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?
Regarding the Empiricists, I think they would very much agree that pictures are needed to successfully convey messages. After all, they claimed that all of our ideas can be traced back to spefic perceptions, the majority of which are, in fact, images.
ReplyDeleteSatrapi's images are indeed much less subjective than Blake's, but I think this is because they have very different goals. Blake is trying to get the reader to come up with his own ideas, and figure things out for himself, so he provides images that can be quite ambiguous at times. Satrapi, on the other hand is trying to get across exactly what she was feeling, which is really meant to be interpreted only one way. Any other interpretations would not accurately express her experience.
The view the empiricists had on expressing ideas through words and images seems to be more subjective than Blake’s. Although, I feel like the empiricists believed that sometimes ideas cannot be expressed fully either through words or images, they are perceptions of what we observe, and cannot concretely have a definite word or image that defines those ideas. For Blake, the illustrations of his plates seem to drive his points on romanticism more clearly, and thus help him arrive at his feelings toward the enlightenment more clearly. For Satrapi, I feel that most of the images convey exactly the feelings of this terrified child during the Revolution. I observe through the images the humorous, almost absurd attitude a child would have, while still seeing the emotional distress associated with he childhood. I don’t see any discrepancies when looking at the words and illustrations, and don’t see any failures in the images she uses to convey her true emotions.
ReplyDeleteI think that Satrapi illustrates the ability of images to convey abstraction well. As Sally mentioned, Satrapi's images of God are not as precise as some of her other illustrations. God is a white cloud with a semi-human head, a presence around Marjane rather than a direct image. Through this lack of clarity, Satrapi alerts the reader to the abstraction of the idea of God itself. Words seem more limited in this respect; in English it is difficult to write as vaguely as one can draw. If one tries, one is forced to clutter one's writing with qualifiers. If someone is aware that something is abstract, then he or she will use his or her own experiences to fill in the void. This leads to a more involved reading experience, which in turn causes the reader to be more emotionally connected. Thus, through her use of abstract images scattered among more precise, information-giving, images, Satrapi succeeds in rousing the emotional reactions she desires.
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea of vagueness Caroline mentions that drawing can convey better than words is important in discussing abstract concepts, especially in challenging Berkeley's view. Berkeley argues in general that words can express abstract concepts, but once one tries to imagine the abstract like "red", one must fall back on concrete images. Satrapi shows us that in some ways, the words are more concrete. Through her images, she gives us unusual depictions that we can abstract in our minds. Sally mentions the last page we read, and in it although we know she is not floating in space, we get the sense of being lost, not necessarily an emotion but an abstract concept. In this way the image provides us with an abstract idea more readily than the word.
ReplyDeleteNice post Sally! :) I agree that Satrapi's use of images adds immensely to what we as readers get out of the story. They help to convey pictorially the intense feelings Marjane experiences in a much more immediate and emotionally resonant way than possible with words. One of the reasons I think Satrapi's illustrations are so effective is that they truly represent the viewpoint of a child. Much of a child's thought processes in early life are in the form of images, and Satrapi accompanies the narrative with vivid illustrations of Marjane’s imagination. For example, on page 10, she uses the linguistic and visual metaphor of the revolution as a bike to simplify a complex issue in the way a child would.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with your point about abstractions in Persepolis, and how the abstractions reinforce our understanding in a more visceral manner. I think that this point you make is one of the advantages of graphic novels. The stylization elements do allow less words to be needed because some of the ideas are expressed stylistically. You also bring up the cons, however. I believe that this makes the reading experience much more subjective, and, hence, more prone to different interpretation/misunderstanding. However, in terms of our incommunicable understanding of the work, it resonates much more personally with us as individuals
ReplyDeleteI think that Satrapi's moving and vivid story can only be told through the form of the graphic novel. A memoir, novel, movie, or work of art would simply not convey the complexity and power of this little girl's thoughts, experiences, and visions. I think it is especially effective because the protagonist is a young child. The short, simple blurbs of thought and speech reflect those of a child, and the images are also incredibly simple and concrete, not depicting any shading, texture, depth, or color. This childish simplicity of form brings out the incredible tragedy, sad irony, and injustice of what this young girl has to experience at such a young age. The graphic novel format can represent the method this child uses to comprehend and make sense of the world she lives in and the events that are taking place. The simplicity demonstrates this disconnect between young Satrapi's processing ability and what is actually occurring. Blake would say that her childish, fresh, untainted way of viewing the world actually allows her to perceive and feel what's happening more deeply and effectively. I think this is true for this work, which, therefore, makes the comic book format powerful and impacting on the reader.
