Scott McCloud's Ideas Related to Satrapi's Persepolis

Scott McCloud’s lecture unleashed a bounty of ideas and knowledge relating to the comic book art form that now sheds new light on Marjane Satrapi’s methods of creating Persepolis. What appealed to me especially was the idea that comics are sequential art, temporal maps. Throughout history, as early as the ancient Egyptians, humans have possessed this innate and basic inclination to represent versions of reality through series of images that use space as a means to move through time. These two dimensions are inextricably linked in the human mind, and we are able to extract all five senses, emotions, and memory solely through the visual. The brain has a “desire” almost to find connections and patterns through images to relate to a broader understanding of the essence of reality. It does this through recognizing resemblance and through abstraction. There are certain ideas and images that are innately known to us, such as that of a face, and there are some that are known only through experience, learning, and exposure. Either way, the art form of graphic novels allows the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the story and experience through using this intrinsic faculty of the mind to recognize a different facet of the image without reading the captions or knowing the context. It is also through this faculty that we are able to connect these images using the space between them. Our imagination and subconscious understanding fills the blank and allows us to become a part of the story. To McCloud, the frames on the page of a comic book become windows through which we are able to escape our present reality and reenter the world from a different perspective. This in turn gives us a multi-faceted, complex, and comprehensive understanding of truth, reality, and the world.

All of these ideas are present in Satrapi’s Persepolis. The images arranged on the page give the reader a sense of time and sequence. She interestingly manipulates the space on the page to convey varying intervals of time or, sometimes, the absence of time or eternity. One example of this is on page 71. After she finds out that her beloved uncle has been executed, and she argues and rejects God on page 70, she escapes her physical world and floats in space. This feeling of eternity and lightness is depicted through the use of the entire page for one frame and the use of space within the frame, making her seem small and lost in the vast universe surrounding her. An example of Satrapi using the image to evoke the essence of the event or action taking place through the use of recognition and abstraction on the part of the reader is when, on page 36, she portrays her younger self and her Mehri sitting on the bed with shadows of the slaps they were given by her mother. While the marks were not literally left on the girls’ faces, the image stirs up the sense of touch, emotions of shame, sadness, and pain, and perhaps memory of similar experiences for the readers, allowing them to reach a higher level of understanding of the situation. The reader is also involved in the story when he or she fills in the blank between two frames on a page. An example of this is on page 145 when Satrapi’s mother becomes angry with her for disrespecting her religion teacher and risking imprisonment. In the second to last frame on the page, her mother is shaking Satrapi, and her face is wrought with anger. However, in the last frame, her face is consumed with sadness. The reader imagines the change of expression on the mother’s face and understands the true fear felt by her. In all, Persepolis gives readers throughout the world a new and very personal perspective on the history and current state of Iran. Through her use of the comic book art form, Satrapi does this effectively, providing readers with a window into a world removed from their own.

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Judging Others

Marjaine Satrapi in the Persepolis presents many issues that occurred during Iran’s revolution through presenting the mind of a little child. It is clear from the book’s words and imagery that Satarpi faced so much pressure in her childhood that formed her as a rebel at the end. Being forced to wear the scarf without understanding its meaning and purposes made her hate the idea of covering herself. For her it was just like taking her freedom away, and we see that though she puts the scarf on, she gets called for not putting it properly!

She presents how women were forced to wear the veil and cover themselves. As a result the veil becomes a part of their image whether they liked it or not. Satarpi also mentions that the way people dressed indicated their political views and religious thoughts. For example, the fundamentalist woman covered herself from head to toe but the modern woman showed her opposition to the regime by letting few strands of her hair show. Clearly, Satarpi conveys the importance of imagery in her book. In page 75, Satarpi’s mother comments on the dressing of one of her neighbors and says “Look at her! Last year she was wearing a miniskirt showing off her beefy thighs to the whole neighborhood. And now Madame is wearing a chador. It suits her better, I guess.” “chador” is a farsi word which means, a loose traditional dress that covers the body of a female except her face and hands.

The headscarf is not a social or a cultural issue, it is a religious issue. In the Perespolis, Satarpi presents how the scarf becomes a cultural issue, because no matter what you believed in, you had to put it on! It is interesting how imagery is looked upon in Persepolis. People are judged by their images, then their words and ideas. If images are more important than words, then we will end up judging others’ images not thoughts or thinking.

Do you judge people before you know their thoughts and ideas? Do you judge people based on how they look and dress or what they think and say? Image is important but does it mislead us and shape out thoughts? What do YOU think?

