A Short Clip - Interview with Marjane Satrapi:
I thought this is a good clip to start with, as we start this new book.
Some main points to discuss:1. My first initial thought of the main character, Marj, is how young she is to remember so many details so vividly. She seems like a very brilliant girl, almost too brilliant for her age. So much that I was confused on who was telling the story, since her vocabulary was so eloquent. But then I realized the author was the main character and it all started to click. How much do you think is direct words from Marj's childhood and how much is it the authors reflections, years later, that reword things? What is more important for us to understand in the beginning, the actual direct conversations (like we saw in Maus) or to hear the author's reflective thoughts throughout the story, on those situations told years later? The reason I'm bringing this up is because in Maus, we don't hear Spiegelmen's reflective thoughts during his explanation of his father's story. Which storytelling style do you like best?
2. She stopped talking to her best friend, God, at a significant moment in her life. What was her reasoning for her disconnecting from him? She went from thinking she was born to be a Profit to never speaking with God again. Even up until the point in the story, where we ended this week, when she is sent off to another country, she hasn't spoken to God yet. What is your take on this whole situation and why is this an important topic we should discuss?
3. We should break down the metaphors that lie within the plastic keys painted gold that were handed out to all the young boys. What were the promises that came with these keys? Why was Mrs. Nasrine so upset with her son? As I read this, I was beyond upset that adults would do this to such young kids. Did anyone else have very strong opinions and feelings when they read this?
4. Maji's father taught her to not be materialistic. It was one of her stronger traits. Since her extended family and friends seemed to be much more materialistic then her family, she tended to look down on them. There were only a couple of items that she did hold a lot of value in. Her friend Neda's bracelet and her posters. The effort she made to keep them and then eventually, give them away, shows a new strength in her personality. How does this compare to her religious beliefs? How do these correlate? Since she lost her faith in god did she cling to these materials more? What is to come of her while she is in this new country, completely on her own, with no family or support system?
1. I think that it is imperative that we remember that in the beginning of the book we are hearing of a child's memories of her life...and what she imagined happened when she went to bed and was only "over hearing" the adults around her talking about. The author wants us to remember this by showing herself as a rather self absorbed child with a skewed version of right and wrong. (They would play terrorist and torturer in the backyard.) She is telling us that she - at this point in the story - is an unreliable narrator, but that these are some of her vivid memories. She shows herself in an unflattering light and that lets us know that she (the author, not the child) is actually a very reliable narrator.
ReplyDelete2. I believe that her relationship to God is very important to the story, even though we haven't seen her speak to God again, we believe that she will. I believe that God attended her tea parties as a child, and I believe that He would leave when she commanded him to do so. She makes this relationship credible. Her disconnect is also believable because of her inability to understand why God didn't fix the problems in her country, and if He wouldn't then why should she talk to Him.
3. The keys are terrible and point to Iran's view of class and the favored majority in a very large way. This was just...wow...(insert horrific word here).
4. I think that the materialism is not so much the question as is the class situation. Marjane is obviously from a wealthy family and descended from royalty. Sex and class are huge issues in Iran. the return to the veils, and then the maid's love for the neighbor. While her parents didn't put much stock in class, they still held to their own class beliefs. It was forbidden for the maid to love the neighbor boy, and it was the maids fault when the relationship became known. Only the poor boys received keys, the window washer becoming the man who decides who get visas for medical treatment, and many other instances regarding class.
1. I found that interview to be very helpful for understanding Satrapi's POV - especially when she says that she doesn't consider Persepolis a completely objective documentary. I can see that this was not her goal in writing Persepolis, but rather to tell a story based on her life experiences. After watching the clip above, I am definitely of the opinion that Satrapi is including what she can remember from her childhood, but that she is most likely filling in the gaps wherever she has to. However, if her story falls somewhere between autobiography and fiction, my impression is that it is closer to autobiography.
