Hello everyone!

I just wanted to start off by saying that the blogs I read this week were great!

An overwhelming majority of them either discussed, used as inspiration or commented on Persepolis: story of a childhood by Marjane Satrapi. This graphic memoir is told from the perspective of Marji, a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. Therefore I will be examining a few of the major themes that appear throughout several student’s blog’s relating to Persepolis. They are: how Persepolis is related to personal experiences, how Persepolis can make the War in Iran seem real and relatable, and how the comic book genre adds a whole new dimension to the events described in the book.

When reading a book, any book (not only Persepolis), readers can often find connections between themselves and what is being described in the book. I think there is something so important about these connections. They help you better understand the book as well as the events unfolding around you. Quite a large number of people (Isaiah, Olivea, Paolina, Therese, Martin, Gabriel, Melissa, Baris, Inneke) touched upon this idea of connections between themselves, the world right now and the events and characters in Persepolis in their blogs.

In her blog, Paolina, relates her mother’s volunteer work as a German teacher in a refugee shelter to Marji’s very personal account of everyday life. She explains that refugees in present day Europe, as well all the people affected by the events in Persepolis are real people that have fears, joys and life experiences. When a child Paolina‘s mother worked with said, “I have seen worse,”after bloodying both his knees, it makes you think twice about the effects war has on children. It makes you think about what Marji and all those other children in Iran went through.

Photo of the 4th panel, page 18, from Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Photo taken by me.

Both Martin and Baris relate Persepolis back to personal experiences. Martin, in his blog post, talks about his friend Sep and her mother’s experience growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. On an even more personal level, in his blog post, Baris describes his experience growing up in Turkey when protests broke out against the government. His description of how his mother went out to help the wounded, along with her concern for his life when he was out protesting is immensely touching. It echoes the relationship between Marji and her parents when she wanted to go out protesting and they feared for her safety (for example, see page of 16-17 from Persepolis). When Baris mentioned that he would see his mother and her partner come home in the evenings exhausted, that immediately made me think about the 4th panel on page 18 of Persepolis, where Marji asks her parents to play Monopoly and her mother replies, “Darling, we are tired.” (see photo). It is a powerful image. These experiences do not just happen to people far away, they can happen to us and to anyone. This image and this reality really hits close to home.

Another important idea to consider is how connections can be drawn between the everyday experiences of Marji as a child in Persepolis and the life of children outside of Iran. Olivea expresses her thoughts, in her blog, on what it means for a child to realize that their parents are human beings too. 

Image of bottom panels, page 52, from Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Taken from Olivea’s blog post (http://blogs.ubc.ca/oliveabellastu/).

She points out this moment for Marji, at the bottom of page 52. Marji can be seen walking in the street, with the caption, “My father was not a hero, my mother wanted to kill people… so I went out to play in the street”. Any kid comes to this realization at some point in their lives.

Finally, the importance of the comic book genre and its style was discussed by many people (Alex, Ryan, Gabriel, Maria). Alex and Gabriel mention the deliberate choice of the comic book genre. How the genre can be somewhat informal and that such a format really engages the reader. Alex and Ryan both talk about the importance of the visual aspect of Persepolis. Ryan comments on the simple style of the drawings, along with the use of the colour black (representing darkness and sad times) to draw attention to the message of the story, rather than just the images. Gabriel adds to this notion by discussing how Marjane Satrapi sometimes uses contrast between the words of the story and the images, which make her work more accessible and easier to understand. Maria uses the word “powerful” when talking about the images in Persepolis. I think it embodies perfectly the visual impact the images have.

Before signing off on this class blog, I want to mention how positive everyone’s opinions were of the book. Everyone in the class comes from different cultures and places, and yet a lot of people mentioned that they gained a more positive view of Iran after reading this book. Both Mia and Erin talk about western media as painting Iran in a very negative light. This is where the idea of global citizenship comes in. As Erin puts it, “A citizen of the world must push the boundaries of their own nationality and seek to discover the views of other peoples and places.” This is exactly what people in this class are doing by reading Persepolis and really taking the time to think about these issues. Step by step and day by day, we are becoming global citizens. Olivea sums up all these various ideas and topics perfectly: “I think the fact that we can connect to Satrapi’s experiences makes her story even more powerful. It makes us stop and think about just how different we aren’t.”

Thank you for reading and see you next week!

Clara

Sources (other than the student blogs, who have hyperlinks on their names):

Persepolis: The story of a childhood by Marjane Satrapi