1) Marjane's relationship with her grandmother is an interesting one. They're from two different generations, yet they're very much alike -- what personal characteristics do you think are "timeless," which are simple facts of human existence? Are there any characteristics that you can attribute to one particular generation? (Excluding fashion, of course.)
2) What do you think of Marjane's choice to marry so young? Do you think think Reza and Marjane were ever really in love? What does this event illustrate about Marjane's personality, and the impact of philosophy on the decision-making processes of people in oppressive societies?
3) What do you make of the way Satrapi chose to end her story? Endings have a lot of power, and most artists make conscious and careful decisions when deciding where to stop telling a story. What might Satrapi's motivations have been? The story ends rather uneventfully, but I feel that it's a really potent ending. What do you think? Is there anything left "unanswered?"
4) Anything you've wanted to say about Persepolis that you haven't had a chance to?
Persepolis
ReplyDelete1) Marjane and her grandmother had one of the strongest relationships in the entirety of Persepolis. Their bond went deeper then family. It was their commonalities that made them truly compatible. They each explored freedom of expression and Marjane spent so much of her time looking up to her grandmother because of this. She divorced in a time when it was very rare and she showed her dominance in a society where women were seen as lesser citizens. She believed in doing what was right, and because of this, she pushed Marjane to always do the same. The way she was angry with her for convicting that man on the street to protect her, you could see how much Marjane being this sort of person hurt her. I see that her grandmother saw herself in Marjane and wanted her to have a life of excitement and freedom that she would not get in their country. I feel that Marjane’s desire to stand up for what she believed in was an attribute that her grandmother’s generation didn’t have so much of. Marjane seems open to obvious judgment, but even in a period of time when so many rights of women are being strained, they can speak their mind and do things that other generations might put more stress to.
2) I believe that Marjane marrying so young was justified. She was unable to have a real relationship with Reza without that marriage certificate. They couldn’t live together, stay in a hotel room together or even show very much affection in public. Her marrying young was her chance to finally see if their relationship was worth it. I defiantly feel that their love was real. Their interests brought them together, but after really being unable to stress their relationship, they never knew how far it would go. Love is a complex thing that is often taken lightly and their marriage was somewhat in this direction. Marjane jumping into marriage even when she wasn’t ready shows more of her personality. She lacked the right to be with the man she cared for at the time. In Europe she could do what she wanted and transitioning into her old life, it must have been hard. Being unable to observe her relationship with Reza more closely left her with little option and I think she took the right one.
3) The way that this story ended was very similar to the way in which Maus II had ended. It ended with the main characters moving away from their troubled lives and introduced someone’s death as a way to seal the story. In Persepolis’ side, it was Marjane’s grandma that sealed the story. A character as important as her grandmother sort of closed off the story from continuing any further. She was sort of Marjane’s inspiration, and her saying goodbye had left room for Marjane to take what she had learned and make a true life for herself. What would have been nice to see at the end of Persepolis is what Marjane did right after leaving home. I wanted to see how far she went in the world till she released this autobiography.
Marjane and Reza's marriage was practical for both of them. They had a problem communicating with each other. Reza didn't understand Marjane even though he said he still loved her at the end of the marriage. It allowed them to live more freely and they helped each other with advancing their educations. I understand why Marjane had her father's blessing. I think Marjane needed a relationship for many reasons and overall it helped her just like her grandmother and father seemed to know it would.
ReplyDeleteThe story of what inspired Marjane to write Persepolis in the medium of comics and about her growing into maturity and self actualization, was what wasn't included in Persepolis itself. What Marjane did to the man when the regime enforcers almost noticed her lipstick, when she was waiting for Reza, was a terrible thing. She disappointed her grandmother and that made her decide to be brave as well as compassionate. This lesson helped Marjane to succeed at the university and as an artist. She also listened to her grandmother about Reza and when they divorced Marjane continued to be happy. These two lessons make Marjane's grandmother's death more sentimental at the end.
Interesting questions—a nice change of pace.