ReplyDelete2. I felt very bad for Marji when she had a crisis of faith, especially since her religion was so important to her. After her uncle Anoosh is arrested and later executed as a Russian spy, Marji loses her faith. At such a young age, this must have been a devastating blow for her.
3. There was something very disturbing about the way the military was so desperate to recruit soldiers that they were willing to manipulate vulnerable people in order to get them to join the army. I also do not think this is something that is unique to the Iran army. Around the world, it often seems to be the case that people are influenced to become soldiers in part because they are stirred up and influenced through things like patriotism. There is a point where recruiting an army turns into exploiting people and the promises made to them, whether they are real or not, are tools of manipulation.
I was very affected by the way Mrs. Nasrine says that the military wants her to trade her child for a plastic key. She is not led astray by the promises of eternal reward like her impressionable son, but rather sees the gesture as what it is - a ploy to get poor young men to join the war effort at any cost.
I think this is a great observation as comparing to Maus because in Maus the accuracy of the events and conversations that followed were the focus of the memoir, but in Persepolis the story is a recollection with a completely different intent, not to discover the past, but to contrast it with western culture. (In my opinion) So which story telling style do I like best? Its hard to say since I've read these comics and liked them and read very bad knock off wannabes of both comics and hated them. The bad versions still used the same storytelling elements as the good ones. I think if I was making my own memoir I'd tell it like Satrapi does, but style it more like Spiegelman.
ReplyDeleteI think Satrapi is starting to blame God for some of the awful things happening around her instead of seeing the good that comes from the events in her life. She's rebellious and very smart, but doesn't put it together until she gets a little older. It's really sad to hear, but so interesting to see illustrated in a fantastic way. The way she depicts God as he interacts with the world is great, and it really makes the book seem like it's terrible events as seen through the eyes of a child, but told as a grown up woman.
It's really sad but I think we all know by now that a lot of armies in the middle east are built off manipulation like this. Sometimes it's controlling the media to an extent to where you train your people to hate your enemy so killing them feels easier and like a prophetic thing to do with your life. It's really sick what they do to young kids and how they manipulate them and train them to be killers unaware of the reality of the world. In part I think Persepolis is a lot about awareness, and understanding different cultures in ways that the Iranians weren't capable of doing.
That was a good video by the way and it made me realize how well the McCloud-esk iconographical characters allow us to relate to the culture because of Satrapi's obvious accent. I knew it would've been there, but for some stupid reason it surprised me, and I think it's because of how relatable everybody is in her comic. I don't hear accented Iranian voices but English ones. It's so relatable I didn't even realize it until now.
So, I think for continuity of the story, and to make the story more informative and tell-able, she probably didn't use the same vocabulary when all these events were going on. I kind of got confused from time to time because she jumped around her story line and got off track, when the story started she was 10 and they were handing out veils (I don't think that's exactly how it happened, but I could be wrong), then she jumps back to 1978 to tell about what happened then. Then she jumped ahead, I kind of got lost and had to reread sections to see what was going on. Speigelman doesn't do that in Maus, he kept a nice even flow, he jumped back in time, but that was through his father's words. He only brought to the then present in order show his perspective of trying to get the story from his father. I definitely like Speigelman's narrative style more at the moment, I can follow it seamlessly.
ReplyDeleteSo, when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up she told everyone she wanted to be a prophet. This was ridiculed and teachers showed concern, she is in a very strict religion and culture. Women weren't supposed to believe that they could be prophets or be Holy, they were supposed to be submissive. When her parents asked, she said doctor, which was a reasonable answer for 1980s Iran. They were trying to protect her. When she stopped talking to God, it was like she was asserting her independence over her religion and culture.
2) To me, Marji going from wanting to be a prophet to hardly talking to God at all symbolizes to me Marji's increasing disillusionment with not only religion, but people too. To her as an innocent child, God represents pure good. God represents the best in people and she just wants to deliver that message to people. However, as she grows older she sees people taking her message and perverting it to commit horrible acts. She no longer wants to be associated with these people who are associating themselves with God. God is not going awayin Marji's life however, he is just getting a lot harder to talk to the more that she learns about this world.
