Persepolis Introduction + pp. 3 - 62
Juliana Vieira
1- Why does the author choose to depict God as a character that visits her and that she talks to?
Since Satrapi choose to make this a very lighthearted book, she had to make some adaptations to the story. One of those is religion-wise. Religion is something that can immediately make something very deep and controversial. In order to avoid that, Marjane choose to make God a character that she talks to. This leaves it unclear for the reader whether she is showing us that she actually imagined God visiting her, or if she wants to just keep the subject lighthearted. In my opinion, it is the latter, for the whole purpose of this specific graphic novel is to turn a very controversial subject into a lighthearted one.
2- Does Marjane Satrapi narrate the story as it was, or are some details untold, exaggerated, or modified?
Since she is telling us the story of her life ever since she was ten, some details were forgotten, faded with time. She might have left out something important within the narration that may have affected the story. Adding on to that, some details may have been exaggerated. Children have a different way of seeing things than adults. Something that she may have remembered as enormous may just have been regular-sized, for example. She may also have had to modify some details in the story. Since she makes the book very shallow, she may have had to leave out some disturbing yet important details that would have been too deep.
3- How does Satrapi make such a controversial topic into a lighthearted story of her life?
The main way in which she does that is by telling the story in a child's point of view. A child's perspective will always be more innocent, lighthearted, and even humorous than an adult's. So far, she has narrated the story as a ten-year-old child. She shows only her thoughts and opinions. One may dig deeper and find the real meaning, but in the surface, it is only the story of a child's life. This reminds me of Maus, also a graphic novel that talks about a very controversial topic in a shallow manner. The way Art Spiegelman depicts the characters as animals - Nazi as cats, Jews as mice - is similar to the way that Marjane Satropi narrates the story from a child's point os view.
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