Abstract Images in Persepolis

Throughout her childhood, Marjane Satrapi experienced terrors no child should ever be exposed to. In her graphic memoir, most of the images portray actual events quite realistically. The characters interact in relatively predictable ways; the illustrations of characters lounging on couches, playing in the park, and talking with each other are realistic and relatable. However, throughout the novel whenever young Marjane experiences strong or confusing emotions, the graphics become more abstract. In the first frame on page 6, the background is clearly imagined and represents her conflicting feelings about wearing the veil. The humanoid figures running toward the door at the bottom of page 15 slowly morph into terrifying spirits near the top. Knowledge of this massacre must have terrified young Marjane, and this abstracted image does a much better job showcasing her feelings than a realistic one ever could. In the final frame of page 39, you can see that Mehri and Marjane have black hand-shaped imprints on their faces. In actuality, the mother’s slaps would not have left a mark on the girls’ faces, but by including the handprints in the image, Satrapi shows the shame that she and Mehri felt for having disobeyed her mother.

Satrapi’s abstract depictions of God are more problematic, however, because it is unclear whether young Marjane actually had visions of God in her bedroom at night or whether she was simply overcome with a feeling of God’s presence in her room and then attempts to tangify this experience through her illustrations. On the final page of today’s assignment (page 71) the caption, which reads, “And so I was lost, without any bearings… What could be worse than that?” tells us her feelings, but it is the abstracted image on that page that shows us exactly how she feels. For me, this novel solidifies the point we have raised earlier in this course: There are some things that simply cannot be fully expressed using only words. How does this compare with the views of the Empiricists? With Blake? As we discussed in section today, Blake’s images are largely subjective; Satrapi’s are less so. How does this impact your reading of the text? Where do you see instances of Satrapi’s successful use of images to convey complex and, especially for a child, terrifying emotions? Are there any instances where Satrapi’s images fail to successfully convey her emotions?

Dustin's Blake Analysis - Please Comment on This

Blake Plate Analyses

Plate 10

Many of Blake’s Proverbs of Hell directly contradict what would otherwise be deemed “good” or “Christian,” but Plate 10, the fourth and last listing of the Proverbs of Hell, contains some “good” and some “bad.” Unlike the previous plates written in fiery colors, Plate 10 has the rosy tones of a sunrise on the sea. The first several lines follow this mellow tone. Calling the head “Sublime” and the hands and feet “Proportion,” and even calling the heart “Pathos” and the genitals “Beauty” all could work within a classical view of Enlightenment. Blake continues in contrasts with the crow who “wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white” up to the exclamation that “Exuberance is Beauty.” This climax of harmony is accompanied by small sketches of dancers jumping on clouds.

But here there is a shift. The previous lines placed creatures in their appropriate places—“The sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible”—and everything had a black and white nature. The next lines suggest placing things out of order. Blake talks of a lion “advised by the fox,” of “crooked roads without Improvement” and of nature being “barren” without man. He even writes, “Sooner murder and Infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” Blake aims for the reader to consider these oddities as possible truths, and adds this warning: “Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not believ’d.”The reader not only deciphers each line, but necessarily puts stock in its message. I think here, Blake is not praising Romanticism or Enlightenment, but as a conclusion to his proverbs presents a warning to reconsider everything that is told. He asks, “Enough! Or Too much,” directly inviting the reader to make decisions about the text instead of just passing through it.

Note: The image at the bottom of the page shows three figures, one on the left writing in a blue gown, a winged figure kneeling and pointing out a long scroll to the first, and a similar figure in a blue gown also peering over at the first. The writing figure could be like writing good proverbs, the winged creature (possible demonic) pointing out contrary proverbs, and the third an onlooker trying to write its own but examining the others.

Blake Plate Analyses

Plate 10

Many of Blake’s Proverbs of Hell directly contradict what would otherwise be deemed “good” or “Christian,” but Plate 10, the fourth and last listing of the Proverbs of Hell, contains some “good” and some “bad.” Unlike the previous plates written in fiery colors, Plate 10 has the rosy tones of a sunrise on the sea. The first several lines follow this mellow tone. Calling the head “Sublime” and the hands and feet “Proportion,” and even calling the heart “Pathos” and the genitals “Beauty” all could work within a classical view of Enlightenment. Blake continues in contrasts with the crow who “wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white” up to the exclamation that “Exuberance is Beauty.” This climax of harmony is accompanied by small sketches of dancers jumping on clouds.