ReplyDelete3) The plastic keys were horrid, and it is terrible to think of all the terrible things that have been done to impressionable people in the names of war and religion. In some ways, this is less barbaric to me than some things that are being done today by ISIL, like kidnapping children and forcing them to be suicide bombers against their will. It seems like a continuation of the same idea however. Back in 1979, the extremists needed to tread a little more lightly in order to make sure that people stayed on their side. Now, the extremist culture is so ingrained that they can commit these terrorist acts and still maintain popular support. What is the same about both generations of extremists however, is how they pervert the word of God in order to get people to kill themselves for them. They have learned that people have no problem rebelling against other people, but would rather die than rebel against God.
Persepolis
ReplyDeleteWhat the reader really has to understand is that this is a story written by an adult woman recounting her past, not a kid telling a story of their present. Marji use of language isn’t too odd. She is the type of person, it seems, to always be present to learn new information about what’s happening around. I feel like, even though its through an adult filter, this is Marji’s actual youth be delivered. It’s not being enhanced by her future self very much. Also, it’s a recount of her history. No story recounting a past will have exact conversations the way they actually happened without some sort of recorder. I think that what is more important in this history is the account from Marji. Hearing her personal interaction between family and friends really sets up her personality and the time and place.
I feel that her reasoning for disconnecting with god was because she felt like there was no need. She learned new information about how her government worked and this new information put to light the lack of necessity for god in her life at that time. Her life was becoming more and more complicated and going to god was becoming less and less necessary. It’s as if her future goals changed through her personal interactions with people. It felt normal to me.
The keys struck so hard. These keys were given to poor children so they would sacrifice themselves for the government and make it to a better place then where they were then. They were basically being brainwashed. They represent the hopes and dreams of these poor children and how far they would be willing to go to fulfill them. The picture of the children running into battle with the keys was heart wrenching. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. These children were looked at as nothing instead of as humans like the Jewish people in the Holocaust. A game of cat and mouse.
1. I think it is likely that she sees herself through rose colored glasses. The way she sees her world within the story so far gives huge opportunities for her as a strong woman to later on be empowering. Yes to some extent I'm sure that things are cherry picked to fit the narrative, but the stories that are within the first 150 pages define her as a rebel and someone not afraid to shake up the social norm. Her ideals seem western to me, nearly like what I would expect of my sister if she was in a similar situation (which is wishful thinking at best).
ReplyDelete2. I think this is to show her disconnect from social norms, and drive a point at which she became more open to the world, and the experiences it has to offer. She is not disconnecting from religion intentionally, but as a child in that situation when your whole world is shifting opening your mind can make you stronger.
4. Just echoing what I said before, I believe this shows how strong she is. There is a careful line between dissociation from what harms you and apathy. If you can keep on the side of being able to dissociate from what is mentally harmful, (like material possessions, or obsessions) you will find yourself stronger for it. I think her being able to give things up is one of her greatest character traits. Yes there are things she wanted like the jeans, it is natural and not notable in my opinion.
I like both the voice that narrates the story and the somewhat unrealistic way Marj speaks. Marj's narrator is a lot more reflective than Vladek, as the author is Marj so she has more insight and Spiegelman didn't ever speculate. However, thinking on what I was at 11 years old, I might be inclined to say I am an entirely different person. The interview you posted was very insightful, as Satrapi says that she obviously had to make some stuff up for the purpose of the story. I get the feeling Spiegelman didn't make too much up. Still I think they are actually employing the same story telling style, so I can't say which is better in that regard.
