We begin to see a lot more of the “graphic novel as literature” in the second half of the book. It is much more text heavy, arguably relying less on the drawings than the first half did. The drawings are still an essential element of the narrative, but there are far more traditional methods of reading that become apparent in the second half. This book is a popular “baby’s first graphic novel” for people who did not grow up on comics precisely because it is easily interpreted via lenses like feminism and colonialism, yet the multitude of possible interpretations leads to the healthy amount of discussion and debate any quality work of literature worth studying needs to have. I applaud the people who do not want to forsake the potential of an entire medium just because they did not grow up on comics, and I hope people found Persepolis to be an engaging if a bit challenging read!
Marjane’s travels back and forth between Europe and Iran begin to highlight the east and west dynamic hinted at but never deeply explored in the first half of the book. The different meanings of living in a safe space versus living in a war zone (even though this would have been reversed just a few decades before) and different concepts of things like anarchy bring to life how torn between two worlds Marjane really is. While elements like her discomfort with how rapidly her body is changing seem to appeal to universal themes like the difficulty of adolescence for everyone, the reality is that there is no such universal understanding of what adolescence is or should be. If we cannot come to a consensus about what it means to be a teenager even within our own nation, what hope could we have of coming to a consensus with a nation as different from ours as Iran? And yet we can sympathize with Marjane’s body woes because the ideas of not fitting in do seem to transcend language and cultural barriers.
Another concept that seems to lend this text some universality is the idea of being betrayed by people we considered friends. Marjane’s friends consider her an exotic eccentricity rather than having anything genuine to say about things like war and death, which is ironic because she is the only one who has experienced such things. Since Marjane does not immediately conform to all their preconceived notions of Iran, war, death, and foreignness, she is eventually dismissed as inauthentic and attention-seeking. Marjane’s adamant defense of her Iranian heritage and how proud she is of it is a bracing moment in the text that shows she can coexist in two identities, albeit imperfectly. Considering how often we are expected to live in two (or more) worlds ourselves, this is another one of those moments where Marjane’s story transcends culture and language. Ultimately, the character of Marjane does not represent Iran, the Middle East, or trying to bridge the east and west. She represents Marjane, a cool lady with some artistic talent and a story worth telling.
Leave Poetry for the Prose 