Satrapi’s Persepolis is an example of documentary literature that blurs the lines between fact and fiction.
The comic is an account of Satrapi’s childhood in Iran told by two narrators. The first narrator is the young Satrapi, Marji. Marji is depicted in the comics and, for the most part, the reader is meant to feel her emotions in order to understand her story. When the people begin to celebrate the martyrs of the revolution and Marji’s parents begin to laugh, she says “Cadaver, Cancer, Death, Murderer...Laughter?” (Satrapi 32). This shows her confusion regarding the situation and the reaction of the adults, a feeling that the reader shares. The complexity of both Marji’s shifting from childhood to adolescence and the effect of the revolution and the war in her life is shown by her shouting at her mother “Dictator! You are the guardian of the revolution of this house!” (Satrapi 113). This shows the complex emotions and reactions Satrapi wants the reader to have through a child’s perspective.
The narration is complicated by the background narration of Satrapi. For example, she describes Marji’s early aspirations by saying that “at the age of six, I was already sure I was the last prophet. This was a few years before the revolution” (Satrapi 6). The past tense indicates that Satrapi is looking back on her childhood. This quote is also in a box at the top of the frame, which throughout the novel indicates that Satrapi is speaking. So, the narration includes not only the emotion-evoking child narrator, but an adult perspective. The historical explanations and distance from Marji of Satrapi help the reader to clarify his or her thoughts.
Also, the use of comic as a medium distorts what would otherwise be considered the “truth” to Satrapi’s own version of the truth. On page 83 in Persepolis, the center frame is completely black in the background with only the emotion-filled faces of Marji and her family. This emphasizes the emotions that the family is feeling instead of the historical context that the frame is set in. Also, on page 102 in Persepolis, the top frame depicts the death of countless young boys in the war with the “keys to paradise” around their necks. Satrapi leaves out the faces of any of the boys, and the silhouettes emphasize the great toll of the war.
Persepolis is not purely fact, it is also fiction, in the sense that the reader views the truth through the multiple perspectives of the narration and the comic. This blurring of the lines between fact and fiction accurately reflects the confusing childhood, filled with half-truths, lies, and confusion, that Satrapi is depicting. Satrapi’s purpose is not to show the reader the whole truth, nor is it to lie to the reader. The purpose was merely to shift the paradigms, if only temporarily, by which Iran is judged.
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I really like the way that Adrienne reminds us that Persepolis is a mix of fact and fiction, and that there is only a blurring line in between the two.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it was so easy to get caught up in Marji's perspective because it was the first, and only, perspective I heard about the revolution in Iran at this time. Therefore, when I read Persepolis, I understood the occurrences in Iran as fact. However, it is important to realize that Marji's perspective is only through one side of the Iranian conflict, and that there were other families that had completely different experiences. Not to mention, some of Satrapi's recollections of her childhood could be skewed because of her lack of remembering, or because of her somewhat unsure understanding of the revolution as a child.
Adrienne also reminds us, however, that Satrapi's intention of writing Persepolis was not to the audience facts about the revolution in Iran, but instead to be less judgmental of the people living there. It is difficult to understand a culture that is so different from your own, but it is important to make yourself aware of the differences and why they exist. Satrapi also wanted to share her own experiences as a child in Iran so that the audience might empathize with the difficulties she faced. Had the author's intentions been to give us pure facts about the revolution, the story would not have been told in comic, nor through a child's eyes.