ReplyDeleteMarj stopped speaking with God when her uncle was executed. This is significant because, as she said, when she was that age she was deeply religious (although modern), so for her to reject God and her ideas of being a prophet has larger implications on her political/religious leanings for the future. We know that we are going to watch her get older, and that moment clearly played a role in how she developed, as she could have gone on a different path had that not happened. This religious context is especially important here because Iran is an Islamic state so her relationship to the religion is imperative.
The promises that came with the gold keys were entry into heaven, women, riches, and food. As the keys were just just plastic painted gold in order to fool the boys, it is obvious that the entire promise was a scheme. The manipulation by the government is well planned here.
Going through her childhood amidst multiple political and religious revolutions, it must have been difficult for Marj to decide what was important to her. She abandoned religion and had a hard time abandoning even a friend's bracelet. She is clearly learning to sacrifice and her development is definitely going to be shaped by events like these (which is probably why she included them in the narrative). Since I've seen the movie I already know what happens when she leaves Iran. I think we can tell from the first 150 pages that she is very independent and intelligent though, so obviously she will be fine.
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ReplyDelete1. Knowing that the story was embellished after watching the interview clip, it makes sense that Marji seemed so clever and wise at times in her childhood and childhood imagination. Giving each of the changes from the revolution to the war a significance to Marji as she is growing up shows how she reacts from multiple perspectives, as the narrator, and child. A child's perspective is molded by family, and school very strongly and this gives special relevance to the social changes and dangers of the war and revolution in Persepolis.
ReplyDelete2. I think Marji was exploring her spiritual place early on because she was in a secular school at first and the she suddenly wasn't and had to wear the veil and behave differently. This made it immediately important to question why these changes were made because it was new and not necessarily comforting. Having not been brought up with strict traditional religious beliefs, Marji was inspired to decide upon her own. This made her feel like a prophet and it made her feel closer to the idea of god and that was comforting. She thought about the good and evil kinds of things that her friends parents or her family did. She tried to fight against and for these things to see if that was what she was becoming. Then she seemed to realize that people in her family were suffering because of someone who was meant to be a prophet and her idea of who she wanted to be was less religiously centered.
The keys are a false promise. They are plastic, meaning they are basically worthless, but painted gold, implying that they are precious or valuable. I think this is a painful thought because it preys on vulnerability and ignorance of youth. They collect boys from poverty and promise them things that they will not have to deliver on to go out and kill themselves and others. They die, and they die with these false promises hung around their necks, but once they are dead they are lost whether they received what they were promised or not. The whole scenario follows the kind of theme that I noticed with this story so far and it’s a sort of fundamental vulnerability of what we believe – adults, children, nations, etc. In the book everyone is bombarded with so many conflicting ideologies about what is “right” or “wrong” or “fundamental” (communist, decadent, and so on) and whatever one chooses to honor is a really loaded decision. Do we honor ourselves and our inclinations, our family’s, our nation, our school, our friends, the scholarly community? And who can we trust is another thing, because it’s impossible to know who is trying to sway the opinion for their own self-interest. Obviously this is the case with the war children.
ReplyDeleteWhen understanding Satrapi’s handling of narrative in Persepolis, I think the important question is not whether or not her depiction of her life is influenced by her as a narrator, but rather how this impacts the story’s message in general. I think it’s clear enough that Satrapi the author has a direct influence on the portrayal of Satrapi the character, as well as her family. It would be impossible for Satrapi to provide a completely objective depiction of the events of her childhood history, and more importantly it would only be a disservice to the story. I think it’s better to see these events through Satrapi’s own lens, since the impact that her feelings and responses to these events help organize them for us as her audience.
