Satrapi's way of telling

I thought that Marjane Satrapi did a very interesting thing in her graphic novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood.  She told a story of struggle in the world a way that I myself have never heard before.  This was done by giving illustrations in a comic like way to depict a young girl living in Iran during revolution in 1979.  I was not sure at first how this was going to work being such a laid back style of writing that I usually attach humor to when I recognize, such as the comic section in the newspaper.  I believe that this technique was meant to send the reader many different signs and reasons to ponder while breaking down the novel.

One thing that I thought came from reading a story which is told in the way Satrapi put it was that I thought it could be from an everyday person in Iran.  The drawings were not to fancy but they depicted what the story was telling effectively.  This gave me the sense that this could be any little girl living in Iran going through the same hard times that Marjane Satrapi was.  I felt remorse for her in this story as many people would who have been privilege to live in a place where we do not have to worry about many of the things she did.  Though I felt seeing it through the eyes of a child and through a graphic cartoon like way even hit harder about how innocent many young children in her place were.  The words in her story were most dominant I believe but were completed with the illustrations.  I wonder how the words and the flow of the story would have to change if illustrations were not used.

I look forward to finishing the novel and will especially focus on the way the author tells the story through this the method which I am not very familiar of.  This was a fun approach and something fresh from the normal readings so far.  I am interested to see how the illustrations might change or give me a different feel to where the story is going that I would not be aware of if they were not there.

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