Post 5

During this blog post we will be wrapping up the book for all of you readers following along with our blog. There’s only 4 chapters left, and we will be touching on a few things throughout a couple of the chapters.

In the chapter “The Wedding” Marjane changes her views a little bit by accepting to marry Reza because she was giving up her independence.  Throughout the book Marjanes parents have always taught her to be independent and not rely on people, but she changes just so she can live with Reza, and finally be about to act normal in public.  The night after Marjane marries Reza she immediately feel trapped and says “I had conformed to society, while I had always wanted to remain in the margins,” but if she knew what she wanted and marriage was not apart of that then why did she marry Reza?  When you live in a country where you can’t date publicly and be free with one another, it seems pretty common that they would marry young to be free and because of social pressure, but end up regretting it later down the road.

In the last chapter Marjane is just about ready to divorce Reza when they are both asked to collaborate on a final project before they both graduate.  This causes Marjane and Reza to not fight anymore and to start to enjoy being around each other again.  This makes Marjane think that maybe their marriage will work, but once the project is done and they no longer have that common ground anymore Marjane starts to question their marriage again.  This relates back to the chapter, “The Wedding,” when she immediately feels like she did the wrong thing when she married Reza.  I think that she should have gone more with her gut feeling and not stayed married to Reza just because she thought it was the right thing to do.  There was nothing holding her back from divorcing him.  Her whole family even supported whatever decision she made. She has been an independent person throughout the whole book, so what was holding her back from leaving Reza?

At the very end of the book you can definitely see that Marjane was never truly happy going back to Iran after living abroad so long with all of the freedom in the world. She’s an artist! Artist are meant to be free and speak their mind. At her school in Iran she couldn’t do that because of all the rules. She was supposed to draw a male model but wasn’t allowed to look at them, how is that even fair? She was so fed up that she didn’t have any freedom, especially when she needs it to express herself. I would be too if I was her. Expressing yourself, and having the freedom to do so is what makes you original and different from everyone else. During the last few pages, she finally decides it’s time to go leave Iran for good, to be free.

That’s really what matters to me. The ultimate picture in my mind is to be who you are, speak your mind, and stand for your own beliefs, whatever they may be. I’m truly proud of Marjane for leaving Iran to be happy and to be herself.

Post 3

Two chapters of the book that we will be talking about are “The Vegetable” and “Skiing.” During these two chapters Marjane goes through some big life changing events and we are going to write about how these life changing events affected her. During this part of the book she is away in Austria for school.

“The Vegetable”

This chapter is the start of Marjane going through puberty and trying to come to terms with her body changing and still trying to find her true identity. But mainly her struggle between choosing to live by the values her parents taught her and grew up with verses breaking those values to “fit in” at school and with her friends.

She does end up breaking them. She distances herself from her culture, betrays her parents and her origins. She feels guilty talking to her parents, and even when someone asked her where she was from she said France. It symbolizes her realizing that people do judge you based off of where you’re from and what religion you have.

She remembers something her grandmother once told her, “Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself,” after the France incident. She feels like she is betraying her Iranian Heritage.

Feeling guilty already, she hears some girls talking about her and how she made up her past. She ends up getting so mad that she stands up and yell “I AM IRANIAN AND I AM PROUD OF IT!” For the first time in a year she felt proud of herself and that her family would approve of her again.

Throughout the whole chapter she goes back and forth between trying escape her past by ‘fitting in’ with her friends and wanting to stay true to what she was born and raised with. And in that final moment of the chapter she finally decided that she is proud of who she is and what she believes in, and finally understanding the wise words from her grandma.

“Skiing”

In this chapter Marjane is back home now in Tehran, and hasn’t talked about anything that has happened in Austria because she is ashamed about the things that she has done there. But eventually can’t hold in everything that happens and confesses to her family how hard its been for her the past four years.

This was definitely her lowest point throughout the book. Dealing with depression already she is judged by her friends because of her sex life, and is called a whore. But why do they judge her when it’s the life that they wish they had?

After she received some medication from a therapist to treat her depression, she felt fine while she was on them but once the feeling went away she felt as if she were nothing. Which leads her to attempting to commit suicide numerous ways. The real Marjane doesn’t care what others say, so why would she try to kill herself over what others think.

When she didn’t die from taking a whole bottle of anti-depressant she came to her senses and decided it’s time to take action because things will not magically change on their own. One must be proactive.

 

Post 2

The two chapters we will mainly be focusing on are called “The Cigarette” and “The Dowry.” These two chapters are a big part of Marjane growing up into adulthood. Starting out rebelling against her parents and culture, and maturing into adulthood and finally understanding what truly matters by standing by her beliefs and voicing her opinion.

“The Cigarette”

The Cigarette is the chapter that Marjane changes the most.  It is when she leaves childhood behind.  She starts hanging out with girls that are 14 years old, when she is only 12 years old.  They convince her to skip class to go to Kansas. This is were Marjane’s rebellion starts to get more serious.

Marjane and her friends skipping school to go to Kansas symbolize them wanting to live a normal life as children and teens would in other countries, but it also symbolizes Marjane not wanting to be seen as a kid anymore.

