At the risk of sounding redundant, I also want to examine the aesthetic decisions Satrapi made to frame her narrative – specifically the “simplicity” of the art. (Not using quotations here to imply a condescending rejection.)  The most fundamental components of this simplicity as detailed on the blog seem to be the following: monochromatic color scheme (black and white), a lack of shading, and abstract representations of the characters.

There are a couple of compelling quotes from Thursday’s reading which may illuminate the reasoning behind these aesthetic strategies.   I am referring here to the Chute article.  Hillary Chute asserts that Satrapi’s minimalist aesthetic is central to getting the narrative’s message across: “the narrative’s force and bite come from the radical disjuncture between the often-gorgeous minimalism of Satrapi’s drawings and the infinitely complicated traumatic events they depict” (99).  And, as the narrative details Marji’s childhood, the abstract nature of the art embodies “[the emotional landscape of a child, which is] is moving paradoxically because of its distance from and proximity to the realities it references” (103).  Chute draws special attention here to the image of the man who has been cut into seven pieces.   Marji as a child is unable to fathom in her imagination a real picture of a dismembered body, so we instead get the mannequin-like image of the man split into hollow, bloodless pieces.  So, essentially, Satrapi shows here the impossibility of adequately representing trauma, but also the horrific implications of that inadequacy.  For the latter, Chute says, “in its accessible syntax, its visual ease, [the image] represents the horrifying normalcy of violence in Iran” (103).

Hopefully this helps articulate some of the underlying ideas I read in the posts, and will offer some transition into the reading.