Growing up In Modern Strife: Marji and David B.

*Note* To avoid confusion I will refer to the protagonist of Epileptic simply as David.

Marjane Satrapi and David B. present beautiful portrayals of lives led under the constant watch of a tormentor. In one instance it is an unfair government and in the other it is an unfair physical illness. Both present these autobiographical tales with stark black and white illustrations and a retrospective narrative.

Persepolis shows the many stages that Marjane went through during her childhood, and though she was dealing with very mature events there are times that signs of her innocence come out. Marjane's interests were political from the time she was very little. I began to wonder what it was that she was trying to get across in her portrayal of Marji's relationship with God. It seemed to me that she was trying to show that through her developing relationship with God that ends in a split she loses faith, not just in God, but also in voices of authority in general. Voices like those of her teachers become opinions when her parents tell her that her teachers are not always right.  She lost her innocence to the knowledge of corruption. As Marjane grew she started to gain interests in the political demonstrations that her parents attended. These were often dangerous places for adults, let alone children. I was curious why it seemed Marji was being portrayed as such a little adult while being so very young. It seemed like there may have been some bias seeping in until I realized there were times of innocence throughout all of these early events. One event in particular was Marji's plan to attack a classmate, whose father had killed people, with nails between their fingers. This event shows that she still had the faults of a childish mind. I was very impressed by Satrapi's ability to portray herself in an open manner. She was willing to critique the actions she made and give the reasons she made those actions without sounding defensive or excusatory.

Epileptic by David B. is an even more beautifully illustrated novel. The novel does a great job of showing the affects of a mental/physical illness on it's victim and their family. I wondered why he portrayed the illness in the way that he did (as a dragon-snake monster). I think the best explanation is that David was trying to present the illustrations in a way that seemed relevant to the way he imagined it as a child. Only a child could think up the concept of a disease as being a dragon-snake. I began to wonder what else might he have done to portray the story as if it were being told by his younger-self. I think he maintained this theme by portraying the doctors and psychiatrists as evil masterminds of some sort. He also managed to take all of the things that opposed the health and happiness of his brother and exaggerate their flaws such as his mother's drinking habits being portrayed the way that it was portrayed and so on. That is not to say that her drinking habits were not a bad thing, however, the way it was depicted seemed to represent a further development of his child-like vision.
       David B. and Marjane Satrapi manage to both show an autobiographic tale in a way that seems well-rounded, fairly critical, and unbiased.