Autobiographical Graphic Novel

Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel. What is the significance of this? The book is more personal (obviously) also tells a true story based on the author's point of view. What is the significance of this? According to Hayden White all narratives are a sort of autobiography because we always reflect our own personal morals and values in whatever story we tell. In Persepolis the story is overtly autobiographical.

An overtly autobiographical novel is more personable and personal, as we see with the graphic novel Epileptic. In this graphic novel, the author David B. writes about his struggles with his brother's struggle with epilepsy. The book is very personal as well as personable. With the different artwork that David B. does in the book you can feel his own anger or depression on the page. If this book was not based on his own life then it would have not been as easy to detect all the different feelings.

In Persepolis, the girl in the story has feelings that could only be explained if the author actually lived during that time and felt those things. Luckily for us as the readers, she did. At certain points in the book, you get the author's opinion loud and clear. For instance, she talks about how people changed during the Islamic Revolution and that Islam is more or less against shaving. Little things like that would not be discussed in a non auto-biographical work.

White's central argument about narratives and stories is that it is not an objective process but rather relative to the story teller. Each story teller decides what he/she wants to put in each story. In both of the graphic novels Persepolis and Epileptic the author is essentially the only one who gets to decide what is included in the book. Thus making it a purer narrative.

One of my favorite bands is a band called Brand New. (Let the criticism of my music tastes commence.) Their first cd is called Your Favorite Weapon. In the cd there is a song called "Seventy Times Seven" which is basically about the song writer's best friend stealing his girlfriend. The reason I feel it is appropriate to include here is because the song is based on true events. The whole cd is really just an autobiographical story about the loss of his friend.
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCrgIDXVL-w

Focused Writing

In the book Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware does not allow us to see the faces of all characters that are not the main characters. Ware uses many different creative ways to obscure the different characters' faces. In one case he places a speech bubble in front of the character's face so it is not shown. What is the significance of obscuring these characters' face?
According to Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics, comics are given life by us the readers. McCloud says that “you give me life by filling up this very iconic (cartoony) form. Who I am is irrelevant. I'm just a little piece of you. But if who I am matters less than what I says matters more.” What is the significance that these characters are trying to say in this book Jimmy Corrigan?
The bit characters in this book are not necessarily saying anything too significant. However, they are showing how they affect the youngest Jimmy. The most significant character that is not shown in the book is his mother. She is constantly covered by a speech bubble, the bottom of the frame, or shown off in the distance talking. While these characters are not significant to show their faces they are still important in the scheme of things. What is the significance of the few characters' faces being shown?
Ware, by drawing the faces of the few main characters, shows that the story is just about these certain characters. While there are other people who might be suffering in the same way as the different Jimmy Corrigans, they are not going to be depicted in this book. Ware is showing that our focus should just be on the characters who actually have their faces shown. While there are other people who are struggling, the focus is not in this story. What is the significance of focusing on these characters?
According to Hayden White, each story is in its own way a narrative. In each story that we hear or read, the author or storyteller chooses what to include in the story. The author always gets to choose what the focus is on. In the movie Requiem for a Dream, there is a strong focus on addiction and drugs. Filmmaker Darren Arronofsky and writer Hubert Selby, Jr. focus on four main characters instead of the literally millions of people who struggle with addictions everyday. Like in Jimmy Corrigan, Requiem for a Dream ends on a rather depressing note, but we are so engrossed in the characters that the authors have chosen that we are upset at the end. The focus on a limited amount of characters allows the audience to feel more attached to these characters making the moral of the story that much more important. I've included the ending to Requiem for a Dream, I would advise watching the whole movie before seeing the ending.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuzNohk5cYw

Masks of Reality and Maus

"In this world, reality wears a mask of meaning, the completeness and fullness of which we can only imagine, never experience" - Hayden White


Maus I by Art Spiegelman chronicles his father's life story about surviving the Holocaust and Hitler's conquest of Poland. In this comic book, Spiegelman depicts Jewish people as mice, Nazi's as cats, the Polish people as pigs, and the Americans as dogs. However, these depictions are not completely set in stone. A couple of different times in the book, different Jews put on pig masks to escape from the Nazi's. But are they in fact literal masks?


