Throughout Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi shows the honoring of martyrs; someone who dies at the hands of another for their religion. In ancient religious wars such as the Crusades, dying a martyr was the best thing a boy could do. In reality, they die as pawns of the government. In the “Key to Paradise” passage of Satrapi’s Persepolis, the author symbolizes heaven with a key to show how the government victimizes those of lower economic status. The fundamentalists offer Mrs. Nasrine’s son a key to paradise to tempt him into willingly dying at war. Mrs. Nasrine describe s it as a “plastic key painted gold”. “Plastic” connotes fake and easily breakable, showing how simply the fundamentalists create the illusion that going to war would be beneficial. …show more content…
When Mrs. Nasrine is telling her dilemma of the key (99.3.1), Marji frowns and looks concerned but out of place, as if she doesn’t know what to make of it. She tries to show sympathy, suggesting that her privilege makes her unable to truly relate. She continues to look uncomfortable and bug-eyed when Mrs. Nasrine says, “Now they want to trade this key for my oldest son”. “Trade” connotes simplicity, an object, suggesting the government thinks of the lower class citizens as valueless objects. When arriving home from school, Satrapi draws Marji as a small figure in the distance (100.2.1), symbolizing the distance in economic status between her and the maid. This proves the separation of classes and the reason why Marji, not offered a key by the government, will not go to war in hopes of using a key to paradise. When her son says “I’ll marry her” while pointing a finger at Marji (100.2.2), it grants him a “whap” from his mother (100.2.3). Her reaction to his statement shows his ignorance and naïve behavior towards the social hierarchy; a maid’s son would never be allowed to marry a girl of Marji’s status because only rich people marry rich people and only poor people marry poor people. This shows the economic difference between Marji and the maid’s son, and the wall between them through government orders. When she asks her cousin Peyman whether or not the government offers his school the keys to paradise, he replies, “Keys to what?” (100.3.3) implying his equally high economic status. This suggests the government values upper class citizens more than lower class citizens. Satrapi also contrasts Marji and the poor boys in between the bombing panel (102.1.1) and the party panel (102.2.1) where Marji dances with her friends at Peyman’s birthday party. She jumps from discussing dying boys to having fun at a party to imply a difference between the poor and
Orientalism is a way of viewing the world as divided into two unequal halves: the Occident and the Orient. Occidental means Western Hemisphere, and Oriental means Eastern Hemisphere. These ideas of orientalism are challenged in Satrapi's Persepolis. A book about a young girl Marji who lived in Iran in the 1980’s, and therefore is placed in the beginning years of political and religious turmoil in Iran. Satrapi Juxtaposes the western view of Iran to Iran by showing similarities between America and Iran through Marji’s youth and adventures throughout the book.
In Marjane Satrapi’s memoir, Persepolis, the characteristics and qualities of revolution are portrayed through rhetorical devices such as visual text, similes, and pathos. Satrapi’s use of rhetorical devices enhances and supports her expression of the revolution in Iran. Persepolis was Marjane Satrapi’s way of allowing people to see how the revolution in Iran affected her family's lifestyle and her upbringing. This memoir also allows the readers to analyze how war changes the way of the people and government in a country.
In the graphic novel, Persepolis, the main character, Marjane, faces many coming of age moments. Each one of these change her in a way that impacts her view on the world around her as her and her family strive for a better life amongst a war that hinders their ability to follow their beliefs. Marjane learns to forgive, experiences pain and suffering, and changes her opinions on God and her own views on religion forever. Marjane’s life has been filled with hard times, but also glorious moments as well.
Society has created a world where people believe that they need to act and look a certain way to be accepted and liked. The media, celebrities, and the culture someone grows up in influence how people perceive themselves. In the film Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and the poem “A Far Cry from Africa” by Derek Walcott, the characters in both must face the difficulty of finding themselves after being impacted by their surroundings.
Persepolis is a coming of age story written by Marjane Satrapi in 20001. Depicting a young girl growing up during the religious revolts in Iran. Throughout the story the main character loses her innocence. The author uses the appeals of genre, ethos, pathos, and logos, historical context, and illustration to depict the loss of innocence in the main character.
