Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Graphic Self

2005; Routledge; Volume: 27; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/014403500223834

1743-9426

Rocío G. Davis,

Digital Storytelling and Education

Abstract This essay traces a crucial transition in the enactment of the autobiographical text and addresses its creative appropriation by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian immigrant living in France, in Persepolis. I will examine her use of comics – a thematically and representationally complex form that deploys the strategic juxtaposition of sequential text and image – as the medium for her memoir that enacts her process of self-identification and negotiation of cultural and/or national affiliation. Here, the juxtaposition of image and words constitutive of graphic narratives yields a new artistic, literary, and creative experience – a revised aesthetic. Combining theories on the childhood memoir and comics, I argue that we must approach contemporary graphic autobiographies as increasingly sophisticated forms of inscribing the past and read Satrapi's text as a site for the negotiation and management of the memory of childhood perceptions and positioning, family, history, politics, religion, and art. Keywords: comicsautobiographyMarjane SatrapiPersepolischildhood memoirs Notes 1. I use the term "transcultural" as explained by Rosalia Baena in the introduction to this book. I would like to thank Professor Baena for her careful and encouraging reading of my essay and her insightful suggestions. 2. Reprints from this text are used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. The English version of Persepolis contains the two volumes originally published in French as Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2, published in Paris by L'Association in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Satrapi's Persepolis 3 was published in French in 2003. The English edition, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return was published in 2004. 3. The term for the genre in question – "comics" – is itself subject to debate. The term was first used as a plural form to describe graphic narratives published in newspapers. Some critics have argued that "comics" sounds juvenile and its most colloquial synonym, "funnies," detract from the form's thematic and artistic complexity, and should be replaced. Will Eisner Eisner, Will. 2003. Comics and Sequential Art, Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press. [Google Scholar] proposes the use of the terms "sequential art" or "graphic sequential art" in his crucial study Comics and Sequential Art (2003; first published in 1985). Art Spiegelman introduced the term "commix" as a way of suggesting the crucial "co-mixing" of words and pictures that distinguishes the comics from other types of visual narratives (Spiegelman, 1988 Spiegelman, Art. 1988. Commix: An Idiosyncratic Historical and Aesthetic Overview. Print, 42(7) 61–73, 195–96 [Google Scholar]: 61). In some European criticism, particularly the French, the expression bande dessinée (BD) is the preferred term. In this study, I will use the word "comics" as Scott McCloud defines it, as "n. plural in form, used with a single verb. 1. Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer" (1994: 9). I will also refer to "comics" synonymously as "graphic narratives". 4. See Davis (2002 Davis, Rocio G. August 2002. Reading Asian American Biracial Autobiographies of Childhood: Norman Reyes's Child of Two Worlds and Kien Nguyen's The Unwanted. Prose Studies, 25(2): 79–110. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) and Davis (2005 Davis, Rocio G. "Begin Here: A Critical Introduction to the Asian American Childhood". In Transnational Asian American Literature: Sites and Transits, Edited by: Geok-lin Lim, Shirley, Blair Gambler, John, Hong Sohn, Stephen and Valentino, Gina. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (forthcoming) [Google Scholar]) for more on representing childhood in ethnic autobiographies. 5. For information on the ways women graphic artists have developed comics, see Robbins (1999 Robbins, Trina. 1999. From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women's Comics from Teens to Zines, San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. [Google Scholar]), among others. 6. Matthew Surridge argues that "most Biographical and especially Autobiographical comics are better described as an extension of the personal essay, perhaps by way of first-person journalism. Basically, for whatever reasons, comics biography and comics autobiography have evolved their own codes; they have their own sets of expectations. Possibly most significant is the fact that biographical comics […] tend to put artistry before information. They are, in other words, a separate genre than [sic] prose biography, dealing with separate concerns, and probably should be treated as such." See Matthew Surridge, "Based on a True Story." The Comics Journal, http://www.tcj.com/3_online/b_surridge_09229.html, accessed 4 September 2003. 7. See Linda Hutcheon's Hutcheon, Linda. 1999. Literature Meets History: Counter-Discoursive 'Comix'. Anglia: Zeitschrift fur Englische Philologie, 117(1): 4–14. [Google Scholar] excellent essay "Literature Meets History: Counter-Discoursive 'Comix'" (1999) for a thorough discussion of Spiegelman's Maus as autobiography and history. 8. The existence of this book testifies to the increasing critical interest in the validity of comics in contemporary historiography, highlighting how, in the words of the editors, "the form has actually been the site for some sustained and sophisticated engagements with the problem of representing historical events" (Frey and Noy, 2002 Frey, Hugo and Noy, Benjamin. 2002. Editorial: History in the Graphic Novel. Rethinking History, 6(3): 255–60. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 255). 9. See Melinda L. de Jesús's article (de Jesús, 2004 De Jesús, Melinda L. 2004. Liminality and Mestiza Consciousness in Lynda Barry's One Hundred Demons. MELUS, 29(1): 219–52. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) for a thoughtful discussion of Barry's autobiographical strategy. 10. Robbins also points out that "so many women's autobiographical comics are depressing, and so many are about dysfunctional families, that it becomes tempting to believe that dysfunctional families breed women cartoonists" (1999: 127). 11. Marjane Satrapi, "On Writing Persepolis," http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphic novels/satrapi2.html. Accessed 3 September 2003. 12. Rebekah Denn, "A Moment with… author Marjane Satrapi." Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/123973_momentwith29.html, accessed 11 August 2003. 13. Andrew Arnold, "TIME.comix on Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis," http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,452401,00.html, accessed 5 September 2003. 14. Analysis of Satrapi's perspective on the situation in Iran is interesting, but beyond the concerns of this study, which aims to focus primarily on issues of self-representation.