Proceedings of The National Conference

On Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2012

Weber State University, Ogden Utah
March 29 – 31, 2012

(Re)Locating the Subject and Verb: How Graphic Elements in Marjane

Satrapi’s Persepolis Replace and Enhance Its Linguistic Components

Casey Henderson
Department of English and Linguistics
Truman State University
Kirksville, Missouri 63501 USA

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Hena Ahmad

Abstract
In the 1930s and ’40s, a surge of criticism against comic books was triggered by the fear that comic books would
lead to the loss of traditional literacy, including the focus on plain text, the act of reading from left to right, and the
misleading perception that “traditional” literature addressed acceptable, non-controversial subject matter, whereas
comic books did not. Critics, such as the late psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, blamed comic books for illiteracy and
juvenile delinquent behavior. This criticism extended to graphic novels as they emerged. However, more recent
research shows that the combination of drawn images with speech, thought, and narrative text has led to the creation
of a new “literary” standard that is inclusive of a separate yet valid form of literature that draws on principles
underlying both visual aesthetics as well as plain texts. Using photographic fundamentals such as the rule of thirds,
the way the eye travels across an image, and the composition of a subject within a photographic frame, this paper
will analyze how the visual portions of Persepolis replace and enhance textual linguistic information. Further, my
analysis of black-and-white illustrations in Persepolis will allow me to draw conclusions that I will apply to the
larger context of how the graphic novel removes both the author’s and the reader’s biases regarding the presentation
of the story and the reception and interpretation of the story, respectively. Furthermore, my analysis of Persepolis
will be framed within the larger thesis that an understanding of the ways in which graphic novels/comic texts
operate and how they impact readers in ways distinct from plain texts will lead to their greater acceptance and status
in the literary canon.

Keywords: Persepolis, graphic novels, linguistic replacement

1. Introduction
The path of the graphic novel is irreversibly intertwined with the history and methods of comic texts. The graphic
novel employs the aesthetic practices found in comic texts, methods similar to those practiced in photography.
Works analyzing both comic books as well as photographic creations can be used to evaluate the qualities and merits
of graphic novels due to the similarities in aesthetic traits between these mediums. This paper will analyze Marjane
Satrapi’s Persepolis,1 drawing on previous scholarship on comic texts and photographic principles in order to
determine how textual information is replaced and enhanced by drawn images. It will also focus on the ways in
which the graphic novel removes both the author’s and the reader’s preconceptions regarding the respective
presentation and reception of the ideas presented within the graphic novel. Increased understanding and appreciation
of the graphic novel will lead to its wider acceptance into the traditional canon of literature.
Scott McCloud defines “comics” as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to
convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”2 According to such a definition, the graphic
novel can be considered a form of comics – referred to in this paper as ‘comic texts’ – and so can be understood and
analyzed using methods applicable to other forms of both sequential art as well as any pictorial or graphic image that
is meant to ‘convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.’
 The reluctance to use graphic novels in the classroom and the general stigma against the reading of graphic novels
and comic texts became prevalent in the mid-1900s, with criticism of the comic book. Fredric Wertham, in
particular, was a stark opponent of comic books in the 1940s and ’50s, claiming that comic books, specifically crime
comic books, were “anti-educational”3 and morally disarming,4 encouraging illiteracy, cruelty, criminal behavior,
sexual deviancy, and delinquency.5 Wertham raised these points to the 1954 Senate Subcommitte to Investigate
Juvenile Delinquency in the United States, which declared that comic books were detrimental to American youth.6
In response to the heavy criticism, comic book publishers began the self-regulatory Code of the Comics Magazine
Association of America in October 1954.7
The stigma created by this scrutiny toward the comic book industry, as well as the repercussions of the comic book
industry catering to more juvenile content in order to avoid censorship,8 led to an underground movement
characterized by “critiques of politics, religion, and social norms;”9 the movement was also characterized by
“explicit sexual content and graphic violence.”10 Ultimately, however, the idea that comic texts could address
content beyond juvenile concerns, in a form different from the “run-of-the-mill newsstand comic books,”11 led to the
rise of the graphic novel, beginning primarily in 1978 with Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, one of the first
extended graphic works with literary intent to be successfully marketed as a graphic novel.12
Since the late 1970s, the graphic novel has gradually become a more accepted form of literature. Specifically,
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis has received much attention from readers, teachers, and critics for its autobiographical
portrayal of Satrapi’s adolescence and young adulthood following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The
Complete Persepolis (referred to in this paper as simply “Persepolis”) was originally published in two halves within
the United States; the first volume, originally published as Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003), focuses on
the events within Iran from 1980 to 1983, depicted from the viewpoint of Marji, who was eleven years old at the
beginning of the novel. The second half of the novel, originally Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (2004), begins
with Marji’s arrival in Austria in 1983. It follows Marji as she forms her identity in a city far from the place she
grew up, both literally and figuratively; she eventually returns to Iran, where she marries, divorces, and finally
leaves for France in 1994 to pursue further education and a livelihood outside of Iran’s strict socio-cultural practices
and policies. Persepolis calls attention to the contradicting yet concurrent cultural forces of the Iranian and Western
worlds through the presentation of at-times concordant, at-times juxtaposed text and images.
Persepolis has received both public and scholarly praise. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood was listed as a
2003 Notable Book by the New York Times,13 and in 2003, Time magazine named Persepolis as one of the 25 must-
read graphic novels of the past 25 years.14 Juneau and Sucharov suggest Persepolis as a means to analyze the ways
in which life-changing sociopolitical events impact the individual as well as a means to “introduce concepts such as
identity, revolution, and political Islam.”15 Whitlock asserts that Satrapi’s avatar in her comics, Marji, actively
engages with comic conventions, creating an autobiographical work that is self-aware of its medium and of its
presentation.16 Chaney describes the ability of Satrapi’s “autobiographical persona” to represent an individual who
straddles both Iranian and Western cultures.17
The graphic elements in Persepolis demonstrate how the background, the framing, the ways in which the eye
moves across an image, the lines, and the composition replace and enhance textual linguistic information. The
following analysis of the graphic elements in Persepolis reflects photographic principles outlined in Principles of
Composition in Photography18 and Photographic Composition.19 The specific panels analyzed below represent
salient characteristics of Persepolis’s aesthetic choices.

