FSCC 4:00 class

Shi, Xian


Page 141 and 142 depict a scene when Judd and Pedro had a talk in the last few days of Pedro’s life. The panels in this spread are mostly small and the majority of them are the portrayals of Judd and Pedro’s faces. Thus, the facial expressions in this spread are one of the most significant parts of all the visual elements. Pedro’s face is drawn with two wrinkle lines on his cheek, showing the weight loss of him because of severe illness. Through those wrinkle lines, we readers can clearly feel how much struggle and pain that Pedro has suffered. Another noticeable facial expression is Pedro’s eyebrows. In the last few panels of page 141, when Judd says to Pedro “Take your time. It’s all right”, Pedro’s eyebrows turn downwards as well as his mouth. It is obviously a sad face which the readers can easily understand when looking at the portrayal. Pedro looked up trying to think of what to say, yet failed. The next panel, Pedro’s eyebrows frowned ---- he’s angry. He was angry about the illness, about his inability to talk with his friends, about all the losses that happened in his life. In the first few panels on page 142, the depiction zooms into Pedro’s eyes. His anxiety and anguish were all portrayed through his eyes. How it feels of depriving a communicator of the ability to talk? It’s just like taking off the wings of a falcon. Both are impressively miserable.

Page 44 to 45 show the readers multiple events that happened during the post-revolution period. The first three panels depict a scene that happened in school, the next three panels depict a scene that happened in the neighborhood, and the rest of the panels show what happened among Marji and her friends.

In the school scene, when the teacher asked the students to tear out the pictures of the Shah in their school book, the facial expression of Marji was confused with her eyes and mouth wide open. Through Marji’s confusion, the readers are able to catch the irony here: the teacher who previously taught the students that the Shah was chosen by God was now asking them to tear off the pictures of the Shah. Besides, when Marji raised her confusion, the teacher considered her as an offender and asked her to stand in the corner, which inserts a deeper sarcasm here.

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