ReplyDeleteSince we have not yet finished Persepolis, I can’t say this for certain. But to me I feel that Satrapi’s connection with God and morality plays an integral role in the story, for multiple reasons. With regards to the her conversations with God during her formative years, I think this ties in with a lot of the questions posed in Persepolis as a whole. When at that age, it’s very natural to have all kinds of questions about the world around you, where we look for any source of authority or power to help us with these concerns. When born into Marji’s situation, this situation becomes further compounded. In Iran during the revolution, the world is a scary, confusing, and contradictory place. It’s hard to understand and appreciate all of this when you aren’t even ten years old. Marji looked to God as a source of power and guidance for a large part of her childhood, and this reflects the need for guidance that most people feel at that age. When she distances herself from God, she displays all the traits of an adolescent. Perhaps not cynical, but frustrated by the difficulty of the questions she keeps asking herself. We shall have to see if she returns to her confabulations with God later in the story…
Ah, the not-so-golden keys. Needless to say, the metaphoric significance of these objects is quite large. They are meant to sway young men into dying for their regime, convinced that they will be rewarded with paradise. But the key isn’t golden. How could it be? With so many young men needing to die, all they’re offered now are these plastic ones, painted to look valuable. Perhaps they are rewarded in the afterlife. But whatever fate they have after death, it’s clear the keys themselves are not ways to gain access to heaven, but simply cheap promises provided by the regime to make sure they have no trouble running through the minefield.
These keys illustrate an additional problem which Iran faces, greed. One of the biggest clashes between ideologies is not between different religious views, but rather between opposing social ideologies. Marji and her parents, while perhaps not outright Marxists, are definitely in opposition to the rapaciousness brought about by capitalist and imperialist thinking. This is what makes her families views on materialism so important to the book’s themes. I think Marji and her parents are some of the few people in the book who demonstrate an awareness of greed’s negative influence on people. From the examples mentioned in the prompt, I think their value to Marji are not based on materialism, but instead on personal attachment, or the message they embody.
I think its very pertinent that you compare the storytelling styles of Persepolis and Maus. I wouldn't say I prefer either, but I think both are very fitting for the stories being told and the characters involved in them. Marji is very precocious and intelligent as a young girl, and I think the author's reflective point of view is extremely intentional and adds meaning to the story. Maus was told through the voice of Vladek, and that is very distinct from Marji's. Persepolis is as much a historical piece and wartime piece as it is a coming of age story. That is what will set it far apart from Maus.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Marji's broken friendship with God is going to be a major theme in the story. When Marji is very young, curious, and does not have many people of authority she feels she can trust to be told the truth to, she turns to God for answers. This is not uncommon of young people from any era. When she begins to learn truths about her family and her situation, she begins to form her own opinions and leaves God out of it. We have not yet finished the story, but it's clear that religion and its governance over people is something that will be seen many times in this text.
I think its very pertinent that you compare the storytelling styles of Persepolis and Maus. I wouldn't say I prefer either, but I think both are very fitting for the stories being told and the characters involved in them. Marji is very precocious and intelligent as a young girl, and I think the author's reflective point of view is extremely intentional and adds meaning to the story. Maus was told through the voice of Vladek, and that is very distinct from Marji's. Persepolis is as much a historical piece and wartime piece as it is a coming of age story. That is what will set it far apart from Maus.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Marji's broken friendship with God is going to be a major theme in the story. When Marji is very young, curious, and does not have many people of authority she feels she can trust to be told the truth to, she turns to God for answers. This is not uncommon of young people from any era. When she begins to learn truths about her family and her situation, she begins to form her own opinions and leaves God out of it. We have not yet finished the story, but it's clear that religion and its governance over people is something that will be seen many times in this text.
God in Maji's life has been a part since the very beginning and when she stop's talking to him it is like she has lost her best friend. She wonder's why God hasn't not been in her life when she needed to talk to God the most. Thinking she was a prophet as a child obviously would make her have a very strong relationship with God and her family. Along the way of the revolution she had a lot of passion for that relationship, but when we left her as she was leaving she still hadn't come into contact with God.
