Marjane Satrapi a young girl who lived during the revolution in Iran gives us a glimpse of her life in a comic. The Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 is also called as the Islamic revolution. There are many things that one can compare the encyclopedia and historic information from what I have read from The Complete Persepolis. As well as the things that differ from the information and from the book.
People are like cameras and their personal experiences can be their lenses that change and modify the actual picture. This evident in Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis because the whole book is about a girl growing up, and forming her own opinions. Furthermore, Marjane has to mature in the turmoil of an Iranian-Iraqi war, she also has to survive the brutal Islamic regime governing her. This creates a very particular point of view considering that the parents raising Marjane are against the new form of government, and actively protest, risking their lives. As a result, this rubs off on her creating a very rebellious and dauntless little girl, who isn’t afraid of the new oppressors.
Imagine if everyone had a pre-determined negative image about you? This is what life was like for Marji, the protagonist of the novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The book is set in the year 1980, in Iran where Islam was a major religion at the time. This is also the time for the Islamic Revolution which kicked the Shau out of office and made Iran a theocracy. In Persepolis, Satrapi challenges negative stereotypes about Iranians through important characters who oppose the Islamic Regime.
Importance of religion in Iran and its society is a crucial point in this graphic novel, Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood. It was mentioned in the novel how the society was corrupted when the Shah took charge. When the Shah took over, this lead to the many rebellions and demonstrations Iran had in order to keep the peoples freedom. The significance of women and how they were treated was also affected when everything changed during the 1980’s. Women are treated not only like trophy wives but they also did not have any sort of freedom for themselves.
Satrapi talks about the struggle of being Iranian with all of the bombing that occur and how Satrapi shows some stereotype in her book with displaying Iran people and Islamic religion. She portrays Islamic and Iranian people somewhat horribly with pictures of them doing horrible actions to their citizens (14/4-7) and what types of gruesome torture they do to them in jail (51/1-5). Another stereotype that I saw in the book was how Satrapi tried to breakdown the idea of agency. Usually in Third World countries they are portrayed as lacking in agency where they are often in need of help rather than active agents in helping themselves. However I felt that Persepolis had tried to breakdown this stereotype by showing that there were actually many heroes in Iran who had tried to fight for change.
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.
It is essential for people to stand up for what they believe and resist unjust government, because this will lead to improvements in many aspects of people's lives . After many years of protest, the Shah's government was overthrown and no longer ruled. We see this on pages 40-42 of Persepolis, as people protest and demonstrate, and finally there is a change in the government. The Shah was overthrown only because people stood up for what they believed in. If the Iranian people had kept quiet about what they believed, then no change would have been made in the government.
Both these novels show the constant struggles that people have had to go through to survive. In Persepolis the people of Iran began to protest the Shah by demonstrating. Eventually the Shah fought back by ordering the police to burn down the Rex Cinema, where there were 400 people. “The doors had been locked from the outside a few minutes before the fire and they forbade people to rescue those locked inside, and then they attacked them.” (page 14).
Those discrepancies established in Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood includes differences in treatment for women and men. The culture in Iran during the Iranian revolution showed a diverse way of treating women unequally. Certain laws for women were established in Iran for example, women must appear with their husband or a male member of their family. However, men were not put order such vigilant eyes of other men. Other delegations were placed to show that men were placed on a higher pedestal than women.
Young children usually don’t comprehend the flawed world they live in for various reasons. For instance, parents tend to shelter their children from traumatic events; however, at some point children are forced to grow up and become involved in real world problems. In her novel, Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi experiences a numerous amount of events that shape and develop her perspective throughout the novel. Her perspective influences her presentation of loss of innocence, social classes, and gender roles. These things all alter the way she acts towards her family, friends, and God.
She knew that it wasn’t all perfect and good but she also knew that it was not a cesspool of despair and darkness that some people make it out to be. So, she wrote the novel in a very smart way, she uses literary devices to show and tell a fantastic story but at the same time uses it as a way to talk about the problems and good things about Iran in the 1970s. This allows Persepolis to live longer and be discussed much longer if she simply didn’t use metaphors. It is also a way to show and teach people about a very heated subject and show them not everything is totally black and white in this world and that sometimes the monsters are actually men but at the very same time people can be great, people can work together to further a cause, people can care and at the end of the day people in Iran are exactly that, people and Marjane Satrapi simply wanted to show that in her novel and she succeeded
Everything can be viewed from two perspectives; A fist fight, a murder, bullying, just to name a few situations. This is still the case with Iran and it’s people. Iran and its neighboring countries are often portrayed negatively as terrorist, or failed nations. This is not always the truth, however, and one can learn that through Marjane’s coming of age story, Persepolis. The personal nature of the story is told through Marjane’s loss of innocence, her opinions on religion, and her observation of the prominent gender roles.
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.
SHUBH MITTAL IBDP XII B D-BLOCK Paper 2 Essay Context: Historical, Political, Economic, Cultural, or Social can have an influence on the way literary works are written or received. Discuss with reference to two literary works that you have studied. Writer’s use of context acts as a driving force enabling and shaping literature.
In other words, freedom from government control is what a liberal dwells on besides social equality and social justice. Liberalist believe in pursuing policies because they’re nice and make them feel good. While in contrast, conservatives believe in perusing policies because they work. What is conservatism?
