Thesis: Victors and victims in The Kite Runner and Persepolis represent the effect of a corrupt society.
Definition of corrupt: Having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.
Intro: In the books The Kite Runner and Persepolis the victim and the victors are represented through many tragedies and emotions. The reason that the author writes as victims and victors is to show how society’s influence can affect the people’s actions. They show how someone’s past experiences affect their relationship with society and family members. The victors at times gain something in the end but the victims have a fate that is at times horrid. Many victors and victims had to overcome strong emotions that were buried
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deep within them. Victims had to survive through a society that was against them. Would they survive? Body 1: The victims and victors were influenced by many strong emotions to get where they are.
For some of the characters the emotions were from expectations of society or past experience that happened in their lives. On of these emotions that can see in both books are guilt. A victor of guilt in the book Persepolis is Marji. Marji’s guilt is from the luxuries life that she lives. She feels guilty because she drives a Cadillac, has a maid who had doesn’t eat dinner with them, and her grandma’s knees always hurting. Her guilt is not caused by self-infliction but by the innocence that she possesses. She overcomes this guilt by wanting to be a prophet. Baba is a victim of guilt. He feels guilty for betraying his long life friend Ali, by sleeping and having a child with his wife. Baba tried to ease his guilt by giving back to the people that needed most. In the end his guilt won and he died with that …show more content…
guilt. Body 2: “There are a lot of children in Afghanistan but little childhood”. (Hosseini) As children, the keystones of childhood are ice-cream trucks and running around. Commonly, a child’s worst fears are that they may not get any candy or that someone stole their Pokémon cards. For Marji and Amir it was if they would live another day. With the war going on around them they had to constantly fight to keep their childhood. They were the victims and war was the victor. Marji had her victory in the sense against the war. Her family still continued their usual routines with the risk of being caught and executed. Amir lost his battle for he had to fled his country and start over. Amir had a little more freedom about what laws and privileges that he was allowed to do. In both situations both victims were scarred with the constant reminders around them that reminded them that there was war. Marji’s reminder was that she couldn’t do the things that she was allowed to before the war. She couldn’t do things like dress how she wanted or listen to the music she wanted publicly. Amir’s reminders were that he couldn’t go play on the streets like he used to as a child. True, there are a lot of children in the country but little childhood. Body 3: A corrupt society affects everyone that depends on this system. Society has turned everyone under there power into victims of starvation and greed. From the decisions that they have made to be in the spots they are now. In both books it can be see that they people have to do many things that may have come close to immorality. Zaman found himself in the position of accepting money to give the Talibans’ kids. He had no other choice since he had too many kids that he could just not take care of by himself. The orphans and Zaman are victimized because the government couldn’t provide for them. The people of Iranian have to make due with the lack of food. It has become so bad that there are people fighting over food. Marji’s mother said “ If sores were closed for a single day, you would probably eat each other.” (Satrapi, panel 6, page 87). This shows how much the war is affecting the people of Iran. A couple ladies in the store even talk about how many women at refugee camps are prostituting just to get food. Iran and Afghanistan’s people suffered at the hands of war but one had to go through extreme measures to live day by day. This is the price for their personal gain of power. Body 4: Fear.
An unpleasant emotion caused by belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or threat. Marji and Amir had feared not knowing if they will live another day. “But here I am now, less than fifty feet from them, telling myself that the sudden taste in my mouth wasn’t unadulterated, naked fear. “ (Hosseini, page 247). Amir has been away from the real action that is happening in his country. So when he is up close and personal with the danger of possibly provoking the people in charge and having a probability of dying, he is simply fearful of what would happen. This brings back the fear that he felt when he and his dad were fleeing from the country. Being in a truck surrounded by nothing but darkness. The worst fear was of losing his father. Marji’s fear is not living another day because of all the people dying around her. Fear is a weapon used many times to get people to submit to
someone. Body 5: Society ranks have proven to lead many to misfortunate. Ali and Hassan’s life went so wrong because they were Hazara. In their society Hazara were people unworthy of equality. Therefore many terrible things occurred that could have been changed. The Baba-Levy’s were Jewish. For being born a Jew they were refused simply humane rights granted to others. They accepted the fact that they were rejected by society. Taken from them were their liberty and their identity. The faced a terrible death at the end of their lives for being a certain nationality. Body 6: Trust at the time of war is very difficult to find. Standing up alone for what you believe in is nearly impossible because the influences that we are surrounded by daily. Amir’s neighborhoods like Marji’s neighborhood had to take precautions because people were telling on people that were going against the regime. Amir’s neighbors were more distant for they were in a higher-class setting. Marji had to change the inside of her house to prevent being caught. Even with the threat of being caught and killed upon their heads they lived in their current lifestyle because it was a way of staying in sanity. The “Guardians of the Revolution” whose job is to make sure that everyone is following the rules set by the regime were always patrolling their neighborhood. The new neighborhood that used to be the “Beard Patrol” patrols Amir’s who just drive in their car slowly to make sure that everything is to their liking. Two settings those are alike with two different purposes. What can you possibly trust in such times? Conclusion: A corrupt society can alter the lives of its people in a heartbeat. Many emotions and events will lead to their glory or their failure. Through these two works of art victims and victors show the results of a corrupt society. The authors use emotions and events to show the effect that this corrupt society had on the people that they are to lead. Trusted with the lives of millions but only looking for power to be greater than the other nations. The abuse of power leads to many disasters that could have been avoided.