ReplyDeleteThe main point I am trying to make here is the fact that whenever a life is pressured with any sort of change or pain, they look to blame first. It is a natural occurrence, but they look to the closest relationship they have for support. If that support is absence all of the sudden a variety or emotion ensues. In Maji's story the faith is lost because she realizes she does not have the power to change the world. She has been hit with the harsh reality of people's ignorance and hatred.
ReplyDeleteI believe the majority of the story was from Marj’s childhood, and it is amazing how much she remembered and how it has shaped her life, then again I think, if I had lived in times like that, it would be pretty hard to forget, that is something you hold onto forever. I think I liked to hear both, the actual memories she had, and her reflections on them, I liked seeing her reflective thoughts more than anything. It is nice to hear not only about the event that occurred, but the author’s reflective thoughts on them as well, her emotions, her ideas, her reactions to all she endured.
I am so glad you brought this up, at this point in the story, this moment shook me the most. Everyone always looks for someone to blame when something goes wrong, and because war is not something so easily understood, the quickest one to blame is usually the one who is unseen, who you believe has the ability to control the outcome of your lives, which is essentially, in most people’s lives, God. For her to reach a point in her life, still being a adolescent, and dismissing God so easily, is an astounding moment, it signifies she no longer is a child, she has reached the point in her life, where she thinks she no longer needs support from her best friend, no longer needs to be wrapped around his arms and talk to him because everything is so wrong, everything she was taught in school was all fabricated, she was lied to and she is at a point where she doesn’t know what is right or wrong.
Satrapi explicitly states in a few instances when something was actually really said (like her father telling the schools principal to shave off her moustache) and outside of that i think we are supposed to assume and understand that the narration is the experiences of a child, as remembered, retold, and fleshed out by an adult. I greatly prefer this type of storytelling as it allows her to give us the pertinent information, and that only, it allows her to skip the unimportant stuff, but more importantly it leaves the reader to create subjective meaning. I do not think she is an objective narrator, but she is fairly upfront about the type of subjectivity she brings into the narration, and this allows the reader to dissect the more objective story being told, and create a subjective meaning wholly unique to the experience.
ReplyDeleteShe stopped speaking with God after her uncle who she greatly admired and looked up to because he was a hero was executed for the very same reasons she loved and admired him. I think this is important to discuss and to have placed in the memoir because without it, i think she would have been very likely to be susceptible to the extreme religion which was beginning to descend on her society.
The plastic keys painted gold were a disgusting symbol. They were promises to be sent to paradise after death, as long as you held one. This was to bolster the children and fortify them when they were being sent to their deaths as literal meat shields on the front lines. The keys were meant to make the children feel like they were special, chosen by God, and that death was nothing to fear, because they had the key to Paradise for after they died. The fact that they were plastic painted Gold is symbolic of the promise. It looks great on the outside, but is ultimately hollow and worthless under the sheen of facsimile. Mrs. Nasrine is so upset with her son, in part because she is upset with what they key represents (his very likely death) but also in part because he so easily succumbed to the false pretense.
I'm not sure there is enough information within the memoir to draw a conclusion on whether Marji's materialism and religious values correlate (inversely or otherwise). The way i read her "materialism" was of the same sort that the father in Maus had acquired, simply a genuine appreciation for the tokens left behind by the dead, and also a genuine appreciation for the few scraps of luxury and war-free life they could get their hands on. I think her choosing to give them away rather than find a way to smuggle them with her to Austria reveals her lack of materialism. And as far as her clothing goes, i think that is a universal teeny-bopper sort of thing. Its just something that all kids experience around the ages of 12-14, trying to really define themselves separately from their parents, and clothing is the easiest, most convenient method of doing so. I think if anything she might develop some sort of materialism once in Austria because of the new found ease with which she can acquire luxury type items, and without the oversight of her parents she will want to define herself as much as possible, which will be easiest to do by the things she wears, and surrounds herself with. Though with her upbringing and her perspective, i still do not expect this to happen, i think ultimately that she is a non-materialistic person, and will continue to be that way.