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.

Narrative & Visual techniques in "Persepolis"

Satrapi’s Persepolis, an autobiographical graphic novel, doubles as an intellectual adventure story in which the reader can inject his/herself as a peer or a friend of the narrator. The narrator’s presence is strongly felt, and her use of iconic, simplified characters helps a reader with an entirely different background, like me, follow easily and learn on the way. Three details that struck me the most within her illustrated short stories were her skillful use of dialogue, narrative framing, and light/dark contrast. 

From the beginning of the novel, the reader is aware that the narrator is telling us a story from an unknown position. We know that she is telling us about her childhood, about the past, so all of the panels are to be viewed as simplified flashbacks. We also know that all her characters are being portrayed in the way that (1) she remembers them and (2) she as a child perceived them. She makes sure to remind us of the contrast between reality and childlike understanding as exemplified in Moscow, where we are given both the dialogue of the scene, as well as little Starapi’s childish thoughts (i.e. “Holy smokes! Laly’s dad hasn’t been to the U.S.S.R.) (Satrapi 57). I enjoyed her masterful use of dialogue to tell the stories through a plurality of voices. Along with the visual characters, she simplifies (or possibly shortens) the language used in her story without sacrificing its impact and discussion of more complex topics and concepts. 

I can’t digest these ideas ...

Last week when reading McCloud's essay, I saw that he made a clear connection with how selfish human beings can be. When I first came across this statement, I thought to myself, “But why would anyone think that humans are selfish, based on the simple fact that we see ourselves in nearly everything?” 

I guess that’s me being naive. He accused the human race of being selfish due to the fact that we can’t help but personalized imageries, just to make things more meaningful and personal. He uses cartoons as an example of how we quickly make a connection with cartoon images. We give these characters life by exploring the words surrounding them, we place emotions based off of the words, and quickly relate to them because we see ourselves. Fusing ourselves with lifeless objects.

Persepolis

Satrapi’s description and narrative of the veil is an interesting one. For a veil to be such a religious object, she uses a humorous perspective to depict it, allowing the reader to see a different side and use of the object. She goes on to describe gender roles, Her idea of herself, as a prophet is interesting and funny, because women were not anything of importance at the time. She was very intelligent and wise for her age. Upon hearing about her grandfather’s water torture, her desire to stay in the tub for a long time shows her relationship with mutual experiences and pain. I greatly enjoyed how there were two different types of communicating the ideas, one being text and another pictures. It allows for the reader to get both perspectives and different ideas. Everything in this novel is a depiction or a symbol. Although she was always very wise for her age, Satrapi’s smoking of the cigarette shows the end of her youth. This was a very interesting and eye-opening read. I loved the ways the characters were portrayed, they were very understandable and each held a different significance and importance to the story.  

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

Satrapi and Voice

“The Veil” is about Marjane Satrapi growing up and wanting to be a prophet because of the bad things she saw around her. In “The Bicycle”, she learns about Marx and Descartes and imagination versus reality. Marjane wants to participate in the demonstration but her parents won’t allow it. “The Water Cell” shows how Marjane learned about her ancestors and wanted to feel what it was like to be imprisoned like her grandfather. In “Persepolis”, her grandma tells her about the revolutions and her dad comes home late from a protest. “The Letter” says the reason for the revolution is the difference between social classes. Their maid is unable to marry her love, their neighbor, because she is of a lower social class. The went to the demonstration and many were killed by their own. In “The Party”, the Shah left and everyone celebrated. Marjane wanted to kill Ramin but forgave him because her mom said she must. “The Heroes” are about these “heroes” Marjane knows who get out of jail and come to her house. Marjane played torture games with her friends.

Persepolis: Voice and Icon

In Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, the author gives a recollection of her early childhood years. While reading this graphic novel, the ideas of two theorists continued to be applied here. First, the ideas dealing with changing stylistics and voice from Bakhtin’s Discourse in the Novel are used. Second, the symbols and icons described by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics are important tools used by Satrapi in the images she uses to convey the story told in this graphic novel.

