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Examples Of Juxtaposition In Persepolis

1133 Words5 Pages

Caroline Brooks

Mrs. Geiken

English 111

23 March 2023

Persepolis: A Masterclass in Juxtaposition

Persepolis is a groundbreaking graphic novel and memoir written by Marjane Satrapi about her childhood in Iran during the Iranian Revolution. Satrapi focuses on topics of war, heartbreak, and primarily her own coming of age story. Throughout the entire novel, Satrapi’s expertise in juxtaposition–the contrasting of two different images or topics–is clear, not just in her imagery, but the topics she covers. Marjane Satrapi uses imagery and word choice to emphasize a juxtaposition of how adult topics can both positively and negatively affect children.

Throughout the novel, the negativity of Satrapi’s situation may seem to dominate the story, …show more content…

Throughout this section of the novel, it is communicated to the audience that poor young Iranian boys are being given plastic keys and told that these are the keys that they would use for getting into heaven. The purpose of the gift of the keys was to distract the young boys from the horrors of fighting in the war. Despite how obviously devastating this experience would ultimately be for the boys and their peers, it seems to take an even larger toll on one Mrs. Nasrine, the mother of a young boy who receives one of these keys (Satrapi, 99). This section of the graphic novel is a microcosm of just how extreme the culture of the school was for these Iranian children. The school that Satrapi attended supported the extremist concept of social classes, highlighted in this case by the fact that only the poor boys were given these keys to heaven. The unlucky recipients of the keys were then dropped onto battle fields, practically hypnotized by Islamic hymns, pushed into battle, and forced to pay the ultimate price. Most of the boys who lost their lives at the hands of this social construct were around the age of thirteen (Satrapi, pp. …show more content…

Throughout Satrapi's childhood, she experienced a wider array of adult topics than most children could ever expect to encounter. It is all but impossible to find examples of positive influences from Satrapi’s war torn childhood. However, after digging through all the negative examples presented, there remain a few shining gems that were responsible for making Satrapi who she is today. Marjane Satrapi is truly one of the most talented authors of our time. With her book Persepolis, Satrapi demonstrates this talent by juxtaposing positive and negative topics, sometimes even on the same page or within the same panel. By expressing her story in this manner Satrapi displays her message clearly; despite the devastation and horrors of war, a child can prosper and

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It also illustrates a belief in personal freedom because she is wearing clothes that are frowned upon. In this panel, Satrapi is challenging the negative stereotypes about Iranians by showing that people do still want to be free and not part of the Islamic regime. In the book Persepolis the author shows many reason as to how everyone in Iran didn’t want the Islamic regime. Satrapi challenges stereotypes about Iranians by showing people still want a better life and also by showing Individualism in Marjane.

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During the Islamic Revolution, religion was very important to the fundamentalist Islamic regime that took power over the secular state. In her graphic memoir, Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, a spiritual young girl, suffers a deep loss of faith due to the oppressive fundamentalist religion in Iran. This loss of faith causes Marji to experience disillusionment and a loss of identity, which greatly shapes her character. Through her experiences with God, Satrapi comments on the difference between spirituality and fundamentalist religion and displays the negative repercussions of an oppressive religious state.

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The way Satrapi the author of Persepolis depicts emotion is unique, satrapi made of a lot of symbols that could be interpreted many ways depending on how the reader relates the book. While reading Persepolis you notice how the illustrations are more cartoony and childish while covering a very serious topic such as war, violence, revolution, demonstration, and executions. Satrapi uses herself as a child (Marji) to tell a serious story about her life and how she lived through it. For instance In “the Key pg. 102” marji is talking about “The key of paradise for poor people” young kids were looking forward to a better life but instead met with a deadly explosion with keys around their necks.

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Have you ever heard two people having a discussion about a topic, but they have different opinions? Acknowledging the fact that people could have different opinions based on their own perspectives is very important. In Persepolis, Marjane writes as her 10 year old self, sharing what she experienced in Iran, while they were in the middle of a revolution. Throughout the book, she gets older and her perspective changes multiple times over several different topics. Marjane Satrapi’s perspective affects her presentation of imperialism, religion and loss of innocence.