2. Photographic Elements and Symbolic Meanings

Please note that panels are numbered beginning at the top left and travelling from left to right through each
successive row and from top to bottom on the page.
The light background of panels 2 and 7 (fig. 1) indicate youth and a level of airiness;20 likewise, the neutral
background is unobtrusive and doesn’t detract from the attention placed on the subjects of the panels.21 Meanwhile,
the dark neutral background of panels 3 and 4 indicate seriousness, power, and disaster.22 Panels 1, 5, and 6 contain
integrated backgrounds, or backgrounds that “directly relate…to the subject or forms part of it.”23 While the
schoolyard in panel 1 has light tones that again indicate youth and openness, panel 6 is dark and closed, with
blackness and an absence of detail indicating limitless power behind the authority figure instituting the changes of
the Revolution. In panel 5, this same authority figure’s hair and beard become the background, causing the face and
his message to be literally surrounded by a tone indicative of power and disaster.24

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 Figure 1. Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, 4.

The square panels 2 and 3 (fig. 2) are center-focused due to their biaxial symmetry.25 The horizontal shape of
panel 4 emphasizes left to right direction,26 accentuating Marji’s pointing finger that is telling God to leave; the
horizontal shape also emphasizes the distance between God and Marji. The vertical shape of panel 5 emphasizes up
and down direction,27 specifically Marji’s deeply angled eyebrows, her open mouth, and her pointing hand. Panel 1
is not bound and so possesses the meanings opposite of all bound and shaped frames; that is, it has a sense of
timelessness as well as a loss of stability and a loss of direction, emphasizing Marji’s feelings toward the death of
her beloved uncle Anoosh.

Figure 2. Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, 70.

In panel 1 (fig. 3), the two main subjects of the panel split center, indicating that both Marji and her parents are of
equal importance within the panel, though the placement of Marji in the foreground and her parents in the
background causes the reader to focus first on Marji and then on her parents.28 Panel 2 shows Marji centered within
the panel; because nothing else competes for attention within the frame, the reader is encouraged to focus on Marji’s
bowed head, indicative of her feelings about leaving her parents. Panel 3 gives noticeably greater visual importance
to Marji’s parents because they are larger and closer to the reader, while Marji is the secondary subject of interest
with her smaller size and greater distance from both center and from the reader. Panels 1 and 2 are essentially static,
meaning that the elements within the panels seem to lack movement,29 though Marji’s tilted head in panel 2 and her
waving hand in panel 1 introduce elements of motion into these compositions, making them slightly dynamic.30

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Unlike the first two panels, panel 3 is primarily dynamic; because dark tones are perceived as ‘heavier’ than light
tones and because Marji is visually smaller and ‘lighter’ than her parents, a sense of unbalance is created within the
panel that results in tension, a dynamic concept.31

Figure 3. Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, 153.

