Zahra's Paradise

2430 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Narrative techniques

The aftermath of 2009 Iranian presidential election is been highlighted in a comic novel called Zahra’s Paradise. The story begins on June 16, 2009, right after the elections protests begin. It is the story of a 19 year old boy called Mehdi. He’s been disappeared in the early days of Iranian regime’s crackdown of post presidential election demonstrators. Hassan, Mehdi’s brother, who is a blogger narrates the story of him and his mother’s search for Mehdi. The book shows their struggle for finding a lost brother and son. They searched streets, hospitals, coroners, judicial offices, prisons and even cemeteries in hope of finding him.
The book is an outcome of the new media. The reader can figure out that by looking at the cover page of the …show more content…

They wanted to show the government agents as cowards. They used the owner of the copy shop for this purpose. He talked about the story of the demonstrations day for Hassan. He told him that a crowd found a Basiji alone and started to beat him to death. When the copy shop owner saw the scene, he interfered and brought the Basiji guy to his store. He did not allowed people to kill him or to beat him anymore. He hid him in the basement of his store. He gave him some water and a new shirt and pair of shoes. The copy shop owner new if he goes outside by his Basiji uniform and boots, for sure he would be killed. The owner of the copy shop has hanged a photo of Jahan Pahlevan Takhti, an Iranian legendary wrestler champion who is well known for his chivalric acts. That means the store owner has learned chivalric acts from him. The story tries to say that also Iranian people is an ally with China, but the ordinary people do not like China. It might be because their products are not better than the Japanese ones. Or it might be because of an indication given in the story that beside the “Canon” copy machine is a newspaper headlines with “China sells Iran more anti-riot gear” (69). An indication for Mehdi’s fate was the scene when the copy machine jammed and his pictures came out incorrect and

Show More
Related

  • How Does Satrapi Use Comedy In Persepolis

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Due to the serious tensions looming in the air, many people would think it is strictly forbidden to laugh a little or have fun in Iran. The constant political instability makes it seem like the citizens live like robots under extreme oppression. However, in Marjane Satrapi’s biography, Persepolis, she gives an inside look at her experiences growing up in Iran and adds comic relief throughout the novel. As the main character, Marjane, evolves from an innocent girl into a mature woman, Satrapi adds bits of comic relief to highlight her typical personality while living in the midst of an oppressive society.

    Read More

  • A Parallel Between Two Worlds: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bradbury attacks loss of literature in the society of Fahrenheit 451 to warn our current society about how literature is disappearing and the effects on the people are negative. While Montag is at Faber’s house, Faber explains why books are so important by saying, “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores” (79). Faber is trying to display the importance of books and how without them people lack quality information. In Electronics and the Decline of Books by Eli Noam it is predicted that “books will become secondary tools in academia, usurped by electronic media” and the only reason books will be purchased will be for leisure, but even that will diminish due to electronic readers. Books are significant because they are able to be passed down through generation. While online things are not concrete, you can not physically hold the words. Reading boost creativity and imagination and that could be lost by shifting to qui...

    Read More

  • The Left Hand of Darkness

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    issues that the author deal with in the book are a prediction of the future; it can

    Read More

  • Persepolis American Culture Analysis

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the graphic novel, Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, Satrapi’s childhood was highly impacted by American culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of American culture on Satrapi’s view of the Iranian Revolution.

    Read More

  • Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the book, the cultural guidelines of Iran come in the way of many characters’ dreams and goals. Some choose to follow the rules, and others choose to make their own rules. It’s hard to decide on becoming the divergent, the one who knows what they want to do with their life and the one who realizes they want more out of life, instead of following the standards placed. But by breaking the cultural barriers set by society, people can choose to be who they really are.

    Read More

  • Books are not Dying

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through out the essay “books a dying art”, the author developed the thesis extremely well, so the reader could grasp the meaning of the essay. First, the thesis opens the introduction; it’s stated every clearly (par1), that every other day people says that books are dying, it compares with new technology. In similar manner, when television was invented people thought that the radio will diminished. The body of the essay consist nine paragraphs. The first paragraph of the body talks about people thinks “disappearance of books”(par2). As well as in our society no one reads book any more. In the second paragraph of the body, people are confused in “clouded direction of culture” (par3). Furthermore, the co-operations want to buy publishers because the books are becoming more interesting; also, books are coming in different languages. Mainly, the society has change, many years the books weren’t traveling anywhere, today for instant books are found everywhere they are moving. For example, books are moving into hotel, motel, etc. Later in the paragraph the author Proulx talks about “electronic highway”(par6) is taking over the world. Although computers are taking over but people are not going to “sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen”(par6). In addiction, the books are the identification of the man & women “not software”. In my view, today in our society books are not disappearance; computer will never take over the books. In order to understand the thesis and the topic of an essay the text has to have some structure.

    Read More

  • Iranian-American Contrast in Persepolis

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout Persepolis, America and Iran are shown to be two drastically different countries, with each aspect of one country outwardly opposing the other. As soon as the novel begins, the reader is introduced to the first of many controversial topics in Persepolis: the veil. Those forced to wear the veil did not like it, especially because they did not understand why they had to wear it. In 1979, Satrapi had attended a French non-religious school, which allowed both boys and girls to mix freely. However, in 1980, all bilingual schools were closed down because they were considered “symbols of capitalism.” (Satrapi 4) Capitalism is a government idea that is mainly American, which is why the Iranian schools banned anything having to do with it. They tried so hard to get rid of any signs of American influen...