During our class discussions, the issue of identity in Marjane Satrapi’s novel, Persepolis (2004), became a contentious issue. The question was asked whether Persepolis might be understood to being in-dialogue with western ways of seeing and did the effects of modernization influence the identity of Marjane’s protagonist in Persepolis. How does the novel involve the issue of identity? I will extend the argument and, through the exploration of Marji’s changing ideologies, I will attempt to prove that Marji is caught between the traditional eastern culture and western modernization.
Times were hard during the Islamic revolution. Freedom was taken away, and for some, so was their religion. The major role of religion in Persepolis is security; it gives people somewhere to go when they are frustrated or scared or confused. For Satrapi, it was exactly that. As she grew up, she found no need for such a thing as security. To her, God became the reason why bad things were happening, and she let go of religion as a safe place. Religion also enhanced the understanding of themes. It gave reasoning and clarity to the theme “stay true to yourself” throughout Persepolis. Religion takes many different forms in people’s lives. It is something that people need, but sometimes they grow out of it.
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.
There are many different influences in the world today; a big one that most people in the world face is religion. Religion is an influence that people first encounter during their childhood. They grow and learn to have faith. People’s perspective on religion is affected by their culture, their family and the events they witness during childhood. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is the story of a young girl growing up in Iran, during the Islamic Revolution, and the war with Iraq. Throughout the novel religion develops along with the plot, in good and bad ways. In the story Marji loses her faith and it changes who she is, religion also changed her lifestyle by the government putting religion into the law. Religion is a topic that people label as
Currently, I find myself to use pictures to comprehend new information even a child as well. When I was learning about World War II in middle school, I discovered that the images of the war were very intriguing than reading a textbook in social studies class. In the book, Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, this piece of literature included so much history that had been tied into the novel displaying comic strips of what Satrapi imagined from her childhood, what had really happened and the life the people in Iran experienced in times of war. Not only the Iran-Iraq War has images that depict the tragic event, but the Holocaust can be taught through pictures as well. War and human cruelty in an image reveals a thousand words much more superior than
Thus, it is crucial that she effectively communicate this humanness of Iran to the literary audience in America. Since the literary devices in a work are needed to correctly convey a message, she found it necessary to include these and manipulate them in her favor. Satrapi uses the innocence of a child along with morals in her pictures and a relation of cultures to effectively communicate her message. It is necessary to examine how she manipulates such literary devices in order to gain a full understanding of the text. To begin with, Satrapi writes Persepolis from a child’s point of view.
Persepolis 2: The Story of Return is anchored around how Marji is affected by the social injustice that occurred during the Islamic Revolution. Growing up as “a westerner in Iran and an Iranian in the West,” (Satrapi 274) changes and molds her into the young woman she is at the end of her journey. In this second chapter of Satrapis life she moves away from the comfort of Iran and finds a life in Vienna. Marji desires to find her purpose and identity during her brief time here and faces many battles with language barriers, people and herself. Marjis past from Iran haunts her and instills the idea that she needs to make something of herself while in Austria. Finding that Austria took her down a darker path where the light was scarcer and the
The novel Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, portrays a diverse amount of symbolism throughout the novel which contributes to the protagonist developing into a young women. The main character, Marji Satrapi flourishes at an early age in her life due to the setting of the novel. Satrapi acquires knowledge about different insights of the Iranian government which constitutes her self judgement. Satrapi reckons that the individuals that make up the population of Iran should all support the idea of the government before the ministry of Iran can commence a war. “For a revolution to succeed the entire population must support it" (Satrapi 17).
Even in our present time we can see how culture principles and characteristic drive can cause conflict. Within a society, an individual does not exist. If an individual does exist, then they are no longer a part of the society causing rebellion. In I and Thou, Buber explains that the self becomes either more disconnected or more unified through its relationships to others. The film Persepolis is an adaption to Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis coming-of-age graphic memoir. It involves a young Muslim girl name Marjane as she comes of age within the environment of the Iranian Revolution. The film explores the actualization of Marjane through allegory to show how she must construct her identity within a foundation of westernization, religion, and gender.
Before the interactive oral, I thought Islam had a large role in Marji’s life in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis. Marji proclaimed herself to be “very religious” (6.1). Moreover, Marji conversed with God many times, and belief in God is an attribute of religion. For these reasons, I did not question Marji’s declaration of faith.