In panel 1 (fig. 4), the eye moves from left to right, following the direction in which the crowd is facing because
the reader is “propelled to the person or object that is being pointed out”32 and because “[t]he eye tends to follow the
direction of movement…even follow[ing] the direction in which it faces.”33 However, rather than read panel 2 from
left to right as well, the reader’s eye moves from right to left, once more following the direction in which the crowd
faces. The eye then moves left to right again across panel 3. The exploitation of dissimilarity is another means of
directing the eye across a page;34 the crowds of people facing in opposite directions in panels 1 and 2 cause the eye
to focus first on the crowds, while the stark contrast between the first two panels and the third panel forces the gaze
to compare the previous two panels with the third panel. The reader then notices that Marji has not moved from the
bench all day. She is the main element remaining uncontrasted and unchanged. The rule of thirds, or the aesthetic
division of an image into horizontal and vertical thirds, is also employed on this page: Marji sits in the leftmost
third while the crowd takes up the rightmost third in the first two panels. In the third panel, the moon sits near a
cross section of vertical and horizontal third lines, causing the gaze to return to the moon and emphasizing the
amount of time Marji has remained in that position.35

Figure 4. Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, 235.

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 In panel 1 (fig. 5), the majority of lines are vertical, with several diagonal lines accentuating the rigidity. The
mouths are diagonal, giving the “impression of toppling”36 and suggesting danger, collapse, and uncontrolled
motion.37 Eyebrows are diagonal, with some sets of eyebrows appearing to give opposing meanings because one
brow is pulled upward while the other is pulled downward. Feet are also positioned in diagonals, implying
movement38 and a capability of bursting into motion at any moment. The lack of hair also means the lack of curving
lines that suggest “quiet motion” and “femininity;”39 the head coverings are the only curving lines in the panel, but
the reader’s awareness of the covering’s stifling purpose impacts the perception of those few curving lines. Postures
are predominantly vertical, suggesting dignity, power, and resistance to change.40 However, “one always has the
uneasy feeling that a vertical line or form might tilt and fall,”41 emphasizing the brittleness of the poses and the
women’s negative feelings toward being forced to wear the coverings.
In panel 2 (fig.5), however, mouths are more curved than diagonal, creating a greater feeling of quiet motion and
femininity42 as well as of grace and growth.43 Hands are also curved, following the lines of the knees and laps on
which they are resting; similarly, eyebrows are curved instead of diagonal, as they were in panel 1. The women’s
feet aren’t seen in this panel because they are sitting, an act that automatically conveys a degree of comfort in one’s
environment and removes the suggestion of being prepared to flee at any moment. Hair creates more curving lines; it
is no longer bound and hidden from view, just as the curving lines of the women’s breasts and hips are no longer
hidden. The postures are also much more curving; overall, the bottom panel suggests a fluidity and capacity for
growth that is absent from the top panel.

Figure 5. Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, 305.

3. Replacement and Enhancement of Textual Linguistic Information and the Removal of

Bias
The aesthetic elements within graphic novels and, more generally, within comic texts are able to take the place of
and enhance the meaning of textual linguistic information. Because both text and the photographic elements
analyzed within this paper possess shared symbolic meanings among readers, substitutions can be made between the
two systems; for example, replacing textual linguistic information with graphic elements is similar to using
synonyms to rephrase a sentence, just as enhancing textual linguistic information is similar to using modifiers within
the language to strengthen or specify meaning. Although comic texts have generally been frowned upon due to their
early history, today’s world involves more than simply textual literacy as a valid form of communication; graphic
signs and symbols in daily life are imbued with specific meaning just as the symbols of written language have been
given arbitrary meaning. To deny that comic texts are a valid form of communication, capable of conveying ideas
just as complex and thought-provoking as plain texts, is to deny the evidence that modern, first-world society is
increasingly emphasizing visual means of communication. Advertising and social media have successfully used