I noticed that one of the main characteristics of Persepolis is the aspect of a story within a story. The novel consists of Satrapi’s childhood which is the main storyline. Most of the story consists of characters giving flashbacks and retelling stories from other characters. In observing this shift in voice from one character to another I recalled Bakhtin’s Discourse in the Novel. In describing heteroglossia, Bakhtin explains, “...once incorporated into the novel is another’s speech in another’s language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way” (Bakhtin 324). The way Satrapi uses heteroglossia and different voices in Persepolis gives it its unique style. One voice is that of Satrapi for example, on page 14 when she has one of her conversations with God. Another is on page 28 where Satrapi’s grandmother is telling her the history of the Shah. 

Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi begins her memoir by describing her feelings about the obligatory veil.  She depicts the different ways children her age treated the veil in a comical way. While the veil is a serious religious matter, Satrapi uses humorous pictures to describe the way it was treated. Satrapi also shines light on gender roles in the first section of her memoir. She states that she always wanted to be a prophet and that her grandmother was the other person that believed in her while the rest of her family held the belief that woman cannot be prophets. Satrapi again used humor in the image of her, personal prophet rules. This image also reminds the reader of just how young and naïve Satrapi is at this time in the plot. Early on in the memoir and in her childhood, Satrapi abandons her self-proclaimed destiny as a prophet to revolt with the rest of her nation. Satrapi’s image of herself and friends in the garden where she states that “the revolution is like a bicycle. When the wheels don’t turn, it falls.” This short statement eludes the reader to the vast knowledge Satrapi has of what is going on around her at such young age. While Satrapi is not allowed to partake in actual demonstration of protest, her parents do. They demonstrate after learning of the movie theater fire in which the doors were locked from the outside. Satrapi is very aware of the facts of this violence and the lack of police activity that occurred.

Universal v. Default in McCloud

McCloud is not quite right in positing the “smiley face” model (the circle-two-dots-and-a-line) as being perfectly universal. It is more like a default, and that default conforms to the assumed look of a white able-bodied man. This default is in turn posited as a universality, since the points of view of white able-bodied men have always been thought of as a universal—which is why women writers are “women writers” whereas male writers are “writers,” and black authors are “black authors” whereas white authors are “authors,” and so on in iterations of people of color, queer people, and intersections thereof.

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.

Satrapi vs. McCloud

While (re)reading Satrapi's graphic novel, I mostly tried to employ a McCloud-ian lens when examining the storyline in relation to the graphics, and when examining the work as a whole. The relationship between text and image, which was the focus when I initially read the novel, seems to somewhat disconnect the message from the visual, because of the lack of depth to the images but the heavy emotional weight of the content. There also seems to be another drastic disconnect that I noticed while reading the story this time around, and that is the disconnect between genre (which is possibly not the best way to categorize this aspect but explanation is eminent) and storyline. While carrying the story through deep-seated political movements and real-life events of the combat in Iran, it seems that the genre and delivery of the story should be through newspaper article, or autobiography, or even a blog on which survivors and citizens of war stricken countries can share their stories. One can hardly call it common to find a story like this under these material and visual circumstances, with almost amateur cartoons and not even in color. How is a reader to extract or invest any kind of sympathy, trust, or emotion in a story, how are they supposed to relate to these characters, if half of the components don’t add up? 

Can Humans Become One With Machine?

Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics” proved to be an interesting and informative read for various reasons.  In his article McCloud unpacks abstract concepts hoping to help his audience better understand the difference between pictures and icons.  By using visual illustrations McCloud is able to give readers a better understanding of what is being explained in his writing.

One aspect of McCloud’s writing that struck me as particularly interesting was the  concept of non-visual awareness, “when people interact with inanimate objects” (McCloud 38), or when a person describes an object as part of themselves.  One example provided by McCloud was that the operator of a machine such as a car claims to become one with thus car when driving or interacting with it.  Such an occurrence has led me to wonder if it is possible for man and machine to interact with each other on varying levels of depth.  As humans become more and more dependent on technology in our daily lives, could we in fact become one with machine?  By forming a visual example of my own I hope to answer this question.