Persepolis Argumentative Essay In the memoir “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi we learn the effects the revolution had on the Satrapi’s family. To summarize, Marji grew up around the Islamic War. This caused her to become very curious about why people act a certain way or do things. In the story, she is constantly learning from what’s right and wrong.
Persepolis is a inspirational story written by Marjane Satrapi in the perspective of a young girl’s life during a powerful, historical moment in Iran. The Islamic Revolution was a life-changing moment that impacted her view on the world around her and her innocence shaping her into the woman she is today. Not many people understand what it feels like to feel pain, hurt and abandonment as a child from major and minor things. The author writes this story and decides for it to be a graphic novel to allow the not only young readers, but also for those who do not understand what happens everyday in the world they live in. Satrapi uses all rhetorical stances, ethos, pathos, and logos to show problems, purpose and emotions.
Most works of literature have their characters embarking on a journey or journeys to reach a desired location whether it is mentally or physically. These journeys do not stand alone but contribute to the piece as a whole. The Kite Runner focuses on Amir taking on life in his suffering country to moving to a land granting great opportunity and ultimately returning home to complete a deed that would stabilize him for the remainder of his life. In the epic The Odyssey, Odysseus or Ulysses in the Latin form takes on many challenges on the dangerous sea attempting to return home to Ithaca after being victorious in the Trojan War. Traveling can also reunite characters once again as it did for Amir and Hassan in The Kite Runner or bring together two such as Telemachus and Pisistratus in The Odyssey. “This journey has brought us together still more closely” (Homer 15.59-60). Characters walk through the journeys authors create on pages and typically change for the better or reach an ultimate goal.
Each author had a different point of view for rebellion in each of the 3 stories, “Lolita In Tahran”, ‘Cairo: My City, Our Revolution”, and “Persepolis”. Rebellion is the action of resiting control or authority. The womens in all 3 stories had almost the same rebellion going on in there city.
Have you ever had something ever get to you or make you you scared? That is called fear and tons an tons of people have different fears. Fear is an emotion that makes you feel afraid or something is frighten. Some fears many include spiders, clowns and even death. ‘’Fear Prompts Teens To Act Impulsively’’ by Laura Sanders, ‘’Stress for Success’’ by Alison Pearce, and ‘’And Uncomfortable Bed’’ By Guy Maupassant all explain the idea of fear.
Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, is a story based on her own childhood in Iran. The story consists of the struggles her family and friends are forced to deal with, changing Marji’s view of Iranian life and its people. The book starts during a revolution, the Iranian people are trying to overthrow the emperor and when they finally do, war breaks out between Iraq and Iran. During the war thousands of people’s lives were taken, women, children and men of all ages. During this Marji’s parents forced her to leave Iran because they know it is too dangerous for a child of her age to live in the middle of a war so severe and life threatening. During the time Marji did live in Iran, she heard many tales about the umpteen conflicts and struggles that lower class people were faced with. Marji saw her maid whom she loved and cared for, not being able to date her love, their neighbor, because she was embedded in a different social class. She experienced the harsh realities of divergence between men and women. Women were compelled to wear a veil in order to not “distract” men with their hair. Younger boys in the lower end of the class system were given a “golden” key to take to war, which was actually plastic; this key meant that if they were killed fighting for what they believed in, it would guarantee their entrance to heaven. In Iran, there were a variety of ways in which the people of Iran can be distinguished between social classes. Your social class affected you in every way there was during this horrible time in Iran.
The story Persepolis uses the medium of graphic novel and the perspective of a child to convey her message. The events of Persepolis are very dark and in some
Corruption is something that is motivated by greed and fraud. It’s a very threatening personality that controls and destroys people’s lives and makes them the kind of person other people don’t want to associate with.
In the book, Hassan is shown as being selfless beyond a doubt and loyal to a fault. Finally, the movies major themes are penance and redemption, while the books major themes are loyalty and redemption. The characterizations of the main characters are not so much different in the movie than in the book, but are incomplete. The movie does not show the depth and secret desires that motivate the characters and does not allow for one to sympathize and really get to know the characters.
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.
...t is how religion plays a part in enhancing the understanding of themes in Persepolis.
Persepolis is a book that centers on the author’s family during the Iran-Iraq war that lasted for eight years. Marjane’s experience of the war is quite innocent since she saw it from the eyes of a well protected child. She grew up with need to help and make things better for everyone without really understanding what it takes to make the world a better place. In her mind the only possible way to make a change is by becoming a prophet and using supernatural powers to make the world a better place. Marjane’s childhood is proving that children form defense mechanisms to deal with difficulties. These defense mechanisms take children to “happy” places where things are better and everyone is happy unlike in the real world.
When it comes to culture, different views can cause major conflicts, and these said conflicts occur in the novel Persepolis. The book is a memoir about Marjane Satrapi, also known as Marji, growing up in Iran under the Shah’s rule and the Islamic rule. Even with the many different cultures in Iran, she stuck up for what she believed in and rebelled against the things she thought were wrong. In Persepolis, Marjane’s growth is affected by various aspects of culture including religion, government, and social organization.
The novels Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini share many similar motifs and themes in each of their storylines. Both are huge in their similarity of addressing cultural aspects, and the main characters of the books, Marji from Persepolis and Amir from The Kite Runner are alike in many ways; such that they both addressed some of the other major theme statements of both these novels in their narrated lives.
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.