Hey guys, this is my text response essay relating to a book called Persepolis:The story of a childhood. English really isn't a strong point so i'd really appreciate
any feedback. Thanks
The central purpose of Persepolis: A story of a childhood is to recognise the importance of telling stories as a mean to ‘never forget’. Discuss.
Set during a time of Iranian turmoil, living under the theocratic government within, Marjane Satrapi’s
Persepolis: The story of a childhood follows Satrapi’s bildungsroman, conveying the significance of telling stories as a means to uphold the truth in a world of oppression and to ‘never forget.’ Through her graphic novel memoir, Satrapi explores the importance of family in the formation of one’s identity. Moreover, Satrapi depicts the trauma and hardships faced by Iran due to the oppressive nature of the Iranian government. Ultimately, Satrapi challenges the reductive Western stereotypes of the East, while drawing attention to the ‘uncomfortable truths’ that are ignored by the Western audience.
Satrapi, through the eyes of her fictionalised younger self explores the values instilled within her through stories of the truth of her nation in the formations of her identity. In the opening panels of the memoir, Marji establishes her individuality on the fringes of society, the strong values she has been told, is incongruent with the story she is told to live under by the theocratic regime. By directly addressing the audience and forcing them to ‘bear witness’ to her life, Satrapi establishes the political narrative of the book. Marji displaying such strong political views at such a young age shows that she was ‘shaped’ by the stories of political freedom by her family as she was growing up, being taught to ‘stay true’ to herself. However, her sense of sense is constantly destabilised, which is where her world view is reframed. The stories of torture and losing their romantic ‘hero’ has acted as a loss of innocence for Marji. One of the most significant of stories being Siamak’s stories of torture in prison; ones which Marji’s parents ‘forgot to spare me [her] this [the] experience.’ These panels are enshrouded in heavy graphic weight, signifying the dark shadow of trauma. These stories trigger moments of self awareness for Marji, followed by reflection shown by the recurring symbol of mirrors as a form of introspection. These stories have an impact on Marji, as they force her to think about ‘the unknown,’ signifying the loss of her naivety. Marji’s turgid emotional state reflects her struggle to reconcile her own values of freedom and her family values. The bildungsroman of the novel is yet again signified when Ebi shares to her that ‘God did not choose the king.’ The influence from the contrasting values between school and family force Marji to challenge her perceptions between what is true and the propaganda from the masses. Therefore, Satrapi conveys how her personal identity formed by ‘true stories’ of her nation is constantly at odds with the contrasting values of fundamentalist and progressive men and women.
Satrapi, depicts the hardships and trauma faced by Iran during the oppressive regime’s rule of the country, signifying the horrific stories of Iranian’s being unable to tell ‘their truth’. Two contrasting panels show how memories of events can differ from person to person. Through the use of an expressionistic style, in contrast to her pained down visuals, Satrapi depicts the “faceless poor,” that were “promised a better life,” being “exploded on the minefield with keys around their necks,” the contrasting panel below shows Marji in the foreground enjoying herself at a party, her naïve and ignorant comment stating that ‘I [she] was looking sharp.’ The juxta-positioning of these two panels identifies the partial memory of historical events and how those in power of telling stories have the ability to manipulate the truth and therefore what it means to be Iranian. During this period of external war, Iran was also struggling with the ‘war within,’ The Rex Cinema massacre being the culmination of this internal war. Satrapi uses a monochromatic colour pallet to draw a contrast between the oppressors, drawn in black, and the oppressed, drawn in white, in order to communicate the ideas behind the art directly to the audience. Satrapi uses a baton as a motif representing brutality, control and oppression as a reinforcement of her key purpose to ‘never forget’ and to remind the Western and Iranian audience those who sacrificed themselves in the name of freedom. The expressionistic visuals showing the ghosts of the ‘400 victims’ that were ‘massacred’ inside the cinema depicts the horror of the act, also serving as emotional closure for the many involved after years of officials and extremists denying responsibility for the act. Satrapi demands her audience to “bear witness” to the intense social divisions created by wrongdoings of the theocratic government through waging a war from within and with Iraq.
Furthermore, Satrapi challenges the reductive stereotypes of the West, using the power of art to expose the “uncomfortable truths” and reshape the false perceptions of the Eastern other. In the introductory stages of Satrapi’s memoir, she emphasises that the perceived ‘fundamentalism, fanaticism and terrorism’ of Iran is ‘far from the truth.’ The didactic nature of the novel is highlighted in a series of panels that depicting the stark contrast between the fundamentalist and progressive men and women. Satrapi does this by showing the slight changes in stylings that people adopt to make their resistance to the regime visible. This trope of resistance to the veil is consistent throughout the novel, even when the regime has become increasing powerful, displacing the Western stereotype of Muslim women being passively oppressed. Women wearing the veil in a variety of creative ways also runs counter to the images of passive, victimised women that are presented in Western media. Satrapi also highlights the power of art to empower through a borderless panel representing an expansion outside of the narrative bound Marji. Satrapi displays the swans immediately after stating that it was ‘my [her] last meeting with my [her] beloved Anoosh,’ to memorialise Anoosh and to ‘never forget’ the symbolic power of his art. It shows that even with mouldy prison bread, Anoosh is able to challenge the regimes; the purity of the white swan in contrast to the all-encompassing darkness of Anoosh’s portrait illuminates the propaganda and subverts the impact of the regime. Satrapi uses her storytelling as a means to memorialise those who fought for the truth, using her art in an attempt to socially reform today’s world.
Ultimately, Satrapi’s
Persepolis: The story of a childhood offers a multifaceted insight into the emotional turmoil faced by Iran during the revolution. Exploiting the power of storytelling, Satrapi successfully depicts the everchanging identity of Marji, and Iranian culture as a whole. In addition, through the use of art, Satrapi subverts the unrealistic stereotypes of the East by memorialising those important to the evolution of Iran.
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