On page 138 of Maus I, Vladek is wearing a mask that makes him look like a Polish person rather than a Jewish man. It is clearly a mask as Spiegelman has drawn in a line on the back of Vladek's head to indicate where the mask actually fits on his head. Following on the same page, the Polish man who is following him is shown as having a pig face (as all Polish people do in this book). However, as we continue to read we find out that he is actually a Jew. In the same panel that we find out that he is a Jew, Spiegelman has drawn it so we can the see the back of his head. On the back of his head there is the clear line with a knot, indicating that he is wearing a mask. Then in the speech bubble, he indicates that he is Jewish, too. It is evident that these masks are physical masks that the different characters can put on to hide what ethnicity they actually are, for this book.


Can these masks also be metaphorical? On page 147 of Maus I, in the last couple panels, Vladek and Anja are holding each other because there are rats in the cellar. In an ironic twist, because of the medium of comics, the panel shows two mice holding each other one reassuring the other that these rats are only mice. If we were taking this comic book as literal and not allegorical in any fashion, this scene would not make any sense. Especially since, by this point we have put together that all mice are Jewish and have been treated kindly by other mice. If it was literal these mice would be holding each other and reassurances would be in the mold of telling each other that these are other Jews. Obviously, this is not the case. All characters in the book are faced with an ever present mask of their own. These characters are not the animals that are drawn in this book. It seems rather obvious, I know. These characters are in fact humans who have the masks of whatever animals they are supposed to be on at all times. This is why they are afraid of rats or think that they are disgusting. They are very aware of what they are in reality as opposed to how they are portrayed in this particular comic book. These masks are merely there because the “Lord”, as Hayden White would say, chooses to extend these metaphorical illustrations throughout the book. Even on the back part of the book jacket, these illustrations continue. Spiegelman has a picture of himself working with a giant mask of a mouse on his head so we cannot see his face. He is conveying himself to look like the different characters from the book.


How does this connect to the Hayden White mentioned at the beginning of this blog post? It seems like a rather large leap to connect a quote to a pretty shoddy analysis of Maus I merely because there is a nice play on words. I, like the characters in the book, am self-aware. Also, like the characters in Maus I, historical narration can be changed with an act as simple as putting on a mask. The main mask that exists throughout all historical narration is the inherent bias of each storyteller telling the story. White states that “unless at least two versions of the same set of events can be imagined, there is no reason for an historian to take upon himself the authority of giving the true account of what really happened.” In someone else's point of view, a comic book illustrator might have told the story of Maus I very differently. These masks in Maus I give it credibility of an historical account based on the statement from White. Without the ever-present masks for all the characters in the book there would not be as easy of a way to discuss the inherent bias in Spiegelman's work. The inherent bias may in fact lead people to discover the other versions of the same set of events.


Is reality's mask of meaning as complex as the ever-present mask of the mice or as obvious as the masks when the mice act like pigs? That seems to be the tough question. According to White, because all things are narrations the meanings are subjective to the storyteller. What is the significance of the storyteller? The storyteller acts as the “Lord” in order to decide what is left out in a story, what the meaning is, etc. If the meaning is essentially decided by the storyteller and not the endless stream of reality then the most influential people in our lives are those that inform us of what is happening. What should our jobs be if we are not the storytellers? People are really thinking for themselves then we can decide and interpret what means what. We act as historians in our own way and our own stories are biased by our interpretations. According to White's analysis, all of history's characters already have the different masks on in our minds. We make up whatever masks they are wearing whether it is of a mouse, cat, dog, bird, or anything else. At least in Maus I, someone made those decisions for us.