CAP – ASTU

In my previous blog post, I mentioned the value and importance of learning history as well as my personal change in perspective of historical events from the views of a child to who I am today. Once again in ASTU, we continued to discuss the various aspects Iranian author Marjane Satrapi wanted to draw upon through her graphic memoir, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, in which the concept of trauma stood out to me. In today’s discussion, Isabelle brought up a comment that made me want to look deeper into trauma and how it is portrayed from a child’s perspective. She voiced that she had witnessed a (live, I am assuming?) chicken killed as a child in relations to how Satrapi drew abstract and unrealistic depictions of the terrors occurring in Iran at that time. Specifically, how Satrapi portrayed traumatic incidents such as the dismemberment of her uncle as if a hallowed, disjointed mannequin, deaths as ghostly spirits or in some cases, nothing but a black emptiness. The manner in which Satrapi created these visuals are nothing like the real thing, which led me to question why and how she chose to represent trauma the way she did.

While discussing, we came to the conclusion that one of the possible reasons why Satrapi chose this style of simplistic and unusual art form was that it allowed a meaning of what we know of trauma and what we imagine trauma to be transcended through multiple levels, ultimately to a place where trauma cannot be fully represented in any form at all. That is to say, the abstract graphic form allows the reader to visually see what Marij (the protagonist) imagined as a child as well as in a sense, allow opportunity for the reader to imagine what really happened through the use of her narrative. I found this to be an engaging and interactive way of expressing and representing Satrapi’s personal experience with trauma, because it not only showed what she believed but also allowed me, the reader, to imagine through my own perspective what she was trying to convey.

When Isabelle mentioned the chicken, I was instantly reminded of my past experiences with deaths of animals. Growing up in China, I was aware of and allowed to witness the deaths of different animals (chickens, ducks, pigeons, fish, even a pig) for food. Keep in mind this was over 10 years ago, so at the time, I was around 6 or 7 years old when I saw these animals having their throat slit and watched them bleed to death. Although it may sound cruel and insensible to see these animals die and expose their act of death to a young child, this was very much a norm in some parts of China. I remember thinking that whole thing was very disgusting, and how sad it must have been for the animal to die. But at the same time, it seemed very ordinary, how animals must die to feed the human population. Looking back now, if I were to draw what I saw as a 6/7 year old, my visual representation would not be more than a scraggly shape of a chicken with X-crossed eyes and a spew of spiky blood coming from its neck.

At the age of 6/7, I clearly lacked the skills of drawing what I saw realistically. But at the same time, it was hard for me to even imagine drawing realistically (even if I could) because it was an act you do not particularly want to remember in exact details. It is hard to comprehend death of anything in any form of representation, because it is not something you usually desire to represent. I can imagine a sense of naiveness and childish innocence through Satrapi’s graphic representation, because that is how I would have drawn it myself. I also think that if Satrapi had drawn her traumatic incidents in a realistic manner, she is setting a tone for readers to believe that what she drew is the true depiction of trauma. To clarify that, I mean it in the way that readers would be more likely to associate what she presents (if it were drawn realistically in her graphic memoir) as what trauma might usually look like. That to me, is not as powerful as if a reader were to imagine the reality of trauma themselves, because everyone’s own interpretation of trauma is different. With that said, someone who actually witnessed a traumatic incident in person would not view it the same as a person who say, viewed trauma through TV or in Satrapi’s case, a graphic memoir.