Persepolis and Naruto

Upon first being assigned to read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, I thought it was going to be a very annoying assignment. I never had any experience reading graphic novels other than the Sunday Comics. After the first few pages though, I was hooked. I found it interesting how deep the novel actually was. At first, I imagined this comic book to only contain surface stories, but it was actually about topics of which I have never been familiar. By reading this graphic novel, I was able to see that aspects of plot and theme can be taught through this form. Using this novel as an example, I will definitely plan to use graphic novels in my classroom because they bring an interesting and new aspect to the English Classroom.

About Naruto, I felt differently. This form of comic book definitely proved to be an exciting read, but I did not see as much literary merit in it as I did Persepolis. In addition, I felt that aspects of the novel were extremely sexist. Every portrayal of women in the text was either as an aspect of sexual desire, or as being obsessed with men. None of the women were concerned with their own well-being and empowerment. This aspect angered me a bit and caused for my dislike of the book.

All in all, through reading both comics, I found myself quite caught up in the story lines. My only experience with reading graphic novels or comics before was in the Sunday’s Comics. By having this new experience with comic books, I was able to change my view of graphic novels and see that they can be discussed and analyzed just as text novels can. After finishing Persepolis and Naruto, I found both works to be quite different. Persepolis was a deep memoir about a women’s life growing up in Iran, while Naruto was about a ninja attempting to become a great Shinobi in his village. Both texts were in the form of a graphic novel and contained aspects of which I was unfamiliar. Overall, though both works were in the comic book form, they were still very intriguing and definitely portrayed interesting stories that caught the reader’s attention.