ReplyDeleteAddressing question two (and touching on one):
I think something that we see in Marjane is a real desire for intimacy. I think that while she is very independent and self-sufficient, she seems happiest when she relates to and is loved by others close to her—especially her peers. Coming back from homelessness and struggle in Austria, I think the real need to belong brought her close to Reza even if she knew it would never work out in the long term. But coming from a culture in which she enjoyed the freedom to be physically affectionate to grow closer to her boyfriend, she knew that she couldn’t really feel the same closeness with Reza because of laws and also the cultural traditions of Iran. She does get married young but somehow I expected it of her—she is very mature, and has always seemed in a bit of a rush to grow up, moving from one thing to another.
Even her family (and her mother with some convincing) who are all quite progressive really seems to come to the same conclusion which makes it feel not out of character or complacent. Even her grandmother who is spunky and independant much like Marjane encourages the union-- though with the "you can always get a divorce" mindset, just like her father. I guess since they all realized that she wouldn't remain in Iran forever a divorce wouldn't be too detrimental and at least a marriage would allow her to experience a partnership in the meantime.
Addressing questions three and four:
I find it interesting the similarities between this coming of age and even Maus-- a meta-memior. We see a lot of the same ambivalence and desire for belonging to a cultural identity but being somewhat an outsider-- Marjane because she left and Art because he was a second generation.
I suppose I have a lot of resistance to the ending of Persepolis. It felt like it was building up toward another story arc but just halted midway like an abandoned diary. I understand the significance of Marjane's grandmother and note that my other classmates see the ending as powerful because it ends with a thought on their relationship, but I guess I expect some kind of cyclical nature to a story. After all, some of the first lines of the book were about her relationship with god and she never really reckoned with subject again as a woman so it felt really unresolved. We do, as readers, place a lot of importance on the events occurring at the beginning of a text and the end. Marjane didn't have to begin chronologically so we must consider why she chose to orient the reader in this way.
1. Marjane and her grandmother have a really good relationship. It’s one where both of them can be themselves and they seem to have in common a certain blunt way of stating things. They can also both be a little irreverent and both have a great sense of humor. In addition to having similar personalities, Marjane and her grandmother also seem to agree on many issues. And her grandmother’s stories about her life and her advice clearly had a profound impact on Marjane. The interesting thing about these two is that there isn’t really much of a generational gap because they understand each other so well.
ReplyDelete2. I think that Marjane’s marriage and relationship with Reza was partly because of love, but also because of convenience and needing something to go right after her relationship in Austria that ended with her being cheated on. Marjane and Reza both provided something the other was looking for. For Reza, Marjane represented some of the lightheartedness he had lost during the war, because she had lived abroad and had distance from the war. For Marjane, Reza represented a link to her country and the memory of the very war he was trying to forget. Marjane also states that she feels Reza thought he was marrying someone who she couldn’t be. On p. 348, she draws two pictures side by side. One shows the version of herself that Reza thought he married; the other shows the actual Marjane. The real Marjane (or the non-ideal wife Marjane) wears dark clothes, frowns and smokes while the ideal wife smiles with perfect hair and make-up. All things considered, Marjane and Reza both went into the marriage wanting something that the other could not provide, so their marriage did not have a strong enough foundation to endure.
3. Even though I knew I was nearly done reading Marjane’s story, I was a little surprised at the ending. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I thought it made sense to leave the story with her going away from Iran to live in Paris. However, it did feel a little abrupt just because I would really like to continue reading about what happened to Marjane when she got to Paris.
4. I really enjoyed reading Persepolis and I think Satrapi is an excellent artist and writer. When I finished reading this comic book, one thing I thought about is how her story would have been different if it were told as a book. I think it would have been less accessible for me overall. I also think that the comic book medium suits Satrapi's style - she did study as an art student, after all. Also, I really like that she included the bit near the beginning of Persepolis about the comic book "Dialectic Materialism" because it shows that she had an awareness of, and interest in, comic books from a young age.