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Effects on the Memoir Persepolis Marjane Satrapi’s novel Persepolis describes experiences during the Islamic Regime that leave people suffering, dying, and fighting for a better government. Marjane Satrapi uses a comic layout to illustrate what is difficult to say in words. Her panel design depicts images of her, her family, and friends as well as how people in the community are reacting to the different events of the revolution. The use of panel design assists the memoir by making Satrapi’s purpose of portraying information more successful. Throughout the novel Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi uses panel design to advance the reader 's’ knowledge of the many situations occurring in Iran that cause distress to many individuals rebelling against the regime.

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To what extent is literary devices used as an instrument to show social, racial, and class differences in Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi? The novelist, Marjane Satrapi, wrote, Persepolis, as a graphic novel to display other countries the progression of the Iranian Revolution through a bildungsroman perspective. The author uses literary devices several times as it narrates the sentiment of Marjane Satrapi as well as civilization in Iran. Marjane Satrapi segregates the western culture to the eastern culture by restating the Iranian Revolution into a graphic novel. The author’s panache affects how the audience interprets the scenario tremendously; Marjane Satrapi ensures this by using imagery.

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Religion has been the cause of different outbreaks such as ‘The Crusades’ and several terrorist attacks which date not very far away from today and more relevant to this topic the Iranian Revolution, but how can this “collection of beliefs” be the reason for someone to change their way of thinking, especially in such a religious country like Iran. The story of Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi tells us the story of her life in Iran before and after the revolution showing us the different ‘personalities’ she goes through, from innocent girl to a disaffected teenager. In this story Satrapi exploits different themes such as the heterogeneity in regions with Iran and the rest of the world, warfare and politics but one that stands out and is presented through the whole book is religion. Religion is portrayed as an excuse to start a conflict and it shows the personal development of characters, in this case the protagonist Marji.

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This is another way Satrapi integrates perspective with a given theme. In like manner, theme discussed throughout Persepolis is the role and influence of Iran 's social class system. The picture shows the different levels of social class which play a big role in the book Persepolis. Marjane best displayed social class when her maid fell in love with their family 's neighbor. The text says, “You must

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The role of politics in Marjane Satrapi 's life is a critical one, as seen in her graphic novel Persepolis, which narrates her experiences as a young girl raised by revolutionaries during turbulent times in Iran. Particularly, Satrapi uses juxtaposition between her parents and children to highlight the hypocrisy and myopia of the upper class revolutionaries when it comes to the interpretation and implementation of their political ideology. Satrapi builds the foundation of her criticism through the superficial comprehension her child self exhibits regarding her parents '—and, by extension, upper class communists '—ideals, then warns about the dangers that such lack of understanding presents through child soldiers who are fed ideologies and then sent to war. However, while pointing out the shortcomings of the movement, Satrapi 's use of children as the vessels for comparison entails that there is room for the communist community to develop, like Marji does as she matures from child to teen, and encourage equality through the removal of social barriers created through binaristic thinking to truly promote communist ideals. The first point of juxtaposition is Marji herself, particularly her initial myopic thinking as a child.

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The first panel is an illustration of thousands of children being bombed. They are all in the air with their keys around their neck. The bomb is drawn with sharp and dark angles stabbing into the children’s bodies. This is extremely important in the book because it shows one of the consequences of the Iranian Revolution: thousands of innocent people died from the war and no one was able to help.

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The graphic novel, Persepolis that is written by Satrapi depicts the coming of age story of Marjane and her experiences during and after the Iranian war. Through Marjane’s experiences, the character frequently encounters the hardship and conflict of growing up. However, these hardships are major factors that shape Marjane as a character and establish the context of the novel. Within this novel, Satrapi uses graphic novel conventions and literary devices to convey the conflict of Marjane; with herself, with man (in the form of her teachers), and with the society that is revealed in Persepolis.

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Have you ever read a graphic novel with a variety of worldwide problems? From: racial issues, economic issues, women’s rights, political repression, social issues etcetera. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is the authors memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane Satrapi tells her story through black and white comic strips of her life in Tehran from her childhood ages six to fourteen. Persepolis portrays a memorable portrait of daily life in Iran, as well the perplexing contradictions between home life and public life.

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