But here there is a shift. The previous lines placed creatures in their appropriate places—“The sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible”—and everything had a black and white nature. The next lines suggest placing things out of order. Blake talks of a lion “advised by the fox,” of “crooked roads without Improvement” and of nature being “barren” without man. He even writes, “Sooner murder and Infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” Blake aims for the reader to consider these oddities as possible truths, and adds this warning: “Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not believ’d.” The reader not only deciphers each line, but necessarily puts stock in its message. I think here, Blake is not praising Romanticism or Enlightenment, but as a conclusion to his proverbs presents a warning to reconsider everything that is told. He asks, “Enough! Or Too much,” directly inviting the reader to make decisions about the text instead of just passing through it.

Note: The image at the bottom of the page shows three figures, one on the left writing in a blue gown, a winged figure kneeling and pointing out a long scroll to the first, and a similar figure in a blue gown also peering over at the first. The writing figure could be like writing good proverbs, the winged creature (possible demonic) pointing out contrary proverbs, and the third an onlooker trying to write its own but examining the others.

Blake: Art and Movement

As has been pointed out in both section and lecture, the contrast between the static and the dynamic is an important theme in this work. Blake shows a clear preference for the latter in his strong advocacy for energy (on Plate 4 he writes, "Energy is the only life... Energy is Eternal Delight."). This viewpoint is visible in his accompanying artwork: on the front cover, the barren, still landscape in the top section is easily overshadowed by the vibrancy and motion of the lower, which depicts interaction. The artwork on the inside plates continues to swirl with the same sort of colorful lines.

It is interesting, therefore, to explore how the dynamism of Blake's art reinforces and/or contradicts traditional Romanticism and his own personal philosophy. For instance, the figure on Plate 21 automatically recalls (at least for me) the Friedrich painting we looked at in lecture in its depiction of a solitary man dwarfed by the power of the cosmos. At first glance, the image seems to dovetail perfectly with the Romantic principle that man is not the center of the universe. The figure's upturned face shifts our attention away from him and towards the light source in the corner, suggesting that the most important element in the scene is not the central figure but what lies just outside the frame.

But Blake's work differs from many Romantic paintings in its palpable energy. While the figure in the Friedrich stands calmly at the brink of the abyss, still and passive, Blake's figure is tense and full of barely-restrained motion. Is it possible to see in this depiction support for the idea that Blake may not entirely agree with the Romantic notion of man's insignificance in the world? Instead, one can argue, he believes in the importance of man's involvement and emphasizes the necessity of remaining engaged - actively utilizing human creative energy - rather than passively accepting knowledge from some higher source. It is the dynamic motion of the figure, after all, that forms the center of the image - it is man that turns his head and takes the initiative to understand. Can we reconcile Blake's association with the Romantic movement with this firm belief in a human's power to affect change in the world?

The Truth and the Charioteer: Blake & Plato

While reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, I found myself drawn to the connections between Blake and Plato. At several points, Blake seems to directly contradict Plato, but at other times he seems to build on Plato's arguments, especially those concerning the nature of truth. The image on Plate 5 appears to illustrate Plato's concept of the soul as a team of horses, virtue and desire, driven by the charioteer, Reason. Blake's drawing shows a man who has lost control of a horse, and both man and horse, turned upside down, appear to be falling toward Hell. Meanwhile, darkness appears to be descending from the upper right-hand corner. Below this, Blake writes, “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or Reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.” Blake believes, like Plato, that Reason controls desire as a charioteer manages a horse. However, Blake believes that this only occurs when the desires are weak, and he advocates casting out Reason, overturning the chariot as in the illustration, and descending toward Hell, and its Eternal Delights. However, if this Plate is an allusion to Plato, then why is there only one horse? It is reasonable that the white horse of virtue would fall, without the control of the charioteer. However, if the Plate were a direct representation of Plato's theory, and Blake meant to show Reason losing control of desire, the charioteer would have lost control of the dark horse, not the white horse. Is the dark horse represented in the menacing blackness in the upper right-hand corner? Or do the man and the horse represent different concepts here than in the Phaedrus?

Blake also seems to echo Plato when he discusses truth. Plato claims that to be successful at persuasion, one must know the truth about what one is persuading. To believe something is to be persuaded of it. On Plate 10, Blake states, “Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not believed.” This means that if truth is properly presented, then it will be believed. When this is taken in conjunction with Plato's view, it forms the following logical argument: if one is to be successful in persuading another, one must use the truth, and if one uses the truth properly, one will succeed in persuasion. Blake also asserts that “Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth” (Plate 8). This seems similar to Plato's theory that perceptions, things that humans can believe in on the earth, can remind a person of truth. While it appears implausible that all things that can be believed can represent the truth, the use of the word “image” indicates that they are not necessarily true; images can be misleading. Here, is Blake echoing Berkeley, who believes that truth was subjective? Or does Blake agree with Plato that “images of the truth” can be misleading, and that although they might be helpful in finding truth, they will only be helpful if properly used and interpreted?