1) Well they both (Marjane and her grandmother) are both a little rebellious, but they seem to act upon this nature in different ways. Marjane is more defiant and public about her opinions, but her grandmother tends to express her feelings at home while still abiding the laws. I think the two of them do seem very similiar, but Marjane doesn't understand why it's wrong to abuse her corrupt society and do things like wrongly accuse a poor man of insulting her. Her grandmother finds this very wrong, and shows the differences in the thought processes between the two.
ReplyDelete2) Marjane married young because she thought she was in love. I don't think they were in love at all. Her decision does show us that she is quick to accept a good thing as an unchanging permanent in her life, which could be derived from her society's oppression.
3) I was hoping someone would ask this question since I have a strong opinion about the ending. I was so disappointed. I read Persepolis 1 years ago and could never find 2 until I recently got it as a gift and read it for this class. All the build-up was just dropped at the end of the book. It really feels like Satrapi has literally "ran out of things to say." I put that in quotes because after reading it I envisioned her as her drawn character smiling at us and saying that line. The series is a collection of anecdotes that add up to something bigger, but the very end is just a semi unrelated anecdote that doesn't really have much emotional weight at all. Sure she never saw her grandmother again but that line was just thrown in the very end as a last ditch effort to sum things up to me. I just don't think it worked at all.
4) I'm going to pretend that there is no Persepolis 2 so I can go back to liking the series. (I'm partially kidding) It's just the ending is so unbelievably lame after such a great comic it's astounding to me that it ended like that.
2) I think that Marjane made the best choice she could in her circumstances. The odds were really stacked against her by the regime and by Persian traditions. She just wanted to be a normal couple without risking getting arrested or killed. Really the only way that they could do that was to get married. I can't imagine what I would do in this situation. Marjane made the point that the thing that the regime hates the most is to see people happy, and this is surely a byproduct of this. It was really interesting though when she talked about the Kuwaiti immigrants coming in and mistaking her for a prostitute because she was drinking a Coke. As bad as they have it in Iran, there are lots of places were women have it worse, which is really scary.
ReplyDelete4) This book made me proud to be born in America. As much as we Americans (and the rest of the world) love to talk crap about America, we really have it too good here. We take our freedoms for granted and don't often stop and think about the struggles that people have to go through around the world. Persepolis does a great job of just telling one person's story, a story that we would never know otherwise. Although she is a unique person, her story lets us imagine others and helps us to realize how good we have it here.
1. The obvious connection between the two is that they are both strong beyond their peers. Both Marjane and her grandmother have beliefs that women have to be strong and not be subservient despite their location. They show strength through defiance to social demands. They stay strong against police causing attrition against their freedom. They both spend time standing up against "the veil", her grandmother not pictured wearing, asking Marjane to remove hers. Then Marjane speaking against the strict rules imposed about clothing at school.
ReplyDelete2. The most interesting part of this is the outcome of a relationship in a completely draconian society. She had absolutely no choice what so ever when heavily tied to the dangerous (in that society) notion of love. The only way to explore feelings in that society would be to become married. She had a mentality of social justice, western ideals, and a drive for freedom. Being stuck unable to explore feelings that were validated by her non-traditional views, made this nothing short of inevitable.
4. The story really is a masterpiece. It makes a western audience able to empathize with people who are so far away. It really does make that connection in a beautiful way. It can open up bigoted ideals, empathy is the strongest connection one can make with an individual and this story really hits it out of the park.
I found the concept of Marjane marrying so young really complex and unexpectedly progressive. At first glance the idea of her marrying young seems traditional and oppressive, but it's actually just the opposite. She had to get married in order to really see through the relationship and be able to do it her way, not the Iranian way. It's funny because she used marriage, and Iranian culture, as a means to live her life the westerner way. Her progressive parents give their blessing, and even her progressive, feminist, independent grandmother says she can just divorce if it doesn't work out.
ReplyDeleteI think Marjane was very, very privileged and therefore had a unique perspective on this era. Her education, social class, and political affiliations amounted to a wonderful autobiography. It's a given that she would right this story, but that doesn't make it any less of a fantastically written and informative narrative.
