As we discussed in class, for the most part people had a hard time telling apart the individuals in this book because of how simply they were drawn. I did not have this issue at all. I actually really prefer this simplistic style that Satrapi uses as opposed to the style we found in Maus. There was more left to the imagination in Persepolis and I feel like I got to more or less create the world Marji lived in, where as in Maus the world was told to me and I observed. This also made this book easier to read because as the audience, you weren’t missing out on any hidden details by reading quickly through the frames. The opposite was true in Maus. There I felt that in order to get the full message from the story I had to go back and slow down my reading, grasping the full image before proceeding.
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I agree that the simplistic style does leave more to the imagination and can help make the book less confusing. Even before discussing this point in class, I found myself making comparisons between the characters and people in real life. This to me can be a good and a bad thing. It can help the reader become more engaged, but at the same time it can be dangerous because one can attach characteristics from real life people or, as people noted in class, get confused.
ReplyDeleteI was one of the people that were confused with the characters in the book at first. But as I read more of the book I am finding it easier to tell the characters apart. I do think it is interesting that because the drawings are so simplistic that you are able to create your own world for Marji.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's as McCloud theorizes, that the more abstract the characters appear the more likely we are to superimpose ourselves in their stead. This effect is dependent on what the author is trying to communicate and the circumstances but I don't always find this attempted rhetorical influence to curb how much I may put myself in that characters shoes. What I do like in Persepolis are the highly contrasted images in terms of her use of negative space and black & white.
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