If a person hastily flipped through the pages of the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, using only their eyes to judge, the book could easily be dismissed as another piece of literary fluff. Their inner literary critic might let out a puzzled gasp and their mind might reel in wonder at how they stumbled upon something that was surely destined for the children's comics section. However, upon further examination of the book's literary content and the power of its simplified graphics, such an easy-to-assume accusation turns out to be fatally flawed. Persepolis is the memoir of a young woman growing up in the devastating national conflicts of 1970s Iran, depicted alongside an unexpectedly simplified art style. At first glance it might seem that this is only done for the sake of unique marketability or because it is simply Satrapi's natural drawing style. Closer examination, however, will reveal that “…a form of amplification is achieved through simplification” (McCloud, 30) and the text is given visual support in a way that realistic or more “serious” art could not achieve . Although simplified in its artistic approach, Persepolis is far from simplified in content. When a writer chooses to include illustrations in a piece of literature, the first task is to decide the level of abstraction/realism the art will present. In the case of Persepolis, a simplified art style works better, as it only amplifies the primary features of the text, unlike realism which would be much more focused on social details. Given the book's heavy subject matter (both of a war beyond massive devastation and the metamorphosis of a girl caught up in her trauma), Persepolis has a great deal of information to cover in... middle of paper... captivating aspects and personally significant to his experience. Through generality and lack of explicit realism, Satrapi reinvigorates the book's deeper messages in a way that extends beyond the written word and into conceptual images. “By deemphasizing the appearance of the physical world… the cartoon places itself in the world of concepts” (McCloud 41), concepts that convey the subjective, but still too true, life of Marjane Satrapi. This simplified and symbolic universe is not Iran, nor Austria, nor France; It's Marjane's Persepolis. Works Cited McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HyperCollinsPublisher, 1993. PrintStrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: the story of childhood. Paris, France: L'Association, 2003. Print.Strapi, Marjane. Persepolis 2: The Return Story. Paris, France: L'Association, 2004.Print