I feel Marjane was in love with Reza, but it was a different kind of love then “married love.” She was in love with the ways they filled each others holes. Together they made a solid person with many interest. But, what made it fail was how she started changing herself into his ideal girl. Once she realized how much of herself she had given up, it was the moment she knew they were wrong for each other.
ReplyDeleteI think it shows her personality is to please her loved ones, even if it dissatisfies herself.
I didn’t feel unsatisfied with the ending. I think it was important to show who sent her off to the airport. Highlighting the good memories she had to follow this monumental point in her life just gave a little ‘kisses’ of how sweet her life was after everything. Going back to those places, visiting her grandfathers grave, her uncle’s ‘grave’, it all showed things coming full circle.
When her grandmother scolds her for having the man arrested when he didn’t do anything, I think that’s when she started seeing how alike they both were. They both thought about their actions, but do we really see how they both have similar characteristics? She says that her grandmother would find certain situations she was in very interesting or funny, but aside from that we don’t see the similarities. I think “timeless” characteristics that might get passed down from one generation to the next would how one may look at a situation or how one may form an opinion.
ReplyDeleteI think her choice to marry early was a pressured choice. She probably wouldn’t have married him after they were living together in France, or if they had been able to be together in public. She would’ve seen his flaws long before they were married. I think when they first met and started dating they were in love, but as their relationship staled, they fell out of love. Her father even said that he knew that they would get divorced and that once they lived together they would see how wrong they were for each other, but because she was so strong minded and wouldn’t be talked out it so easily, that he consented. The impact of philosophy was probably what pushed her to get married because she wasn’t going to act like her supposed friends, and she was going to do what she wanted. She couldn’t really have sex or live with a man without being married to him, so they married.
Her story isn’t finished yet. It’s like she was trying to get all of the first part of her life told before she told the rest. Maybe events happened like that, they just happened abruptly. There are a few things I would’ve liked to have known: what was her divorce process like? What did she have to go through to get that? Has she been in contact with anyone she met in Austria? What is her life like in France? We found out what happened to her grandmother, but what about her parents? Why didn’t she ever come to the US. Does anyone think that she probably would have had more like minded people in the US rather than in Austria and Iran?
Has anyone noticed how the Revolution and the War came upon them similar to WWII. The Nazis imposed the Nuremberg laws so that no one would intermarry and imposed regulations on the Jews that seem similar to those the Regime placed on the citizens of Iran. We also never hear if Satrapi is Muslim. We see some times where we can assume that she is, but she goes to a Catholic school, then she comments on how people are praying, and that she lies to her childhood friends that she prays multiple times a day. Why?
The relationship between Marji and her Grandmother is the most important one to the story. Her grandmother provided more than anyone else a moral compass for which Marji would follow. When she compromises her ethics and sends that poor man to jail to avoid being caught wearing make-up, it is the grandmother who admonishes her. Timeless characteristics of humanity is a hard thing to try and describe. Any characteristic has a counter which can be present. One common characteristic would be humanities will to survive. We adapt, conform, strive, and fight to try to survive.
ReplyDeleteThe decision to marry was a good one for Marji at the time. I agree with the position that her father took at the time, that the marriage was ultimately going to fail but it was a lesson that Marji needed to learn for herself. The choices people make in order to survive, or to escape oppressive situations was clear. Some women during this time married rich old men to escape the society. Marjane and Reza were in love in the beginning but when they married the expectations of the couple changed. Reza wanted a perfect wife, Marji just wanted to be free. The failure to live up to expectations was immediately felt by Marji. She felt like a prisoner in her marriage.
The ending was far from uneventful in my own opinion. It showed the difference in who she was when she first left and how she is leaving now. Her mother and father were seeing off their daughter proudly rather than out of fear. It was one of the last times she was to see her Grandmother again, this is what made the last line so powerful. Freedom has its price.
