “cut to pieces” (Satrapi 52), the last frame on the page depicts her interpretation of the news which includes a hollow doll-like figure cut precisely into seven even pieces. Examples of these representations of trauma appear consistently all throughout the text and occasionally right in the middle of Marji’s daily personal routine, which emphasizes the eerie ‘normal’ quality of trauma in her everyday life. Surely, events such as torture, executions, bombings, and murder, are not remotely normal, yet the way in which they are presented in Persepolis suggest otherwise. I think Satrapi purposely used uncomplicated drawings to depict these appalling acts of violence to emphasize the normalcy of violence that people often tend to associate with Iran and the Middle East in general.

When considering my own exposure to Iran as a North American, non-middle-eastern teenager, I’m bombarded with images of war, poverty, and Islamic extremist groups like ISIS that have been depicted to me through news outlets and other forms of media. Unfortunately, these horrific events have acquired a certain normalcy, and they tend not to make much of an impact on people until their truths are fully realized through a deep emotional connection and understanding. For instance, everyone is aware of the shocking photo of a Syrian toddler who washed up on the shore of Bodrum. This photo spread rapidly on social media and caused an uproar in the general public to increase humanitarian efforts towards the migration crisis. Sadly, there are thousands of children who have reached this same tragic fate; however, this little boy made a larger global impact because of the photo’s horrific and difficult-to-ignore emotional content. Likewise, a humanities website called Human of New York photographed and interviewed several refugees, and the comments on each post are filled with people expressing how this direct interaction with real people behind the crisis have changed their frame of thought towards the issues. Above are examples of HONY’s photographs of refugees during his visit to Greece.

I think Satrapi’s portrayal of Marji’s perspective has a similar effect as it provides a shocking juxtaposition between the simple drawings and the violence they are producing, rejecting the face that it should be normal at all. Although no horrific and traumatic events, such as the ones that occur in Persepolis, can be adequately visualized, I think the minimalistic and innocent take on the images creates a more powerful effect than a realistic one ever could, as it forces readers to reach for the truth in their imagination. This overt visualization is one of the factors present in graphic novels that challenge the typical characteristics of written narratives.

Thanks for reading!

Harnoor

Works Cited:

Chute, Hillary. 2008. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” Women’s Studies Quarterly. Vol. 36(1/2) pp. 92-110

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

Stanton, Brandon. “Humansofnewyork.” Humans of New York. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

Dear readers,

This is currently in an exciting time in my ASTU 100 class, as we have cracked open our first text: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis is a graphic narrative depicting the childhood of a girl growing up in Iran during the time of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. I was thrilled to spot Persepolis on the syllabus at the beginning of the year as I was somewhat familiar with Satrapi’s work:

Growing up, if there was one thing that I was good at, it was drawing. My love for art, combined with my fondness of reading served as the perfect combination for my interest in comic books and graphic novels. Not only did I enjoy reading them, but I remember doing an entire unit in seventh grade on creating graphic novels and thinking to myself that it was right up my ally. So naturally, when my older sister had brought home Persepolis as an assigned class reading, I couldn’t help but dive into it. Reflecting back on my first impressions of the text, I remember my admiration for the crisp black and white illustrations that were so simple, yet conveyed so much substance and emotion, all while managing to highlight the text perfectly. Marji’s rebellious and spunky character, who paralleled my age at the time, also appealed to me as she added a layer of relatability and lightness to a text that otherwise depicted a world so drastically different from my own.

Although it is clear that the visual aspects of Satrapi’s work made a lasting impact on me, I was surprised to discover how little I remembered about the actual events and occurrences surrounding the story. In fact, opening Persepolis up again after so many years made me come to the realization of my how little I know in general regarding Iran’s dethroning of the Shah and  the rise of the Islamic Regime, which had an extensive impact on the lives of thousands of Iranians as well as the future of Iran’s international relations. The majority of my knowledge surrounding Iran’s history comes from my “interpretive community”, a term recently exposed to me through an article that my class has been analyzing in my ASTU class by Farhat Shahzad. According to Shahzad, who is a scholarly educator, an individual’s remembering and learning strategies not only derives from textual sources, but also from a “collectivity of significant ‘others’”, such as teachers, family, friends, and other technologies of memory (Shahzad). For me, the interpretive communities that have influenced my learning about Iran consist of friends and media. A close friend of mine who was born in Tehran, Iran, has offered me great insight on what it is to be an Iranian citizen. She actually reminds me a lot of Marji’s character, mostly due to her rebellious and outspoken nature. Personally interacting with her and her parents has exposed me to Iran’s rich culture, as well as the reasons behind her family’s motivation for leaving their homeland. My second influence comes from a reality TV show that I occasionally watch called “Shahs of Sunset”. Obviously, reality TV shows such as this one should not be considered as fully credible sources of information, however, the cast of the show, who is made up of wealthy Iranian Americans living in Beverly Hills, often share how being Iranian has directly affected their lives and personal experiences. If there is one ide that I’ve gained from these two sources, it is the realization of the amount of rapid political and social change that has taken place in Iran over the past several decades. Cast members of Shahs of Sunset, who are all relatively young, have all expressed the drastic changes that prompted them and their families to leave Iran to lead lives that allow them to be fully free in who they are and what they do. This reaction is similar to my friend who left Iran for Canada, a place where she can find more opportunity and flexibility with her decisions. Both of these “others” have led me to conclude that it is not traditional Iran that has built this strict and radical reputation, but rather, it is the result of several recent shifts in power.

As a result of my scarce exposure to Iran’s history, there is a clear deficit in my knowledge concerning the historic events that occur in Persepolis. Reading Persepolis this time around, hopefully I will be able to better understand Satrapi’s deliberate visual choices, as I will be better equipped to more carefully examine the essence of the story and discover the realities of Iran’s past.

Works Cited:

Image:

“More than Words.” : Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, the Visual Construction of Identity, and “The Veil” Web. 1 Oct. 2015.

Article:

Shahzad, Farhat. “The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning.”Canadian Journal of Education 34.3 (2011): 301-316. Web. ProQuest. 28 Sept. 2015.