Graphic novels are an alternate way to share stories. The use of comics is becoming increasingly popular as it is found to be a different and more enjoyable way of reading as it uses a series of separate drawings combined with little text tell a story. Persepolis and Maus both use this medium to share personal experiences of trauma and challenging life events they had been exposed to or have heard of.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic narrative about her childhood years living in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and the Islamic revolution, It is her “disjuncture in her child’s-eye rendition of trauma” (Chute 98). The novel is composed of about 150 pages of black and white drawn images each telling us a significant memory or experience that Satrapi has chosen to share with the readers. In my opinion, I feel that Satrapi chose to write this novel to share with everyone what it was really like for a child to grow up in Iran at a time of crisis, a first-hand witness to the events going on. Her simplistic and childlike drawings remind us that this is a child sharing with us her the difficulties growing up, it is her perspective of things at the time and her opinions to trauma.

A further analysis by Hillary Chute explores possible concepts as to why Satrapi has made these visual and literary choices. Chute mentions that comics lets the readers feel more involved as if they are “bearing witness” (Chute, 93). Chute states that graphic images about disturbing events engages a reader as it makes them visualize the scenario and puts emphasis on the realness of it. He also talks about the effect having the images only in black and white and not even shades of black (Chute, 98) and the effect this has. This gives us a focus, it does not distract us from what the image is trying to show and in most part it is showing trauma.

Maus by Art Spiegelman, is a graphic narrative about him talking to his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and a holocaust survivor. This comic is more detailed and less childlike, it uses shading as well as the use of animals instead of humans. For example, the Jews are the mice and the Germans are the cats. This adds some humour to the story however the meanings behind them is very much serious and the graphic images shows the view of trauma then from a second generation.

I think the main difference between the way the two comics are showing trauma, is that one was imagined to be from a child’s perspective therefore everything is simple and only black and white whilst the other is of an adult therefore it is more complicated with shades of grey.