ReplyDeleteSatrapis use of images reveal something more subtle than what we have seen in Blake. As Jennifer writes, this is due to the fact that she wants to convey a specific point rather than spread confusion. However, as Willa writes, there is a deeper meaning to the images, particularly in their combination with words. Her illustrations make sure that we interpret her words the right way. The Empiricists were unsure about the use of words, because they may carry different meanings for different people. Satrapi makes sure that we all get the same impression. In this sense, her images add depth to the story and creates a unique narrative. Her story is written by an adult but told by a child. This distinction and subtlety is only possible through the combination of words and images which I guess neither Blake nor the Empiricists could have predicted.
ReplyDeleteThe empiricists did not use images as frequently as Satrapi did and when they did use them, they were always subjective in that different meanings could come of the same image. Satrapi uses images as the main part to tell a story. In relation to Blake, the images in Persepolis cannot be as closely analyzed because of the sheer number of them. They seem to be more telling of the bulk of whats going on, while the words used give us the fine details. It is almost the opposite of Blake. I find myself start to look at the pictures first then read the words.
ReplyDeleteA picture of the child in an empty room conveys the message very well that she is scared emotionally. She talks of how with each knock on the door she thought it would be someone to take her father to prison.
It seems to me that the purpose of the images in Blake and Satrapi are very different. Blake uses them to obscure, to communicate his concept of, ironically enough, incommunicable states. Satrapi, by contrast, seems to use images to complement her words, to emphasize the emotional impact, or to highlight the parts where she doesn't believe that words are sufficient to express meaning. Blake's images encourage confusion, Satrapi's foster understanding. This, to me, seems a fundamental difference between Blake and the philosophy most modern graphic novelists espouse. In a graphic novel, both the words on their own and the images on their own convey some kind of story, but the combination expresses more nuances and subtlety than would be possible otherwise. Blake certainly seems to use words and images as a continuum, but rather uses the combination to express oxymorons and expose paradoxes, to emphasize that his thoughts and the thoughts of any person can never be fully transmitted to another.
ReplyDeleteI think Blake has some strong correlations with Satrapi, one of which being the centrality of emotion and personal, lone experience in understanding what occurs in the world. A central part of Persepolis is that we could think about each part of the story based on Satrapi's state of mind at that point in time. For example, a lot of the descriptions in this part of the book seem pretty silly, reflecting Satrapi's youthful naivete--for example, early in the book, the description of the Shah confiscating everything that Satrapi's grandpa had involves the Shah taking away all the floor tiles. Details like that--and the lack of detail in a lot of scenes--reflects Satrapi's personal storytelling and emotional states at the time. Also, the mood of the text changes as Satrapi reads more Marxist philosophy and other literature, taking on a much more critical, reactionary feeling. Blake emphasizes personal sensation when he discusses what he personally has experienced regarding Heaven and Hell, arguing at one point that God is a construction of each man and being on Earth.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that finally we are reading something written by a female. Everything we have read before came from male's understanding and prospective but this time we are hearing from a woman.
ReplyDeleteI would take into consideration that the writer is a woman when analyzing for many purposes, which one of them is that females engage their emotions in more obvious way than males. We see in the Presepolis that there are a lot of emotions going on, we can easily depict that from the drawings. There is anger, sadness, frustrations, and... etc.