This leads Marjane to smoke the cigarette after her mother scolds her from skipping school, which we believe is the climax of the book. By smoking the cigarette she is committing her biggest act of rebellion in the book so far and by doing so she says goodbye to childhood and decided she was a grown up now.

“The Dowry”

The death of the Baba-Levy family had a very big impact on the person Marjane becomes.  After seeing Neda’s turquoise bracelet still attached to her hand, which was not connected to her body, she was in so much shock that she could not quite come to terms with what she was witnessing at the time.

This is where she becomes even more rebellious than she was before because nothing scared her anymore.  This leads her to wear a bracelet to school even though it is forbidden and leads to her slapping her teacher and being expelled from her French school.  This is when she is more assured of her identity and she also starts to voice her opinion more often even if it goes against the regime.

This does have its consequences because in her country she could lose her life for voicing her opinion. Her parents start to recognizing that their daughter is like them and has the same beliefs as them and she has a right to live in a country that will not punish her for her beliefs.

Once her parents tell her she is leaving for school in Austria, it is when both her and her parents are recognize her true independence, and how unhappy she is to be living in a country where she can’t speak her mind, and stand by her beliefs.

The night before she leave she stays with her grandmother for the night, receives some advice, and finally realizes she is now a mature adult who can go on with her life leaving behind the anger and vengeance for her country, and forward with her grandmothers wisdom, her independence, her heritage of her Persian royalty, and what her country use to be.

Post 1 “Introduction – The Sheep”

To many peoples eyes they relate Iran to fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. Marjane Satrapi is not only the author of this book, but also the main character. These things that people seem relate Iran with are far from the truth, and is the main reason why she wrote this book. Also to show that a country should not be judged by it’s mistakes. The book begins with a brief history about Iran, and starting when Marjane is ten years old in 1979 at her school, also during this time is the start of the revolution to Iran. Before 1979 Marjane attended a French non-religious school where boys and girls studied in the same classroom. The revolutionaries saw it as a symbol of capitalism, and decided to split the schools to girls only and boys only classrooms. It also started that the girls had to wear veils, and most of the girls didn’t understand why and played around with them or complained about them instead. Marjane’s childhood is very plain and simple, and she’s on a search for her own identity. She comes to understand what’s right and wrong and is proclaimed to seek out justice. She believes that she is going to be the last prophet, and she wants to become the last prophet because no person should suffer. She notices that even though her family has benefited from the Shah’s westernization of their culture, that her family does demonstrations against the Shah’s rule helping the poor and working class fight against it. For her to understand more of what’s going on politically and socially of her country, she starts to change her perspective to the way others around her are seeing these situations, including her parents, grandmother, and others that have plenty of knowledge on the subject. She learns about the fall of the Persian Empire and the Rise of the Shah, the violence, the torture, and the corruption going on around her, but because she is only a child it is hard for her to envision what is going on. She uses humor throughout learning these stories about history to keep her sanity. When she first starts to become aware of social classes she notices things around her but doesn’t fully understand why some things are the way they are. For example that her maid doesn’t eat at the same table for dinner, and that her father denied her maid the chance of love, or education. But she does understand that it’s not fair that her maid can’t eat at the same table or have a chance at love with someone of a different social class, or that she isn’t educated. When the shah is deposed from his throne the nation, many people say that they must forget what has happened and move of with their lives. As time goes on, forgetting is not as easy as it may seem. Marjane learns that their friend Ramin’s father was part of the Shah’s secret police, and when her and her friends were out playing they attempted to reenact the Revolution by meting out justice on Ramin. Once they were stopped she learns from her mother that she must forgive. When she goes to apologize to Ramin, she’s disgusted that he said his dad is a hero and is proud of what his father did. It shows her that just forgetting the past is not simple. Thus portraying the idea that you can forgive but can never forget. It also brings up the matter of what makes someone a hero. She has many options in her family to define someone as a hero, and she comes to the conclusion that her Uncle Anoosh is what defines one. He was her hero because he is blood related, and he risked his life for his ideals.

About Us

Hey There! Here’s a little something about the two of us so you can get to know some things about us. Our names are Amanda Carleton (pictured on the right) and Katelyn Johnston (pictured on the left). We will be the ones writing this blog on The Complete Persepolis. We have known each other since the 3rd grade, and we are both from Shakopee, Minnesota. We have also lived 6 houses apart from each other since Amanda moved to Shakopee back in 2002.  Katelyn played basketball and ran cross-country all through high school.  Amanda played tennis and softball during high school, and also managed the boys hockey team. We are both currently sophomores in college at North Dakota State University. This is Amanda’s first semester here at NDSU, she transferred half way through the year from Winona State University. We are also both business majors! For this blog, we will be commenting on a book that we are reading in our English class called, The Complete Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi. For those of you who may not know what it is, the book is in a comic book format. The author Marjane Satrapi writes and illustrates this book about herself growing up and becoming an adult during the Islamic Revolution starting in 1979. The purpose of her writing this book is to show how most people’s perceptions of Iran are inaccurate. What we will mainly be commenting on is how she changes over time, and how the events that happen during the Islamic Revolution change her and affect her family and friends.