McCloud and Satrapi (with a hint of Bakhtin)

Both Scott McCloud and Marjane Satrapi bring forward ideas about symbols, icons and images to the rhetorical world. In Persepolis, Satrapi talks about the symbol, of a "veil." McCloud is very interested in the use of icons to represent objects from real life. I personally see his argument in Understanding Comics conflicting due to his idea that we see ourselves in every object because there are many objects that I would not automatically see myself in. 

Satrapi's graphic novel uses images to tell her childhood story, similar to McCloud's use of cartoons to get his point about images across. McCloud's main point in doing this is to show us how our minds work, how self-centered our ideals are about the world around us. By using graphic rhetoric, he can prove his ideas while telling them (even though I did not fully agree that I implant my own human characteristics into the cartoons.) Satrapi displays the use of iconic images when retelling about the burning theatre on page 15. The burning people are shown in ghost-like images instead of normal humans, an icon that gives a much more serious idea. This reflects Satrapi's use of simplified figures, an idea that McCloud stresses intensely in Understanding Comics.


Satrapi uses graphics to draw the audience in, make them feel as if they are the narrater themselves. Bakhtin's Discourse in the Novel touches on the idea that the author's voice is merely one of many in a novel and Satrapi exemplifies how by using images, an author can fall further into the background, leaving the reader's own voice to fill in their own interpretation of the images. Overall, Satrapi makes gains in women's literature by implementing the graphic element, giving her views a stronger voice in the reader's minds and subsequently society as a whole.

Bakhtin, Mikhail M. “Discourse in the Novel.” The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. 259-331. 

McCloud, Scott. “The Vocabulary of Comics.” In Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. 24-45.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon, 2003.