The Succes of Combination A Study of Hybridity Through the Combination of Aesthetics and History in Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

Abstract

This thesis examined the way aesthetics and history work together in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and how this combination positions the reader in a third space. The thesis used several different theories to make its statement, being the reader-reception theory, the theory on Orientalism and the theory on the reception of comics. All of these theories focus on the hybridity, or third space, that is created through tensions existent and created between a text and its reader during the reading of a text. A close reading of several frames of Persepolis was conducted in order to point out how the frames depict notions of hybridity and thus how they use the third space in both the aesthetic and historical parts of the work. The analysis performed serves to combine the theory and the close reading and thus gives an explanation of the way the theories presented are apparent in Persepolis. The combination of the theory, the close reading and the analysis showed that what Satrapi wanted to achieve with Persepolis, is to raise awareness with her audience that their— Western—conception of Iran is not a correct one. She uses all of the elements of her work in order to raise this awareness with her reader, intertwining text and image so that her message is evident, but still leaves room for interpretation. The combination of a personal and Orientalist history within the work allows her to interact with the reader by letting him identify with the characters and negating this identification simultaneously. The study performed shows that the use of hybridity, within the combination of aesthetics and history in both format and content of the work, is one of the key elements of the work that allowed it to reach the success it has known and still knows today.