Hello everyone, before starting off with what I will be focusing on I would like to go back to the day of the class conference and remind the class readers of the presentation I submitted, which was a picture having a satirical statement, “I noticed you don’t cite your sources, I too like to live dangerously.” The presentation highlighted the most important thing that I learned in this class which applied to my other courses as well and it will stick with me till the end of my undergraduate degree, and further in life; is how to do citation, what are the techniques of it and tips on how to avoid plagiarizing. This is very important because if it is taken lightly a person can get into the trouble for academic misconduct which may affect the person’s academic and professional life. Besides learning how to avoid academic dishonesty from this course, I got the opportunity to read many literary books such as Cockeyed, Missing Sarah, Diamond Grill and Persopolis,through which I learned about many issues and concepts.
All the literary texts were very engaging and each of the texts gave a different perception, such as Cockeyedwas written from a blind person’s perspective, Diamond Grillwas written from a mixed-race person’s perspective, Missing Sarahwas written from a sex worker’s close family member’s perspective, aiming to change to stereotypical mindset and Persepolis from an Iranian child’s perspective. However, the primary texts that I’m going to be focusing on is Persepolis. This book revolves around Satrapi’s journey through the decline of the Shah of Iran and up rise of oppressive Islamic republic. The concept I will be focusing on is that I found interesting is a child’s perspective and their ability of imagination which is unique yet a powerful approach to a written narrative. The reason for claiming Persepolis’s narrative powerful is because of its reach and its unlimited audience. This book is not only limited to a specific group of people, but people of all ages will find this narrative interesting. The book’s first chapter ‘The Veil’ provides an example of how Satrapi uses simple black and white pictures which may be used in order to signify a story of trauma, each picture is with a few statements yet conveying her message to the readers effectively. In the first chapter, Satrapi signifies how girls in the society she was born in were oppressed and had little agency with them as it states it was obligatory for every girl in her school to wear a veil, willingly or unwillingly (Satrapi 3). The scholar who would agree to my statement that Persepolis is a unique approach to narrative writing is Hillary Chute, as she recognizes and acknowledges the work of these narratives by stating “The field of graphic narrative brings certain constellations to the table: hybridity and autobiography, theorizing trauma in connection to the visual, textuality that takes the body seriously.” (Chute 93). An example of how readers get to experience the massacre in Iran through a child’s lens showcasing her imagination in Chapter 2 “The Bicycle” where Satrapi imagines the burning of the movie theater, drawing ghostly creatures apparently screaming (Satrapi 15). Chute states in her article “… “The Veil.” An icon of a single eye, directly engaging the reader, dangles over the book’s very first gutter, reminding readers at the outset that we are aligned with Satrapi’s penetrating vision…” (Chute 96) demonstrate how Satrapi from the beginning of the chapter makes a strong connection with her readers and how throughout the book she makes her readers view her childhood journey through her own lens.
To conclude, I think the concept of a graphic narrative serves an important purpose as it gives us an insight of what’s going on in the victim’s mind and their capability of imagination. However, in my opinion Persepolisis different from other graphic narratives in ways of how it gives the reader to view one of many traumatic stories of Iran-Iraq war through Satrapi’s journey, proving it to be a first-hand experience for the readers.
Works Cited:
Chute, Hillary. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis.’” Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 1/2, 2008, pp. 92–110. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27649737.
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. SAPL, 2013