Persepolis is broken up into two books, with Part I dealing with her childhood, and Part II dealing with her adulthood. We'll read half of book I for Wednesday, and finish it for Friday. Here are some questions that might show up in your in-class quiz on Wednesday:
* In her Introduction to the book, Satrapi writes that “I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom…or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.” How does a comic book/graphic novel help her do this—that is, memorialize those who are forgotten in place of the more visible extremists?
* Why do you think Satrapi tells her story from the perspective of a child? Since a child knows very little about politics, religion, or war, this would seem a very limited perspective to discuss history and extremist governments. What does it allow her to do, say, or reveal that an adult narrator might not?
* Consider the style Satrapi uses to illustrate Persepolis: some have criticized it as childish or crude; others have compared it to ornate Persian art. Why do you think she adopted this style? Why isn’t it more realistic? Why draw an autobiography that resembles the Peanuts comic we looked at in class?
* Where do we see the young Satrapi coming of age in the first 71 pages? What is she forced to see and/or understand about life in the new Iran? Similarly, how does a comic book help us communicate this aspect of her autobiography to us?
Darryn York
ReplyDelete4. She forced to see people get beat up and hurt. She learns that her country is going through a tough time. The comic book shows us examples of this, like her autobiography.
2. I believe she told the story as a child because just to give a different view and better story. As a child the story has a much broader audience. Also this is when it actually took place so she can talk in 1st person on how she remembers it.
Srijita Ghosh
ReplyDelete2. I think that Satrapi tells her story from a perspectve of a child because a child's perspective is unbiased and neutral. Like any child, she is not associated with any political alliance and does not have an pre-conceived view about things that are happening around her. She judges things/events according to what her guts tell her, it is either good or bad. She does not judge according to biased sentiments but according to plain and simple reality. This helps the book to be appealing and relatable towards much of its audience. Moreoever I believe that the author wrote the book in such a way because the audience can almost relate to the childlike viewing of this specific world. What do we know about Iran in those times? Very less. So like the child we hardly have any knowledge about what is going on, so we learn in a similar way as the child in the book learns about her surroundings. Thus it is a great way to capture the audience's interest and keep it alive throughout the book.
Madelyn Lehr
ReplyDelete2. I believe she chooses the child's perspective because as children we are open to different things. There thoughts are unbiased compared to an adults outlook on a situation. Children listen to different things and take in all that they hear. As adults we usually believe in one thing and when we hear an opposing argument we don't even take the time to listen because we believe what we believe and don't think anything else is right.
1. It allows her to memorialize them because the pictures allows us to actually see something. When reading we can be looking at the words but not actually understanding them. We can hear about death but it doesn't actually become real to us as it does when we can see it.