As I've read the book, I couldn't help but notice that there is an excessive use of cars throughout the story. I first noticed in the first chapter, on page 6, when Marji said that she wanted to be a prophet because her father had a Cadillac. I didn't understand that, so I skipped over it. And then on the next page, there's a toy car sitting on her shelf above her, and on page 9, there's a random toy car floating in the blackness above God's head. Coincidence? I'm not sure, but the introduction to graphic novels packet said that every detail is significant, so I'm inclined to believe that there's some hidden meaning.
The cars don't stop appearing there, though. They're seen on pages 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 44, 45, 50, 64, 66, 68, 74, 75, 81, 87, 88, 89, 93, 101, 105, 108, 109, 112, 120, 132, 133, 139, and 151 (Wow, I can't believe I went through 150 pages just to look for cars.). If you don't believe me, look for yourself; they're all there. Hardly three pages go by without a car somewhere, and most of those pages had two or more frames with cars in them. It's as if Marjane Satrapi put them in wherever they could fit. With pictures as basic as they are in this novel, it's incredible how many times cars appear in the background. No artistic value would be lost if none of them were there, and yet they're everywhere. There must be some other value to them, and that means some secret meaning. I just don't know what. Any Ideas?
Dang, it takes some curious commitment to account for every occurence of a car in the novel. The theme that keeps coming to mind is that the cars are so frequent because she, like the cars, keeps changing and moving. The middle east is becoming more "westernized" as we would say, and this movement has brought about more cars and more changes just like her many changes during puberty (yes, i know, hehehahahoho) and her move to adulthood.
ReplyDelete