This chunk of reading has a lot to do with Marji's metamorphosis into a young woman. How do you think her environment and the people around her have shaped who she has become?
How does Satrapi's art style help convey meaning in this comic? I have noticed the black backdrops in a lot of panels, mostly in scenes where she is uncomfortable, or upset. I like this style of drawing, where the negative white line defines the shape of the hair, as opposed to a black line drawn typically. What other devices have you noticed about the art that Mccloud might have been talking about in "Understanding Comics"?
Also as a side-note, I've noticed how Satrapi draws profiles of faces with the frontal eye shape, much like egyptians did in ancient art. As an artist, it sort of bothers me a little bit. Do you think this is a homage to non-western drawing styles? Or do you think its just an artist's choice that doest really have anything to do with the content of the comic?
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ReplyDeleteI’m going to try this hypothesis: Persepolis welcomes the comparison between East and West and then questions the validity of the Eastern and Western paradigm. Marjane has trouble fitting in so she conforms to Western styles. I don’t imagine all of the West filled with punks and nihilists but Marjane’s choices to fit are often associated with regret about not staying true to her nationality, family, and experience. She participates in the discourse of an East-West dichotomy. Marjane feels like she’s posing when she smokes with her friends, she pretends to be French so as to not have to account for the “burden” of being Iranian (Persepolis 2, 41). Additionally, the explanation of Iranian political history in the book situates Iran as the play thing of Western powers. Great, a classic example of an Orientalist powered relationship based on knowledge. The West is modern, progressive, and in control. Iranians want to be like the West; naturally, progress is intrinsically valuable, but can’t because of the backwardness of Iranian society. Backwardness being a thing defined by the West. Marjane’s experience in the West represents the victory of Western progress, she has always had the support of an open-minded family but only realizes the full extent of Eastern backwardness when she can actualize in the West.
ReplyDeleteThat’s not the moral of the story at all, the comic doesn’t support that sort of logic. Marjane has a terrible time in Austria. The characters she meets there are often easy to dislike (I’m thinking of Frau Heller), the philosophy is easy to dismiss (her experience with war and revolution means Marjane can’t subscribe to (Western?) nihilism), and the social system fails her (Marjane spends a month on the streets while her family situation in Iran is pretty solid, her grandmother is a wonderful character). Marjane’s victory is in encountering the West and learning how to stay true to her Iranian identity. I’m interested in this victory as it relates to power. I think Persepolis can be read similarly to other Cold War era literatures. My immediate concern with that claim is that issues of the East and West might be intimately tied to Cold War discourse and there’s no use separating the two. Your immediate concern with my claim is that I have little to no experience with Cold War era literature.
I read some scholarship on the Berlin Wall for another class and that reading largely informs my reading of Persepolis in this way. In “The Wall as a Kafkaesque Symbol: Helga Schubert’s ‘Das verbotene Zimmer,’” Barbara Mabee reads the Berlin Wall in the short story of an East German writer as an absurd symbol. Mabee invokes Grimm, Kafke, and Freud with better reason than I can, Schubert’s work alludes to each, but I’m interested in applying her thinking about dreams, space, and power to Persepolis. Because I don’t think I can fully articulate an argument in this space, I’ll forego more convincing paragraphs for a list:
Delete(1) “The attic of the unconscious opens up to the reader and allows her/him to share in the narrator’s emotional attempt to find in dreams release from repression” (599).
(2) “The focal point of my discussion is an analysis of Schubert’s symbolic structures and Kafkaesque dream elements as they related to the narrator’s journey toward a clearer understanding of herself” (600).
(3) “She [the narrator] has internalized oppressive political structures to such an extent that they have created within her strong barriers, resulting in a feeling of helplessness and psychological unsureness” (600).
(4) “Both external wall in the stories signify absurdity, power, and inescapable control by commanding forces” (600).
(1) I don’t think dreams are easily detectable in Persepolis but Marjane’s discussions with God and her willingness to occupy the role of someone else (Che Guevera, a prophet) might operate as an attic of the unconscious dealing with repression.
(2) Marjane is certainly on a journey toward a better understanding of herself and her identity.
(3) The internalization of oppressive political structures is evident in Persepolis. Marjane comments that this internalization helps to distract folks from the real problems. Marjane is more rebellious than I think Schubert’s narrator is. This might be an issue, Marjane actually acts out and gives the impression that she is aware of the oppressive political structures and hasn’t internalized them, they’re always under scrutiny.
(4) This is the important bit. Schubert’s narrator is feels the way she does because an outside force wields power in an absurd way. The divided city is an absurd city. I think a fine working definition for absurd is that it doesn’t seem to obtain, it defies explanation.
The absurdity of Persepolis is heightened because the reader sees Marjane attempt to understand these structures as a child. She’s a child, all power seems to be outside her. Her inability to participate in the logic of these symbols helps to point out how absurd they are. Torture practices are turned into a child’s game. Marjane notices the ridiculous nature of teachers who flip flop political ideology, neighbors who transform birthmarks into war wounds, political prisoners who teach her that irons are domestic items and items of torture, and a window washer who decides the fate of a sick man.
DeleteI was supposed to be interested in how Persepolis might challenge an East-West paradigm. I ignored the possibility that Orientalism and Cold War discourses might be linked together (I’m thinking of a poem by an American about the Berlin Wall, which makes use of Eastern imagery). My reading also ignores the racism Marjane experienced while in Austria. If I’m interested in accounting for the logic of the novel as operating like other Cold War works, an explanation of race separates this work from work by East Germans who didn’t experience racial oppression. If race needs accounting for perhaps this work is less similar to Western Cold War literature and more similar to Cold War literature from locations which experienced intervention which was more easily construed as foreign or non-wherever the agent happened to be. I’ve also construed Cold War era literature as absurd based off an article. So there’s more research to be done, but perhaps Persepolis can be read like other Cold War era literature, as interested in the absurd nature of power during this period. The implication would be that Schubert and Satrapi aren’t divided by an East-West experience but share a common experience of a certain type of Cold War power.
I feel as though you are not responding to my discussion, rather going on a tangent that doesn't really answer most of the points I am asking about. While you are discussing Persepolis, it appears that you are kind of off topic. And although your points are thought provoking ( I can see from your later discussion post on the main page you are really interested in the discourse created from the reading), could you perhaps discuss some of the other points like the art and their influences on your experience reading the comic?
DeleteI personally enjoyed the art; I too noticed the darkness when there was supposed to be a tragic mood. I think the eyes are maybe just particular to the illustrator; I know that it's definitely not the norm, and it definitely could annoy a fellow artist, but from someone who isn't an artist (myself!), it didn't bother me much. Personally, I liked that it was not the norm! I don't think it said much about the novel; however, maybe I'm not looking deep enough!
ReplyDeleteI really liked reading the "coming of age" portion of this comic. Unlike a lot of these stories, you really feel for Marjane, becuase you actually get the sense that she IS different then everyone else. No one around her has been through what she has, and even when returning home she is still out of place. She is stuck in between these two vastly different worlds.
ReplyDeleteas for the art style; I loved it. I'm a fine arts major, and I find this to be just an adorable style. I get what your saying with the eyes, but It didn't really stand out as odd to me; lots of artist actually avoid profile shots because its so easy to make them look weird. for example imagine a power puff girl in profile. Weird, right? I applaud Marjane for taking on the side view in what I think is a pretty effective way.