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University of New Mexico

Showing the Unsayable: Trauma and Juxtaposition in Persepolis and A Child's Life and Other Stories

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

This thesis focuses on two comic books by women that interweave personal trauma with the trauma of historical events: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which explores coming of age against the background of memory of the Iranian Revolution, and A Childs Life and Other Stories by Phoebe Gloeckner, which explores parent-child incest and coming of age in the wake of the American sexual revolution. It argues that Satrapi and Gloeckner, two women comic artists, push the limits of the comics medium and of memoir by using juxtaposition — of alternative illustration styles, of what is seen and what is not seen, of different tellings of a protagonist's story — to subvert cultural and sexual roles traditionally imposed on women.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
Level thesis:degree_level
Thesis
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Year
2014

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Poharec, Lauranne
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Cheek, Pamela
  • Brau, Lorie
  • Worden, Daniel

Subjects

dc:subject × 15

Rights

Language dc:language
English

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:fll_etds-1103

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of New Mexico
Base URL
digitalrepository.unm.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Poharec, Lauranne. Showing the Unsayable: Trauma and Juxtaposition in Persepolis and A Child's Life and Other Stories. Thesis thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1928/24507