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Critical: Persepolis

Reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was definitely a new experience for me. I have never really been into comic books let alone graphic novels so it was something I am not used to. The novel did portray some things in better and worse ways than some books that are fully written. Although, the author truly brought up major aspects of her country, herself, and her family that I was not really expecting to see. Iran was once a prosperous country but for many, many years now it has been through a rough cycle of wars and government problems. The citizens may as well not say they are citizens because they are prisoners of their government on their own homeland. Marji’s tale shows how she feels about her countries issues and standards and she proves that stereotypes about their world are far too depended on by outsiders. When comparing her life and society to ours here in the United States, it makes one quite appreciative to our freedoms and lifestyles but it also shows how much a normal person she is.

From a very early age Marji’s life story was no fairy tale. The government for her whole life was a huge stress factor and is nothing like that of the US. Women would have to protest for the idea of not having to wear a veil in public but that was basically the first of many rules and restrictions to which society had to oblige to. The more she grew up she started to notice more and more about her world that she did not like it. Women were nothing to men there and had no rights. While all the wars were going on even the media of Iran did not help them much. All they seemed to do was feed the people propaganda and tell people what they wanted to hear. Our country does have its unreliable resources that try to provide biased news but their country was condemned to only knowing what they were allowed to. For simply not agreeing with the government one could be thrown in jail like some of Marji’s family and many others. Punishments were cruel and unfair and there was no chance to change that. It also didn’t help that their leadership was weak and fooled with from the beginning. Britain tricked a beginning ruler just so the oil possibilities and financial opportunities could flourish for all but Iran. But as people were dying to try to gain some kind of freedom and the government not concerned about peoples’ lives, it showed how much of a real person Marji and her friends/family were. Not everyone in the Middle East should be looked at like a terrorist or an extremist that’s ready to give up their life at any time. Her family cared about her so much that they felt it was safer for them to send her to Austria with the slight possibility of return in the future. She went to multiple countries to live and for school and just like anyone’s parents, they wanted the best for her. They did a lot that was completely understandable for the position they were stuck in. They partied like we do, they experiment with things like people here do, and they try to enjoy life just as we do. I believe a large point that Satrapi wanted to show about her country was that not everyone is bad and even when they truly try to fight for better rights the government has no problem slaughtering the masses.

Our government here portrays actions done by the Middle East in every negative light possible. And their government does the same to us apparently. It goes to show how your society can really control what you think by using propaganda without anyone suspecting anything most of the time. Women here have freedom and rights and we do not have to listen to a strict system of how we dress or who we communicate with. The book really shows how their lives are predetermined in that society. Men go to war and women get married and have kids. No one goes outside of their class and most follow every law. But one thing I did notice was that Marji was a very realistic character when dealing with all this. I may not have related to the situations that Marji was in but I could relate to her thought process and her emotions sometimes. Her society held her down as a woman in Iran and as a “dirty foreigner” if she was elsewhere. My area back home was kind of like that and even here at Bloom I experience racism on a weekly basis. Life is cruel for anyone that doesn’t really fit in perfectly. Life was set up to mistreat her but she showed that it is not impossible to fight the odds and go against the grain. She was smart but made her mistakes which are important for all people to do. Experience is irreplaceable and without her going through all of the things she did, her life story would have been a very boring tale. She went through a rough love life and did what she felt she had to do at any time. She was afraid of consequences just like all of us but she continued with anything she felt that needed to be done. She did this all her life.

The book was simple in a way at the beginning but as she grew up the storyline, issues, and descriptions got far more fine tuned and intellectual. Her role in society was strengthened as her education increased and I believe that was another message the author wanted to show; that with education, one can try to better their situations. Here in the US we come to school and try to better ourselves but it seems easier here by far. It will take a lot more than just one person to change a whole society built around tradition and strict government. That is why her family sent her away at the end of the book. She could not fit in where she was and she shouldn’t try was the message.

Overall I honestly didn’t like this book too much. Maybe that’s because I like to imagine situations instead of seeing pictures or even because I’m accustomed to skipping illustrations in normal books so I wasn’t fully engaged with this book. I am not really sure if I would count this as young adult literature but I would count it as a multicultural novel that could really be used to show the Middle East from a citizen’s point of view instead of what we are used to. One could even incorporate comparing and contrasting them to our government and country. This book had a lot of to say about their society being strict, cruel, and almost impossible to change. Marji ended up leaving and it is not surprising. But are we just spoiled here in the US?