The Abandonment of Faith

The medium of storytelling is as important as the story itself in a graphic novel. By using frames of drawing with minimal text, the graphic novel calls on the reader to enter into a different kind of textual interpretation. A reader must read the captions of the frames and interpret this text within the context of the paneled art. Artistic style becomes as important as text for relaying narrative to the reader.

Persepolis brings a particular graphic style to the autobiographical narrative. Satrapi draws in a minimalist style: black and white, often only six to eight panels on a page. This style is meant to represent a childlike understanding of the world since the novel follows Satrapi's own childhood. The black and white symbolizes both the past and how the Islamic revolution left Iran devoid of its rich colorful cultural history. The medium of the graphic novel is also important here because iconic representations of Islam are forbidden by the Islamic regime. The novel is, thus, a form of protest as well as art.

Throughout the novel, Marjane feels a tension between the great and glorious past of the Persian Empire and the violence and problems of modern Iran. In the novel's opening chapters, she identifies herself with the great prophets of the past dating back to Zarathustra. She imagines herself as a symbol of love and tolerance. When the Iran-Iraq War begins, she vehemently defends it as a just cause and relates it to a 1400-year conflict that has been waged between the Arabs and the Persians.

This unwavering belief in the past is put in tension with the novel's present day political intolerance and religious fundamentalism. Marjane's pride in her history is in direct conflict with the imprisonment of political revolutionaries and, later, the execution of those that speak ...