1) The relationship between Marjane and her Grandmother is beautiful and I think they are so close because of the events they had to endure. Plus any Grandmother wants their children and grandchildren to learn from their mistakes and not have to endure those consequences. I see their revolutionary thinking very similar at times, they both get very passionate about what is going on in their country, but have lost countless people to the violence. The passion also turns to being numb from all of the pain and loss and I think that both of them go through stages of that. The only thing that I see from the Grandmother and not Marjane is true understanding of herself. Marjane does not understand how lucky she is to be alive and have some of the opportunities that she does. The Grandmother has seen much more so she buy's her the Shaw that will not overheat Marjane. She understands the circumstances of life for a woman in Iran because she has lived through it herself.
ReplyDelete2) I do think that Marjane was in love, just more with the idea of being in love and having someone to rely on. The worked well together, but she even admitted right at the beginning that they balanced each other out. She also showed how she changed when she met Reza and when she married him. Yes, she was young so this was a very impulsive act of passion. This shows us that maybe Marjane has been so changed by the world that she wants to be able to experience all that she can. I see this also as her recognizing that life is short. Though I am impressed with they worked together on the project because that showed maturity, work can change people especially when they are constantly doing it.
Marji's grandmother gives her the motto by which she strives to live her life. That is to be true to yourself and to always preserve your dignity. This is the war cry for Marjane's rebellion, and in this way they are most similar, this is the most timeless attribute between the two of them. However with this being said, Marjane separates herself from her Grandmother in her blunt, and outlandish way of remaining true and dignified. Just like her parents, Marjanes intense interest and love for politics, history, and society probably stems from the passion with which her grandmother talks of these things, having been in the middle of large political/historical upheavals.
ReplyDeleteAs for Marjane and Reze, i do not think they were truly in love. I think they had a connection, and intense one, one which drew them to one another inexorably. But ultimately Marjane was being Marjane while home. She was living a lie, trying her old life back out to see if it fit better than the new one she just came running from, and in this sense it was impossible for Reza to actually know, and actually love Marjane. Yes he may have loved who he though Marjane was, but ultimately this was not Marjane, and that is why their love and their marriage dissolved so quickly. Because getting married was the "straw that broke the camels back" and ultimately made Marjane realize that her old life could not satisfy her, and certainly did not fit her any better than the new one she was seeking refuge from.
I liked the ending, immensely because it left us with the definite feeling and understanding that she left her old life behind. I think her Grandmother was the larger attractive force for her to return to Iran, and without her Grandmother, the last thing which really anchored Marjane in her previous Iranian/Islamic lifestyle as gone. Not that she doesn't love her parents, but that they did not hold the same level of influence and power in her life as did her grandmother.
I’m never too comfortable speaking of generational differences when I only have a minute snapshot of each group. While Marji’s grandmother may be very spirited and outspoken, who’s to say this characteristic is consistent with the rest of her generation? It’s difficult enough keeping track of Iran’s political history, let alone its sociological impact on various age groups. But all that said, it is very much apparent that Marji and her grandmother do share a surprising amount in common. The one quality that defines their relationship is their willingness to rebel, albeit in different ways and styles. With Marji’s youth comes a certain amount of recklessness, evident in her outbursts in school and her sense of humor. She is always prepared to draw as much attention to the regime’s hypocrisy and absurdity as she can, whether or not anything comes from it. Meanwhile, her grandmother’s subversions are characterized by a deep-seated apathy towards the state. At her age she finds herself concerned less with living a life of freedom through rebellion, and more focused on living her life as she sees fit: telling off guards, disregarding the veil, and so on. Unlike Marji, hers is a rebelliousness tempered by pragmatism, where Marji’s grandmother is cognizant not only of her own safety, but her family’s as well.
