Tag: in-class

I think the most influential panel in this section of Persepolis is on page 148 in the middle row on the left. The panel is a picture of Marjane with her parents right after they tell her they want to send her to Austria. In this panel, her father says, “We love you so much that we want you to go.” This text sums up the experience for a young adult female like Marjane during this time in Iran. Her parents, with love in their hearts and hope in their voices, break the news to Marjane that she would live a better life abroad without them than if she were to stay in the pain-stricken land of Iran. They believed deeply in her French education and felt it was important to send her to a safer refuge in Europe where she could continue that education without fear of being bombed or losing her liberties. Austria could provide chances for Marjane that her parents could not. This realization brings with it a major turning point in the girl’s life as she journeys to Austria to start life anew—without war, without Iran, without her parents.

 

The most important panel from the past reading assignment is definitely panel #2 on page 151. This panel reads ‘I will always be true to myself’ and is said by Marji. Up until this point in the book, Marji has constantly questioned the system. She doesn’t understand why certain things are happening around her and so. She asks her parents what is happening, calls her teachers out in class about how their teachings are wrong, and goes against many of the unwritten rules of society in order to prove her point. Marji is being sent away to Austria while her entire identity and heart is in Iran. She knows that she must start over but also knows that in times like these, it is incredibly easy to lose a sense of who you are. Marji knows that she must be true to herself and this panel exemplifies this in a very straightforward way. The image in this panel is very basic.  It is simply  a photo of Marji looking at herself in the mirror. She isn’t smiling but instead giving a stern look, showing that she is serious about maintaining her identity even though she is leaving her home. As we continue reading, her identity will be changing but hopefully we are able to a sense of who she used to be (in Iran) peek through.

 

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I think that the panel on page 172 is the most important from the reading. It is the first time that Marjane truly feels accepted since she left Iran for Austria. Lucia invites Marjane to spend the break with her and her family. They are all intrigued by Marjane, however, it is a different intrigue from Marjane’s school friends. Her friends at school are only interested by the fact that Marjane has experienced war and death. At the same time, Marjane loved Lucia’s family because they were something she had never experienced before. They have many conversations, yet, the war in Iran is never brought up. At the end of the panel, Marjane considers herself a part of Lucia’s family. I believe this is the first time in the novel that Marjane is truly away from the fighting and issues going on in Iran.

I think that the most important panel in this selection of the reading is: “I couldn’t bear looking at them there behind the glass. Nothing’s worse than saying goodbye. It’s a little like dying”. This panel exposes the theme of the separation between the main character and her parents, which is the main theme being explored in these few chapters. Satrapi has realized that this situation is not temporary, that she will probably never  live with her parents again. This few lines also set the mood for the upcoming chapters and represent a growth in the character of the protagonist.

The most important panel from the section of Persepolis that was due today, in my opinion, is found at the bottom of page 153. This image depicts how difficult it was for Marjane’s parents to decide to let their 14 year old daughter go live in Austria, even though they understood it was safer and allowed for more freedom of expression. Marjane turns around one final time to watch her parents leave, as she recognizes that she will most likely never live with them again, while the reader is left looking at her parents’ empty, somber faces. In the background, I notice Marjane through a glass panel, saddened and helpless. This represents how great of a sacrifice this tight-knit family was willing to make for sake of their child. It helps me, as an audience member, empathize with the struggle that families such as Marjane’s in the Middle East had to make during this war-torn era.

“It would have been better to just go.”

Marjane is now at a point in her life where she is out of choices. With her scathing tongue and Islamic fundamentalism sweeping war-torn Iran, the Satrapi family makes a decision to get Marjane safely away from Iran and place her temporarily in Vienna, Austria with a family friend. Her parents seemed positive throughout her move, but Marjane had a creeping suspicion that this would be the last time she lived with her parents, even through endless reassurances that they would see her in six months time. In this turning point of the book, her parents tear up as she boards for Vienna, but seem strong and supportive with the decision they’ve made. One look back and Marjane’s mother has fainted, limp in the arms of her father and carried away like a child. This moment of weakness by her parents– who had seemed to be fearless protectors all her life– has shocked Marjane, leaving her with a terrible last image of her parents. This seems like the most climatic part of the book in the chapters we’ve read, acting as Marjane’s final exit from childhood and into a very adult adolescence.