Satrapi Persepolis

I must say that this was some very interesting reading material. I enjoyed the storyline, and the overall focus of the story. It had some very interesting, unusual and contradictory actions in regards to religion. Being that this was place into a comic book story appearance, or animated visual it was easier to digest, but I remembered that I needed to take a step back and think that this has happened to someone, this is a section of someone’s. I really think that in some cases that creating a visual of this nature for serious stories or articles has the ability to take away an important aspect of the product. A person risks drawing in an audience by this heartfelt and educating essay or story by trying to make it humorous. This genre is risky yet interesting. I have to wonder though, does she choose the genre on purpose in order to create a less gut wrenching, heartbreaking, and tormenting feeling in efforts to make the story feel light and appealing?

For me it was kind of difficult to connect with the images in the book because I have never been drawn to comics. I had some sort of disconnection between the visual and the words because I felt that the words did not fully connect with the images. The events that were taking place, especially at the beginning of the book were not drawing me in completely due to the images that surrounded. I think the roles of the narration in the memoir were somewhat needed because it aided in allowing the audience to connect some sort of emotions to the characters, it kept the story and characters from seeming dry or detached. There were some areas of the story that I feel were extra dramatized also as a result of the genre used. For example when she fell to the floor and said her life was over, because of what happened with the bot that she really like. This is something that I think she was able to make possible because of the visual animation, icons, or drawing that she used.

Her drawings of gender and liberation were her strongest I think by far. I could feel the fight in her liberation drawings because they allowed emotions and facial expression to be strong, defiant, defined, and opinionated.

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