ReplyDeleteI found Marji’s decision to marry so early understandable. It wasn’t a wise decision, but given the context and the pressures she was facing it was a choice not entirely without merit. Let’s face it: the Iranian regime is not an environment conducive to healthy relationships. Besides their age, the societal structures in place makes it all but impossible for couples to understand or prepare for the lifestyle of marriage, since their only permissible exposure to it is after they’ve married. I think the story of Satrapi’s first marriage is an effective set piece for illustrating the institutionalized sexism inherent in Iran’s world. In a way, the marriage’s failure has nothing to do with Marjane or her husband at all. Without the pernicious influence of the state, it’s likely they wouldn’t have married in the first place, letting their relationship run its natural course. Their relationship was, for the most part, a wonderful and enlightening experience for them, and could’ve stayed outside of the realm of marriage and function just as well. The marriage’s failure, which happens to run parallel to the failure of their planned amusement park, seems to reflect the brokenness of Iran's government. The scene suggests that, like Marji’s marriage, the political system of Iran does indeed have an unavoidable expiration date.
My only remaining thought on Persepolis is my own opinion. I quite liked it, but I can’t help but voice a few concerns. How did you feel about the book’s pacing? The stories provided by Persepolis left me captivated, but because of the book’s organization I found myself feeling its length several times. The events themselves had a great deal of inherent thematic value for me, but I always felt that Satrapi wasn’t putting her best foot forward when arranging or presenting them. When I finally put it down, all I could think was “Perfect, for a first draft. Pretty good, for a final product.” What do you think? Am I missing something here?
ReplyDeleteI loved Marjane’s relationship with her grandmother, I can honestly relate because I was closer to my grandmother, and I felt I could tell her anything without her getting upset or judgmental. I think that she talks to her granddaughter about men is timeless, and also tells her to maintain her dignity and her identity and to be comfortable in her own shoes no matter what, that is priceless advice. I don’t think there are any characteristics you can attribute to only one generation because for example fashion takes a repetitive stance, what is “in” nowadays was “in” a few decades ago, so the grandmother can easily relate, especially because she was a adolescent at one point in her life, and can understand the turmoil her granddaughter is going through.
I didn’t think it was a surprise that she married so young, she was exposed to so much so quickly when she was young, and she was constantly yearning for close companionship, but to meet her society’s demands, it wasn’t as easy as how people formed relationships in Europe. To be in love is such a hard thing to explain, many have different motives for getting married, although sad but true, most reasons aren’t for love, it is for one to feel secure, to not be lonely anymore, to fill a void they have, for financial purposes, to get away, to show you are part of a union.I believe you grow to love someone, it doesn’t happen quickly, but gradually over time. It is to say, because of the life she lived, and the circumstances she lived under, it did form a static type of philosophy for her, although she rebelled and wanted to be different, and always took the different side, she still had the few restrictions in her mind that her society imposed on her (being shocked when she saw people in Europe practice pre-marital sex, as if she assumed everyone had taken that ideology) she still somewhat held onto her society’s demands
I loved it, it was a very moving story. It was an interesting view into the life of an Iranian struggling during times of war. I felt like I was front row seat in her life, there were a few things I struggled with, how they perceived Islam, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions and everyone has their own individual understanding about certain subjects in life.
Marjnae and her grandmother had one of the strongest relationships in the comic. They had a lot in common with each other like the trait to do whats right and to live for yourself first. A lot of what her gram other did and stood for was seen in Marji as she progresses throughout the book. I think it was the way they both saw their own freedom.
ReplyDeleteI think the marriage started out as love, but love for what they thought each other were. Marjane saw Reza as a link to her country, something she was familiar with. Reza saw her as something she wasn’t - a way to forget the war, a lightheartedness he hadn’t seen because of her time away from the war. However, because they both expected things that weren’t in the relationship to happen (for the other to be what they thought they saw in them) their marriage had a weaker foundation and wasn’t strong enough to last.
I felt like the story ended fast, but I liked the way it ended. We went through pages of her entire life growing up, and then it ended so abruptly because we didn’t need to see that part of her life anymore. She closed the book on us before we did that to her.
I love the style and the story. I learned a lot about what was going on over there. I think that is this were a book, we’d lose how organic the story feels to us and how real the events become.