English essay 3
It is true that there is nothing amusing about torture, war and massacre, Marjane Satrapi’s work Persepolis is full of immense humor. Marjane is forced to come to terms with the kind of person she is. She is again forced to make peace with God despite the fact that the environment she finds herself in is so horrific. Satrapi’s method is so intriguing in the sense that it comprises of black and white simple figures used to represent events and people. In her approach to graphic narrative, Satrapi utilizes aspects minimally on purpose. This method focuses the level of horror and hostility Satrapi encountered while growing up in a society full of war.
From the beginning of the story, humor has been brought out artistically. The reader is invited into a world full of irony in the opening page. Satrapi informs readers how it was a must for students to put on veils at school in 1980. This can be illustrated trough the statement “We didn’t really like to wear the veil, especially since we didn’t understand why we had to”. Satrapi and her classmates are described in the images as using the veil to play different kinds of games. The children are portrayed as undermining power since they are not comfortable with the rules at all.
The disobedience by the children is somewhat humorous in that their actions seem to be innocent whereas in real sense a political statement is being made against those in power. Humor seems to be the only right way of expressing anguish when experience cannot be verbalized or visualized. Satrapi expresses her experiences in humorous manner because there is no better way she could bring them out. The reader is made to empathize with the victims through the use of black and white images. This simply means that the message being portrayed is extremely weighty that it cannot be comprehended through text alone.
Satrapi’s story is graphic and this implies the existence of some emptiness between familiarity and expression. This can be illustrated through the depiction of the bombing the occurred near Satrapi’s home. Satrapi’s neighbors were killed in this horrific attack. The gaps between the black and white structures are meant to bring out the horrific atmosphere forcefully. Satrapi also portrays her childhood life in an ironical and yet humorous manner where she used to smoke cigarette and this brings out her rebellious character during that time. Despite the fact that this depiction is ironical, it tries to reveal; the humanness in her as well.
It can be assumed that Satrapi was laughing at herself in that she perceived her childhood behaviors as some form of naivety. This can also be viewed as a way of escaping reality which could otherwise guzzle her.The dissident use of humor in Persepolis is meant to make distance the difficult experiences that Satrapi stumbled upon. Satrapi writes “”We can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable. Once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it”. This clearly shows that humor cats as both a coping strategy and an approach to challenge power.
Power in this case can be seen in politics and any form of pain which defines the lives of individuals. The use of humor throughout the story makes Satrapi’s childhood behaviors more meaningful.
