Unveiling: Persepolis as Embodied Performance

Abstract

This paper examines Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2 as examples of unconventional solo performance, and argues that these personal narratives can be read as a type of embodied performance that might otherwise be denied Satrapi. The traditional novel is regarded as an outlet for women denied a public presence; the graphic novel goes a step further, allowing presence both vocally and physically through repeated self-portraiture, which deals frankly with distinctly corporeal issues of visibility, sexuality and identity. These are threaded through the narrative and dealt with frankly in both word and image. Drawing on comic and performance theory to discuss how Satrapi uses the interplay of visual and narrative languages to perform herself, I contend that graphic novels may best be understood as occupying a middle ground between the novel and the theatre, where their formal liminality frequently echoes the liminal states of their protagonists.