Week 5 - Body talk: Eisner and Thompson

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Habibi is a graphic novel by Craig Thompson. It is about two runaway child slaves, Dodola and Zam, and the dangers and adventures they have to face in a fictional Islamic country. Thompson tries to present themes of environmentalism, anti-Islamophobia, racism, rape, and slavery through the use of visual and thematic cues from both the Qur'an and the Bible. The illustrations brings a lot of emotion as they try to portray designs and patterns of the Islamic culture.

While reading there was something that made me a bit sad. The fact that the girl is only nine-years old and is sold into marrying a much older man and he rapes her, was quite sad to me. This affected me because, like the Islamic country in the story, there are a lot of child marriages in India. This isn't common now but while reading the story, it made me think about being in that position and how it would feel. My great grandparents and grandparents had a child marriage but luckily it wasn't like the one described in the novel. Overall, the graphic novel brought a lot of emotions while reading it and the use of illustrations.

Comments

  1. Lauren ChangOctober 10, 2019 at 9:10 AM

    Wow! I also read Habibi! Such a beautiful graphic novel. I found it pretty sad in some parts as well but in a way it kind of brings awareness to those kind of past traditions.

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