McCloud was Totally Right

After reading a ton of pieces by deceased theorists this semester, I am actually glad that we're stepping into something different. Reading Persepolis was truly a breath of fresh air, in a sense that it doesn't take much brain power to analyze this memoir. However, it's key to point out that one would have to be knowledgeable of historical events, especially middle-eastern culture.

I also found this to be rather entertaining, maybe it's because I'm a huge comic book fan. McCloud states that artistic depictions that represents an idea in our culture is considered an icon. He also states that those icons are recognizable no matter the form that is being presented. As for the icons in the Persepolis text, she tells the story assuming that the reader knows who she is referring to.

"Iconic Abstraction" In Persepolis

I noticed a couple of strange abstract ideas throughout Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. One of them was on Page 6—the frame with the iconic prophets in it. I might be able to guess all of the prophets if I took the time, but one of them is very obvious to most people: Jesus (Satrapi 6). It's such a simple image; how might people guess what it's supposed to be? It's an icon. It works on the concept Scott McCloud calls "amplification through simplification" (McCloud 30) in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. The little Jesus image "[focuses] on specific details" (McCloud 30)—details that imply this is Jesus, such as the crown of thorns, long hair, beard, and the attire that is seen in many crucifixion portraits of Jesus (Satrapi 6). This concept helped me to see that image as being Jesus, but it does not necessarily work for everybody. It's hard to believe, being in a culture that has been heavily influenced by Christianity, that some people might not know the details that allow someone to understand the image is supposed to be Jesus. But people of other cultures might find it strange that I can't point out the other prophets in the frame with Jesus. Icons have to be iconic, meaning they have to be apparent to the culture to be significant within said culture. But individual readers have the ability to transcend their own cultures by reading about or learning about other cultures.

The Universal Struggle

I love "Persepolis". I love how easy and accessible it is in the sense that it's Satrapi's life journey and because of how it's written, regardless of the language you speak--you can understand it.

In relation to that I looked at McCloud's article. "In pictures, however, meaning is fluid and variable according to their appearance. They differ from "real-life" appearance to varying degrees" (McCloud, 28). Satrapi's book is a graphic novel, so it's full of pictures. The meaning of the pictures is all related to what is occurring in the book. The pictures in the novel are rather simplistic, there is no color and the details are limited. They do differ from "real-life" appearance but even though it has an abstract level to it, people can still recognize them as human faces.

Persepolis: Words + Images

Persepolis was an easy, quick read that strayed away from the style of our ordinary texts.  I am quite familiar with the memoir genre but I do not read too many comics.  This story was the first I have read that combined the genres of memoir and comic together.  Marjane Satrapi gives a unique perspective on the events of the Islamic Revolution by immersing us into her childhood and adolescence.  At first, I was skeptical as to how effective the story would be through the combination of completely different genres.

Referring to some of the points on the class discussion board, I am going to talk more specifically about Satrapi's use of provocative use of drawn symbols in Persepolis.  Typically in a comic, the dialogue and narrative are humorous and light-hearted in nature.  While there is laughter within the story, the bulk of material is extremely sad and serious.  One example I would like to point out is a scene that shows a man dead in a bathtub (Satrapi 65).  The imagery is not entirely daunting outside of its context, but when it is revealed that someone murdered him then it takes on a new meaning.  A comical frame, such as this, actually happened in real-life and its disheartening once that connection is made.  My mind is not trained to make the connection between comics and tragic events.  Another example of her provocative use of drawn symbols is of a man dead and chopped into pieces (Satrapi 52).  In a way, this image desensitizes the reader to the actual scene.  In reality, the man would be covered in blood and the scene would be very gory.  From my perspective, Satrapi's use of these serious symbols actually weakens her agency as an author/creator.  The lack of vivid imagery detracts from the seriousness of the events that happened.

