Welcome back from your winter break dear reader! Hope you enjoyed your break and are ready to begin term 2 of your first year at UBC! Last term during ASTU class we were more focused on readings about personal experiences of different historical events, such as the Iran and Iraq wars.This term we will focus more on texts that relate to different perspectives on the historical event of the “war on terror.”
After reading the graphic narrative Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, I was able to identify that a traumatic event (specially events that involve attacks, violence, war) have a big impact on a child’s life. For example, after the death of Oskar’s father during the incident of 9/11 during Foer’s novel, Oskar began to use the term of “heavy boots” when events let him down. From my point of view the metaphor of “heavy boots” could be translated to some type of depression Oskar might be passing through since his father left him at a young age. During Persepolis, I was able to identify that the Islamic Revolution in Iran had a traumatic impact on her life because of the black and white colors she decided to use for her illustrations. Some of Persepolis illustrations are entirely black because Satrapi felt that some emotions caused by this traumatic event were so deep that not event words or drawings would describe how she felt at that moment.
Another aspect I realized from both novels is that since both characters are young (Marjane in part one of the novel) they tend to be more open when it comes to how they are feeling and what they think. For example, during Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar demonstrates the love he has towards his father when he decides to go around New York to find Mr. Black no matter how long it was going to take. Also he express that burying an empty coffin does not make any sense since his father is not part of it. On the other hand during Persepolis, when Marjane was a child, she showed how she wanted to see a change in the world when she mentions that she wanted to be a prophet because she “wanted to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.” (9)
When I take a look at both characters it makes me think on how during childhood we tend to be more honest and innocent with our own points of view. Every day during childhood children have a new goal in mind which makes them live their lives during the present. I believe that as people grow up they tend to complicate themselves by trying to figure out what is next in their lives (looking at the future) or what they did wrong (looking at the past) instead of living it every single day during the present.As Roald Dahl said: “Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.” Do you agree or disagree?
Thanks for reading!
