Violence is shown to be very much a part of Iranian culture in Persepolis. The pervasiveness of violence that Satrapi felt as a child, I thought, was reflected well by the comic style. The frames of violence seemed to be shocking interjections into the main plot of the story, as I’m sure they seemed to be to Marji as a child. Satrapi used these interjections as a means of denouncing the violence.
Torture is shown in the scene on page 51. Ahmadi is being tortured for his political crimes. The frame is not surrounded by a black border like most of the other frames in the novel. It is divided arbitrarily into four parts, three of which show the torture Ahmadi endures. The parts are his being urinated on, whipped, and burned with an iron. Other than the narration of his fate by Satrapi at the bottom, the only dialog is shown as large speech bubbles, unconnected to a specific person, that depict yelling “ How do you like this?” and Confess! Where are the others!” The torturers face remains hidden in two out of three of the scenes, but in the other it is visible with wide eyes and angry eyebrows and mouth. Ahmadi is shown screaming with his eyes closed. Marji did not witness this scene, which means that the icons used to depict it were from her imagination. This depiction was used to emphasize the terror employed and to make the audience condemn the torture.
Other types of violence, other than torture, are shown is slightly different ways. The violent scene of the execution of Siamak’s sister on page 66 of Persepolis is divided again into three parts, but these are all in individual frames with defined borders. The perpetrators this time are shown to be calm with their faces shown. The victim also has her eyes wide, even when she lays dead in the street. This depiction shows the more cold nature of the execution versus the torture on page 51. The differences in this scene are because it is from the point of view of Satrapi instead of Marji, and the scene directly followed the death of Mohsen, so there is a sense of numbness. But, Satrapi still wants the audience to have an emotional reaction to the violence evidenced by the father and mother’s prominent tears and accusations (Satrapi 65).
Satrapi uses the comic medium to depict the violence in Iran in such a way that it will evoke an emotional and even angry reaction in the readers.
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As you explained, Marji was not there to witness all of the torture happenings and that they are illustrated by her imagination or by what she assumed the situation would look like. Since the culture she lived in was surrounded by daily violence for this time period, Satrapi sometimes mentioned violence without adding any emotion or feeling to the event. I would assume that this is because Marji was use to these events and it was normal to her and that is how Satrapi portrayed it in the context for the readers to understand.
ReplyDeleteFor example, on page 52, the top picture states, “In the end he was cut to pieces,” that was it, nothing, just this short blunt sentence with a picture of a cut up body. There was no feeling or emotion coming from Marji or Satrapi. In the next picture, you can see Marji’s mother crying, but to me I think that Satrapi had to show at least a little emotion. Satrapi goes over violence so bluntly that she has to show emotion to let the reader know that there is some emotion and some uncomfortable feelings towards violence but overall the people at this time seem to be “numb” and use to the violence.
One of the roles of violent frames depicted in Persepolis is , as Adrinnes suggested, making readers feel certain emotions about cruel behaviors which were pervasive in Iran’s history. However, I think in Persepolis, there is another meaning for violence when we consider the narrator Marji’s age, time, and Persepolis dramatic device.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, on p51, the author divides one large frame into four parts by using the white background. Of course, the narrator doesn’t say whether these three icons are from her imagination or not. So, at first glimpse, readers might think that cruel torture scenes are totally from Satrapi’s intention to make the audience condemn or denounce violence. However, Marji in this scene, seems to be accidentally listening to the dialogues around five adults, because her parents forgot about Marji during serious conversations. She is depicted as a small figure compared to her parents and visitors. Even she couldn’t witness directly how Ahmadi was assassinated, if she never experienced about torture before as a young kid, she might ask herself about torture naturally.
Before this accident, on p51, Marji seems to know less about world’s cruelty than the moment when she first heard about torture. Her mother told about her grandfather and his heart breaking life. In this episode, there are no cruel scenes showing the grandfather’s blood or his miserably winkled hands. Marji, too young to know about torture or violence, tries directly to bathe long in order to see what happens rather than imagining in her mind and drawing it with violence.
Interestingly, the depiction of violence is very rhythmical like iambic pentameter in Romeo and Juliet. Sometimes violent frames appear consecutively with large frames (Persepolis, p51-52), sometimes it is represented one small single frame (Persepolis, p65). Or it is not provided at all with blood violent imagination from Marji or Satrapi’s mind, but just with unbelievable facts from newspaper front page “Russian Spy Executed” (Persepolis, p70) For every death, Marji’s attitude and her ability to accept cruel case was different.
For Marji, violent experience is not just cruel moment but a process for her to know about outside world as she grows. Also the author controlled violent frames not monotonously but with slight changes frame by frame and resulted dramatic mood for readers to read continuously.