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visual literacy, and the graphic novel effectively combines plain text with visual literacy in the transmission of
literary ideas.
Moreover, the graphic novel has methods that are unavailable to plain texts for removing the author’s as well as
the reader’s biases. Color, for instance, has distinct connotations within cultural and social understandings. The
University of Basel in Switzerland compiled a list of responses to color according to subjects in Western Europe and
the United States. These results indicate that red is thought to be impulsive, intense, sexual, and forceful; blue
signifies trust, loyalty, and piety; yellow has philosophical or intellectual connotations; green is linked with growth,
harmony, and abundance; and so on.44 By illustrating in only black and white, the author cannot pass his or her
judgments of the story to the reader through the connotations of color; in doing so, the writer loses a part of the bias
inherent in the retelling of a story. The reader, similarly, cannot take visual color cues from the writer and must form
his or her own judgments of the story by reading and interpreting different elements, such as lines and composition.
In the absence of color, the reader also cannot easily interpret races or ethnicities, making the monochrome world of
Persepolis more relatable for readers of varying cultures, races, and ethnicities.
The use of comic texts, however, is the largest contributor to the removal of both authorial and reader biases. This
can be explained by McCloud’s “amplification through simplification.”45 By moving an image from the more
realistic spectrum of drawn images to a more simplified version of the same drawn object, the writer focuses more
intensely on the specific meaning behind that image. In the case of Persepolis, Satrapi focuses on the idea that Marji
is a girl like any other who happens to have grown up during and been affected by a cultural revolution. By making
an image more abstract and less focused on specific details that differentiate people from one another in real life,
that image is applicable to more people, increasing its relatability in the same way that the absence of color increases
reader relatability; this concept is called “universality.”46 By dealing with simplified images, comic texts such as
Persepolis create a world in which the reader can look at the faces of the characters within the comic text and reflect
his or her own face onto them, effectively placing that reader into the story. If the artistic renderings within comic
texts are more realistic, the reader simply sees the drawings as records of other faces, and the self-reflection and
relatability are lost; the reader is “far too aware of the messenger to fully receive the message.”47 McCloud further
explains:

By de-emphasizing the appearance of the physical world in favor of the idea of form, the cartoon places
itself in the world of concepts. Through traditional realism, the comics artist can portray the world without,
and through the cartoon, the world within.48

Indeed, in employing a “comics” form, Persepolis effectively utilizes the advantages of universality, identification,
and inward focus in order to convey both the social and the personal messages of Marji’s story and the effects of the
Islamic Revolution as experienced by individuals.

4. Conclusion
The graphic novel is gradually attaining higher levels of acceptance as a valid form of literature due to a number of
factors, including research, successful integration into academic curriculum, and a gradual wearing away of the
perceived social stigma attached to comic texts. Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992
for Special Awards and Citations – Letters.49 Graphic novels such as Persepolis50 and The Amazing “True” Story of
a Teenage Single Mom51 as well as graphic adaptations of classic literature such as Beowulf 52 have had successful
lesson plans based around them for use as scaffolding or as the main text of study in middle and high school
classrooms. Organizations such as the American Library Association recognize exceptional graphic novels for
teens,53 while honors such as the Eisner Awards evaluate and award graphic novels and other comics for both young
and adult readers.54 Several websites as well as scholarly articles offer advice on choosing appropriate graphic
novels for age levels in the classroom, and scholarly articles, notably Yang’s “Graphic Novels in the Classroom,”55
argue in favor of the inclusion of graphic novels in a variety of educational settings.
Further research is needed to better understand the aesthetic-linguistic connection in graphic novels and comic
texts. Because this paper only studied a specific example of a graphic novel, more examples are needed to solidify
and validate these findings. Further, studies should be done on full-color graphic novels as well as on other forms of
comic texts, such as comic books and web comics, in order to determine any similarities or differences from the
findings discussed here. The emphasis on visual literacy in contemporary culture should also be analyzed in order to
understand how the idea of “multiple literacies”56 necessitates the analysis of comic texts in a literary setting. With

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continued study and application of the benefits and elements specific to the graphic novel and to comic texts as a
whole, these forms of literature can continue to gain acceptance into the literary canon.

5. Acknowledgements
The author would like to express thanks to her advisor, Dr. Hena Ahmad, for her guidance during the research and
writing process. She also wishes to express her appreciation to Truman State University’s Office of Student
Research for graciously funding her and other students’ travel to the research conference. Finally, the author knows
she is forever indebted to her family and friends for supporting her and reminding her of the importance of a sense
of adventure and an even greater sense of humor.

