Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is a graphic novel that tells the story of revolution in Iran from the perspective of a young child. The brutal and violent scenes combined with the innocence of the young character ‘Marji’ leave a strong impression to all who read it due to the cruelty of its reality and also the strong emotions that the author herself presents.
In the introduction, Satrapi specifically states that “one can forgive but one should never forget.” (Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, Introduction) indicating that this piece of work is indeed very personal and emotional, and although her goal was to portray the image of how Iran was, she also wanted the readers to understand how the people in Iran felt. The level of trauma that these people, including herself have experienced is extremely high, and unforgettable. Persepolis therefore not only takes us back to the actual events that happened, but also shows us the actual emotions that were present, which in term is more valuable than simply understanding the context of the revolution, knowing how the people have suffered raises a higher level of consciousness, allowing us to create an emotional linkage between ourselves and our understanding of what has happened.
In Persepolis, Marji’s uncle Anoosh tells her “Our family memory must not be lost.” (Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, Page 60) because it is very important to remember. The more traumatic it is, the harder it is for people to forget, and the series of incidents that Marji, and all the other Iranians have been through makes up who they are, which in fact becomes a part of their history that they cannot erase. Therefore, remembering is important because it is a part of identity. And by remembering, people are able to understand themselves better. The shocking events that occurred suggest that Marji (and all the others) had to find a way to honor and cope with the loss of loved ones, friends and neighbors, and remembering(not forgetting) acts as a medium to complete this task. By remembering, they are able to “reunite” with all the people they have lost, including a part of themselves, and try to move on with their lives while bearing the past in mind.
Hi! I noticed that you linked the terms “forget” and “remember.” You start your blog post with the term forget and finish with remember. This stood out to me because in class yesterday we defined words and saw that some opposite terms are used in definitions. My theme for the literature review is “Forgetting.” Through my research, I saw that memory is an important notion of my theme as well. Forgetting cannot be mentioned without remembering and vice versa. I think having themes that oppose two terms could have been interesting as well.
I think that you put it beautifully when you said that remembering is a way to unite all the people that we have lost. As we have discussed in class, remembering and writing down memories is not the same as reliving the events. I wonder if remembering people that have died alters our view of them. What determines what we remember about a person after he/she is gone? Can we choose what to remember about them? Similarly, what about memory of people that we see only once in a long while. Our memory of them cannot perfectly match up with the actual person, so how do we negotiate this gap? I would like to find some articles or research on this issue as I think that it is quite interesting.