Hello readers!

The last few weeks of my ASTU class involved discussions about the different aspects of “Persepolis” as a graphical memoir. This week in my ASTU class we also discussed about “Persepolis” offering a “testimony” based on ‘eyewitness’ memory. Testimony in literature is often an autobiographical narratives or is an evidence provided by the first person account about human rights abuses, violence, war and living under conditions of social oppression. Testimonies can be perspective of an individual about their past memories which are generally about the trauma and experiences of the individual.

As discussed in my ASTU class, “Persepolis” being a personal story of Marjane Satrapi provides us with a testimony which is based on “I” or “eye” witness i.e the circumstances and experiences encountered by her during the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq war. She provides us with ‘her’ intimate details and is ‘herself’ an evidence of the war. Satrapi makes it clear in her graphical memoir “Persepolis” about telling us and showing us what she ‘wants’ us to see, which is quite evident from this picture.

This is one of the reason as to why “eyewitness testimonies” are usually criticized for being an unreliable source. ‘Personal’ memory and ‘ personal perspective’ which is a major element of eyewitness testimonies in literature are usually considered to be biased and modified according to the views and wish of the individual. Eyewitness testimonies connect ‘history’ with ‘literature’ but unclear memory of an individual about the history can lead to misleading memory of the original incident. The doubt about the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies makes it a topic for debate for many scholars which according to me is justifiable because one’s memories tend to change over time or may be lost in the process of reminiscing. Marjane Satrapi wanted to show its readers the ‘real’ image of Iran during the war as she mention in the Introduction of her book “Persepolis”, “……..As an Iranian who has lived more than half of her life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth. This is why Persepolis was so important to me”  , but the ‘doubtful accuracy’ and ‘personal perspective’ of ‘eyewitness testimony’ makes me question about the ‘precision’ of the image of Iran she created in our minds through “Persepolis”. If Satrapi thought that the image of Iran in the mind of people was far from the truth, is it possible that the image of Iran she created through “Persepolis” is also not the complete ‘reality’? Who knows?

Hello Readers!

This week in my ASTU Class we read “Persepolis-The Story of A Childhood”. Through her unique graphic memoir “Persepolis”, Marjane Satrapi tells us the story of her childhood during which she witnessed the overthrown of Shah’s rule, the Islamic Revolution and the war between Iran and Iraq. This light hearted yet touching story revolves around the day to day life of people of Iran during the war and Islamic Revolution and is an eye opener for the people to realise that war and political repression only cause loss of life, peace and humanity.

The tagline of Persepolis, ‘the story of a childhood’ itself gives the readers an idea of the book being a story about a child’s life and is written from a child’s perspective but I disagree with the tagline which is clearly highlighted on the cover page of the book. Satrapi talks about her life as a child which involves her peers of the same age or little elder to her but when I read the book, I thought if these children really had a ‘childhood’. In fact, after reading the book I believe the childhood of the children that time was snatched by the circumstances created by the war and the Islamic Revolution. The violence, rage, inhumanity, drastic changes and loss of the loved ones these children encountered at such a young age pre-matured them and crushed their childhood. While reading the book, one evident thing to notice was Marji’s behaviour during certain events which was anything but childlike.  I am not denying the fact that this book written from a child’s perspective has an element of ‘innocence’ of a child but I cannot ignore the fact that during many events that were mentioned in this memoir, Marji’s approach towards many situation was adult like. The company of her friends who were older than her made her indulge in activities like skipping classes, lying to her mother, answering back to her mother which were inappropriate for her age. To feel like a rebellion, she smoked her first cigarette at the age of twelve and believed to have kissed her childhood goodbye as she mentions “With this first cigarette, I kissed my childhood goodbye. Now I am a grown-up”.

During the war it was not only Marji who lost her childhood but also the other children who grew up in the same circumstances. These children did not get the pleasure of having a ‘normal’ childhood which is supposed to be blooming and happy. The beauty of childhood is being carefree, innocent and unaware about the bitterness and realities of life but these children were far away from being that as they encountered the hard struggles of life at a very early age. ‘Persepolis’ for me is the story of the ‘lost’ childhood caught in the web of struggles, torture, loss and pain.

-Priya Adhikari