6. References
1. Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis (New York: Pantheon Books, 2007).
2. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 9.
3. Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1954), 90.
4. Ibid., 91.
5. Ibid., 118.
6. Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith, The Power of Comics: History, Form, and Culture (New York:
Continuum, 2009), 39.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 56.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 70.
12. Ibid.
13. The New York Times, “Notable Books,” New York Times, December 7, 2003, accessed January 25, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/books/notable-books.html?pagewanted=37&src=pm
14. Andrew D. Arnold, “A Graphic Literature Library,” Time, November 21, 2003, accessed January 25, 2012,
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,547796,00.html
15. Thomas Juneau and Mira Sucharov, “Narratives in Pencil: Using Graphic Novels to Teach Israeli-Palestinian
Relations,” International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 2 (May 2010): 182.
16. Gillian Whitlock, “Autographics: The Seeing ‘I’ of the Comics,” Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 4 (Winter
2006): 971.
17. Michael A. Chaney, “Terrors of the Mirror and the Mise en Abyme of Graphic Novel Autobiography,” College
Literature 38, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 26.
18. Andreas Feininger, Principles of Composition in Photography (New York: American Photographic Book
Publishing Company, 1979).
19. Ben Clements and David Rosenfeld, Photographic Composition (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Copmnay, 1974).
20. Feininger, Principles of Composition in Photography, 77.
21. Ibid., 104.
22. Ibid., 77.
23. Ibid., 104.
24. Ibid., 77.
25. Ibid., 49
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Feininger, Principles of Composition in Photography, 158.
29. Ibid., 110.
30. Ibid., 120.
31. Ibid., 120-121.
32. Clements and Rosenfeld, Photographic Composition, 161.

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 33. Ibid., 212.
34. Ibid., 164.
35. Bert Krages, Photography: The Art of Composition, (New York: Allworth Press, 2005), 9.
36. Feininger, Principles of Composition in Photography, 91.
37. Clements and Rosenfeld, Photographic Composition, 62.
38. Feininger, Principles of Composition in Photography, 93.
39. Ibid.
40. Clements and Rosenfeld, Photographic Composition, 62.
41. Feininger, Principles of Composition in Photography, 91.
42. Ibid., 93.
43. Clements and Rosenfeld, Photographic Composition, 62.
44. Art Silverblatt, Jane Ferry, and Barbara Finan, eds., Approaches to Media Literacy: A Handbook, 2nd ed.
(New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2009), 259.
45. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 30.
46. Ibid., 31.
47. Ibid., 37.
48. Ibid., 41.
49. Hye Su Park, “Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: A Bibliographic Essay, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary
Journal of Jewish Studies 29, no. 2 (Winter 2011), 147.
50. Marla Harris, “Showing and Telling History through Family Stories in Persepolis and Young Adult Novels,”
in Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel (Urbana, Illinois: National
Council of Teachers of English, 2007), 38-53.
51. James Bucky Carter, “Are There Any Hester Prynnes in Our World Today? Pairing The Amazing ‘True’ Story
of a Teenage Single Mom’ with The Scarlet Letter,” in Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by
Page, Panel by Panel, ed. James Bucky Carter (Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007),
54-63.
52. J. D. Schraffenberger, “Visualizing Beowulf: Old English Gets Graphic,” in Building Literacy Connections
with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel, ed. James Bucky Carter (Urbana, Illinois: National Council of
Teachers of English, 2007), 64-82.
53. American Library Association, “Great Graphic Novels for Teens,” ala.org, accessed February 15, 2012,
http://www.ala.org/template.cfm?template=/CFApps/awards_info/award_detail_home.cfm&FilePublishTitle=Awar
d%20DB&YR=Y&uid=5136A2EB25F1418E&LP=Yes
54. Comic-Con International, “What Are the Eisner Awards? Explanations and a Brief History of the Awards,”
comic-con.org, accessed February 15, 2012, http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_faq.shtml#oscars
55. Gene Yang, “Graphic Novels in the Classroom,” Language Arts 85, no. 3 (January 2008).
56. Gina Cervetti, James Damico, and P. David Pearson, “Multiple Literacies, New Literacies, and Teacher
Education,” Theory into Practice 45, no. 4 (Fall 2006).

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