Satrapi and the universality of cartoon imagery

In relation to McCloud’s theory I think that "universality of cartoon imagery" is operating differently than just to relate to the common person.  I think a large part of this work is the difficulties and struggles that are specific to the author due to where she is from and due to her gender.  I think that the comic book style in this case is used not as a way to relate to everyone but as a why to convey emotion in an understated style that makes it accessible to the reader.  This is an incredibly serious topic and the graphic novel format allows the reader to walk along side the author.  The format of the work is used to bring emotion and situations to us in a way that is functionally accessible.

 I think a good example of this is the way that God is drawn.  All of us can relate to this stereotypical image of God as an older man with a white beard.  In the same way that the more violent images are drawn, this image of God relates to us without bringing us completely into the situation.  I don’t think that the author’s intention is to usher us into herself and see completely through her eyes. We have not experienced what she has.  But the graphic novel style allows us to immerse ourselves into the narrative in a way that a written work wouldn’t.  We can physically see the author and because of this I think that we are supposed to keep the author separate from our ourselves.  The universality of this text is limited to the emotion of her story. 

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?

McCloud and Satrapi Connections

To be honest, I have been waiting very patiently to read the two comic memoirs we were asked to purchase at the beginning of the semester. The cover art of both Persepolis and Arab in America had caught my attention in the bookstore from the very start, and I was wondering when and how these two text would tie in with our in-class discussions. However, as soon as we were asked to read Scott McCloud's The Vocabulary of Comics, I knew we had to be getting close to reading the comics. In McCloud's compelling text, which I have to say I could not get enough of, he states that he is going to "examine cartooning as a form of amplification through simplification. When we abstract an image through cartooning, we're not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details" (30). Also, McCloud declares a "universality of cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, the more people it could be said to describe" (31). I took these statements into consideration when beginning my read through Persepolis...

Frames: Foreshadowing and Other Effects

To begin, I must declare that I am a huge fan of graphic novels. Maus and Maus II are two of my favorite texts (not just graphic novels) to read and analyze; likely because I was exposed to them at an extremely young age, an age that was likely too young to be dealing with the disturbing content matter of the story; the Holocaust (my father owned and frequented both). But alas, I am confident that my early exposure to graphic novels assisted in my selection of Editing, Writing and Media as my focus of study.

Opening the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, a few observations of the layout and organization strike me first. The “frames” of the novel, or sometimes lack thereof, help set the mood of the tone that the story is attempting to show and project. So, what I mean by this is that in a normal novel, the text is the only story-telling source. But in this graphic novel, the text is not the sole source of the audiences’ understanding of what is occurring in the story. For example, on page 51’s bottom “frame,” Satrapi goes from (dark) frames that show the narrator and her family to a (white) frame that is meant to show the torture experienced by Ahmadi. By using one large frame with several examples of torture on the bottom of page 51, the reader gains the knowledge that these things have already occurred, and are being talked about by characters other than Ahmadi. By leaving the frame as more of a “floating frame,” (I made this term up to describe a graphic novel frame that lacks borders) the author has allowed the audience to gain a different perspective on this frame. Had the frame been given borders, readers may interpret the actions that occurring in the frame as the present, or things that occurring at that very moment. But because the frame is lacking borders, a “dream-like,” or “relection-esque” feeling exists in the mind of the reader, or at least in the mind of this reader.

Satrapi and McCloud: Words vs. Images

Icons, according to Scott McCloud is, “any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea” (McCloud, 27), so when looking at an icon for example, a recycle sign we know that it stands for recycling. McCloud goes further and, “when we abstract an image through cartooning we’re not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details. By stripping down an image to its essential ‘meaning’, an artist can amplify that meaning” (McCloud, 30). So when taking an image, say a real life picture and transforming it into a cartoon picture with less detail we are amplifying the meaning or idea behind the image.

This is a bold statement by Scott McCloud and in some ways I do agree. However, when looking at a graphic novel like Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi, do we agree with what Scott McCloud has written?