Icon and Identification

Artistic appeal occurs “in the ‘margin of overlap’ between the writer’s experiences and the reader’s” (The Dial p.168). A poem bridges individual experiences by focusing attention on similarites of experience and shared knowledge. A poem does not merely convey feeling but gives the reader the opportunity to identify with author as they share feelings in a cathartic release. Burke called this poetic experience “the dancing of an attitude”
Extending this notion to support his theory of rhetoric, Burke reasoned that identification allows people to share views they need in order to collaborate with as well as compete against one another.
(Encyclopedia of Rhetoric by Thomas O.Sloane, 375p, Oxfor University press)

To lose one’s mother and meet again in the end, is not a new subject for the readers. It is especially a conventional theme for a young narrator. In Persepolis, the episode“Shabbat” (p135), I want to analyze how Satrapi used “drawing pattern” in order to identify with readers. While Marji and her friend were shopping, Marji hears the news from the radio (with sound of BOOM!) “A missile has just exploded in the Tavanir neighborhood”. (p138) She madly runs off to catch a taxi.

However, time slows down, even though she has to go fast and figure out whether her mother is O.K or not. First of all, she relatively divided space with many small frames to show her anxiety. As she approaches to the building, she was on the road, in the taxi and near the building where people crowded. Second of all she expressed sun light with using contrast, white and black. While she is outside, background becomes white. On the other hand, if she is inside or surrounded by other people that she is shaded, blocking the sun light, making it become black. This skill adds dramatic time change.

Satrapi must not forget this moment, since she thought at this moment that her mother was in the area where missiles exploded. The more the background changes from black to white and white to black, it seems more vivid. Existence of sunlight helps reader how nervous she was and worried. But, soon, detailed background pops up, which clearly contrast to other backgrounds, when she walks the building where her friend lives. If we recall ‘the effect of mask’ from understanding of comics, we can measure, how frustrated she was. Compare stark white color air and building destroyed.

Satrapi does not present all backgrounds in detail, because in most episodes like ‘Shabbat’, the subject is close to Marji, her family and her friends. The author cared not to make her true story conventional and expected results, she put her memory, how long it was and how bright it was? In her vivid memory we can find emotional similarities and sometimes dissimilarities. These effects make more empathy, and then we are closer to Satrapi’s experience.