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Keely Rainey
Professor Gifford
English 50
December 6, 2015
Visual Rhetoric in Persepolis Final
In Rhetoric for Radicals, Jason Del Gandio explains, The way we communicate
influences and can even determine our thoughts, understandings of and perceptions of the things
were talking about (Gandio ix). This is why it is crucial for writers to carefully choose the way
they will communicate with their audience. Marjane Satrapi had to consider this when deciding
to write her book Persepolis. Persepolis is a book that describes Marjane Satrapis life while
growing up in Iran, a country plagued with conflicts. She chose to write her book as a graphic
novel. This allowed Satrapi to use visual rhetoric to help her communicate with the readers.
Marjane Satrapi uses the unusual strengths of visual rhetoric to help the reader walk alongside
her as she processes complex events born out of difficult political times, and as she gradually
gains a more mature perspective.
Satrapi uses visual rhetoric to help the reader have a better understanding of what she
went through and how it made her feel at that time. Early in this book, many characters discuss
overthrowing the Shah, and her parents even attend a lot of protests. Marji, accompanied by her
maid, finally decides that she is going to attend one, even though her parents had forbidden her
to. That day when they get home from the protests, Marjis parents are already at home waiting
for them. Marjis parents are furious at them, and Marjis mom even slaps both of their faces.
Marji and her maid later find out that was the day that so many protesters were killed that it was
named Black Friday. After learning about all this, we see Marji and her maid sitting on the bed,

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and they both have a handprint on their cheeks from when they had been slapped. It is not very
likely that the hand print was still there from when they were slapped. So instead, we can assume
that Satrapi is using visual rhetoric in this image to show the readers the lingering shame and
embarrassment the girls felt for disobeying Marjis parents and attending the protest.
Furthermore, Satrapi uses visual rhetoric to explore topics that Marji is exposed to, but
cannot yet grasp. Throughout this whole book, we hear about these terrible tragedies Marji hears
about. The first major tragedy that is depicted in this book shows up on page 14, where there is a
large image of people in a burning building. We see them running for an exit, while some look
like theyre starting to turn into ghosts and are moving upward towards the top of the picture.
This image is depicting the 400 victims that were burnt alive in Rex Cinema. Hillary Chute
describes this picture as a child's-eye rendition of trauma (Chute 99) in her article The Texture
of Retracing in Marjane Satrapis Persepolis. Chute states, This is clearly a child's image of
fiery death (Chute 100). This image helps show us Marjis state of mind. Shes able to imagine
the tragedy, but she cannot yet grasp it in a realistic way. Instead, she imagines the people
without any variation in their faces and with ghostlike features, taking away from the idea that
these were actually individuals with families. Even with these factors, we can still see how
terrifying this event must have been to Marji by the way she depicts the horror in the victims
faces.
The use of the visual rhetoric also shows the readers how much Marji grows and matures
throughout this book. In the beginning of the book, we see how she imagines everything she
reads or is told about. We get to see her incredible imagination and how she is processing
everything she is learning and everything that is going on around her. For example, on page 12
and 13, Marji is reading a bunch of books; then we see her imagining a discussion between Marx

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and Descartes, where they are discussing their philosophies but in quite a childish way where one
ends up throwing a stone at the other to prove a theory. Throughout the book, we see that the
images depicting her imagination keep decreasing, and the few that appear also become more
realistic. When we finally come to the last section entitled The Dowry, there is only one panel
depicting something she imagines. In this section, Marjis mom explains why it is so dangerous
to speak your mind with Iran being led by the religious extremists. Her mom tells her about what
happened to Niloufar, a young girl who had been arrested for being a communist. Niloufar was
supposed to be killed for the crime of being a communist, but she was a virgin, and it is against
the law to kill a virgin, so she was forced to marry a guard of the retribution, who then took her
virginity so that they could execute her. A panel on page 146 shows Marji laying in bed thinking
about Niloufar. She no longer imagines the terrors that are described to her because at this point
in the book, Marji is old enough to understand these terrors and what really happened to
Niloufar. She cannot bear to think about what Niloufar had to go through, so instead she can only
imagine her in the state Marji had last seen her in, smiling and wearing a polkadotted dress.
Since Satrapi uses visual rhetoric, the audience has a greater understanding of what she
went through as a child, the terrible events that happened around her, and how much she was
able to understand them. The audience also sees her grow and her perspectives change. This
childs viewpoint may help the reader connect more intimately with the story and Marjane since
we have all been children and have experienced the challenges of processing complex
information. Perhaps, too, the resulting understanding of the events are less biased since
children do not bring as much opinion to interpretation as adults might. Satrapi may have had
these goals in mind: help the reader connect to events through a lense of innocence.

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Works Cited
Chute, Hillary. "The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapis Persepolis." WSQ: Women's
Studies Quarterly 36.1-2 (2008): 92-110. Web.
Gandio, Jason Del. Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Century Activists. Gabriola
Island, BC: New Society, 2008. Print.
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2003. Print.