Persepolis

Conrad Barber

Persepolis is a very interesting autobiography by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman. She tells the story of her childhood in the form of a comic, which delves into her personal life growing up, while also presenting a historical account of the surrounding events. One aspect I found interesting is that every once in a while, the author will pause and present some little anecdote or tidbit of historical or cultural information, which is not necessarily vital to the story but helps to enhance the reader's understanding Iran in this time period. When this information is being presented, it comes in the form of a talk bubble from the author's character Marji, who is the sole item in the frame, seems to be looking directly at the reader, and is usually holding up one finger, indicating she is making a point.

So what is the significance of this pause in the storyline to present some facts? Obviously the biggest and most prominent effect of these kind of random statements is to present information that the reader probably did not previously know, such as "According to Shiite tradition, when an unmarried man dies, a nuptial chamber is built for him. That way, the dead man can symbolically attain carnal knowledge." These kinds of little factoids are not necessary, but they do help us as non-Iranian readers to better understand the culture and the story. If she hadn't inserted that frame with the quote I mentioned, we would have no idea of the significance of the nuptial chambers for fallen soldiers. Again, not absolutely necessary, but good to know.

So then if we can agree that the author wants us to become more educated on Iranian culture, then next question I will address is 'why?'. This can be answered with the argument that the author is trying to get us as readers to experience the lives of these people, to put ourselves into their shoes for a change rather than just reading headlines and prejudging them simply because they are from Iran. It seems like nowadays the entire Middle East is more or less considered hostile and terroristic by the general American public. Obviously these views represent an ignorant generalization and are totally unfounded. By really getting the reader to imagine life in wartime Iran, the author is able to present the opposite viewpoint, that not everyone is these countries hates Western civilization, and that we cannot judge the morals of any individual person based on the policies of their government. The other times we see the character of Marji facing the "camera" with her finger held up is whenever she is making some sort of claim, or stating some sort of revolutionary phrase or fact. This is probably not unintentional and the author meant to maybe connect the actual facts to the views of Marji and her revolutionary family, as if to say their standpoint is based on facts.

Conrad Barber

V for Vendetta


I hate to use a promotional picture from the movie, but this picture helps to demonstrate the shadow and darkness which I am discussing.

The artwork in V for Vendetta is very dark. Many frames are largely if not almost entirely black, with a small amount of action or narration. What is the significance of this? Why would Moore Lloyd want to have this story take place in such a dark setting? The character V operates almost exclusively during the night, and dresses in all black with a black cloak, almost as if he himself is a shadow.

So then what is the significance of placing the story in such a dark setting? What does this relative shadow represent? Probably the biggest reason for using the darkness is to represent the political atmosphere of this alternate 1997 England. The general public is greatly oppressed by the government and they are only allowed to see and hear what the government wants them to. This is the sort of shadow they live in.

Conrad Barber

Maus/White

What is the significance of the use of mice and cats to portray the characters in this story? These events obviously actually happened to humans, yet when Spiegelman retells them he makes the Jews mice and the Nazis cats. Why did he not simply record the events as they actually happened, with the correct species that was involved? The first reason is probably simply that by making the characters all look similar, it eliminates a real identity of each mouse and cat. They all have basically the same simply drawn faces, so that all the mice look the same and all the cats also. This sort of allows us as the readers to make the characters into whoever we want them to be.

So why would Spiegelman want his characters to not have their own visual identities? What is the significance of this intention? By making the faces generic, the results are that the only real differences between characters is whether they're a cat or a mouse. This helps to portray the complete separation of Jews and Nazis. It helps to break down the different sides and to make all Jews simply Jews, and likewise with Nazis. It was this stark generalizing and downright racism which started the Holocaust in the first place.

So how does this clear division of groups contribute to the telling of the story? Spiegelman is obviously pressing his own morals upon the reader, trying to gain their sympathy by portraying himself and the Jews as weak mice who are victimized by the big strong Nazi cats. It's like White said, could we ever narrativize without moralizing? The answer is pretty much no. Any account of any historical event is inevitably going to have some sort of spin on it, depending on who made the record. Every person wants to have his or her side of the story seem like the better side, and they want whoever is reading their account to agree with them, pity them, or whatever.