    Read More

  • The Depiction Of Iran In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 2000 an Iranian woman named Marjane Satrapi released her graphic novel Persepolis onto the world. Unlike previous graphical novels Persepolis gave readers an inside look at what growing up in Iran during the 1979 revolution was like. Most people in Western civilizations have come to perceive Iran in a negative fashion, mostly from media portrayal in our post 9/11 society. However, Satrapi being born and raised in Iran knows that the media’s version of Iran is in fact not the country she called home. Satrapi was born the year 1969 in Rasht, Iran not long after moving to Tehran, Iran where she spent her formidable years and her story takes place. In Persepolis, Satrapi’s goal was to show all people of the world what Iran is really like. Satrapi tells us the story of growing up in her middle-class family and how her childhood wasn’t exactly all that different from that of Western children. Many believe that Iran is full of radical fanatics and terrorists, and after hearing how the world has come to know the country, Marjane Satrapi knew something must be

    Read More

  • Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

    1215 Words  | 3 Pages

    Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, is not a run-of-the-mill comic book. It is written with purpose. Satrapi wrote and illustrated this book to show Americans that their perspective of her home country, Iran, is askew. She believes Americans are too focused on the “fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism” (Satrapi ii), of the nation and that they forget to notice the normality and humanness of it. Since these two perspectives have vast differences, Satrapi wants to change their minds. 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.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality In The Complete Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marjane Satrapi, the author of “The Complete Persepolis” tells her story of living through the revolution of Iran in comic book form, through the use of pictures and explicit words she conveys the many different emotions being felt from the characters. The importance on the sequence of panels I chose was the fact that each panel portrayed a lot of emotion, made the reader feel all the emotions and represented gender inequality very perfectly. Throughout the panels, Satrapi uses strong words to stress the importance on what is being said and the pictures to show just how the character is reacting to what is being said. The panels chosen end with all women being obligated to wearing the veil, the reason being that men couldn’t control themselves. With this obligation to wear the veil, gender inequality is set into play and normalized.

    Read More

  • The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

    1047 Words  | 3 Pages

    This book was written at a time of change in the world of fiction as a

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Persepolis

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...e boy who lives next to Marji’s house and they keep sending letters to each other but Marji is the one who helps Mehri to write the letter because Mehri does not know how to write. When Marji’s father knows about the love relationship, he says that “their love was impossible because in this country you must stay within your social class” (37). Satrapi shows that there is no justice and unfairness for poor people. Based on the articles that I use as a support to my thesis, none of the critics has mentioned about the issue on social structure of Iranian. As a conclusion, I agree with the critics that argue Satrapi inserts Western culture in the characters as a ways to survive from the oppression by the Islamic regime and her works does not act as a medium to change the negative perception of the West towards the East but rather as a story book about Iranian and Iran.

    Read More

  • Role of Communication Technology in the Social Movement of the Arab Spring

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fathi, Nazila. "In a Death Seen Around the World, a Symbol of Iranian Protests." nytimes.com. The New York Times, 23 June 2009. Web.

    Read More

  • Last Scene Underground And Menoret's

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    In addition, when Hooman post flyers to recruit actors for his play in calculated locations in Tehran, the Komiteh, Iran’s police force, manage to tear down or paint over all the posters. These systematic efforts by Iran’s police apparatus to immediately quell any form of expression that the youth have shows the constant sense of mental siege and hostility that Iran’s youth faces. Finally, when Hooman and Leila both spend a weekend together in a cabin in the woods, they had to pretend that they were married because it would have been unlawful for an unmarried couple to be alone together. These Iranian laws that target the young people leave them marginalized to the point where every idea, action and or expression is heavily regulated and at times subdued by the state. This sense of marginalization is key in Iran because all Iranian youth regardless of ethnic or religious background, which was seen in the novel through Leila who was an Armenian Christian, is disenfranchised by the state to keep dissension and free thought

    Read More

  • Effects of Literature on Culture

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every day humans participate in the consumption of media. Technology has changed the means of production of media making it more readily available. The advancement in technology, such as television, smart phones, and the internet, has caused a declination in the use of literary communications. People are more inclined to watch an online video rather than read the daily newspaper; also, people tend to enjoy watching movies rather than reading a book. Society, especially in the United States, has become consumed by the advancements in technology. People no longer have to read printed books, due to the invention of the Kindle and Nook along with the apps on other tablets to read. The use of the internet has made it accessible to order books directly from websites rather than going to the bookstore. All these things factor into the consumption of literary communication. Literature effects people in unique ways compared to other sources of media. Each reader perceives a text in a different way and each book affects each reader in different ways. If reading literary communications promotes creativity and encourages the mind to interpret the content of a text and to analyze the effect it has on the reader; then the declination of reading will affect the perspective of life in a culture.

    Read More

More about Zahra's Paradise

Open Document