Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical novel, Persepolis, portrays a young girl’s journey of growing up in the midst of the modern Iranian struggle beginning from the Shah’s authoritarian regime to the rule of the Islamic Republic. Told from a young girl’s perspective, Marjane Satrapi, Marji for short, uses the simplicity of a black-and-white graphic novel to develop the deep complexities surrounding themes such as class differences, women’s rights, religion, westernization, traditional Iranian culture, education, and more. A major effect that the novel had on me was truly demonstrating to me the importance of perspective. Marji’s story, for example, is taught in incredibly naive yet poignant points that a child, not influenced yet by social convention or too many outside influences, would make. For example, Marji for a time portrays a great degree of susceptibility to the information taught in her school. However, after living through the Iranian struggle, Marji begins to express skepticism and a deep sense of curiosity and questioning for the information presented to her. This reminded me a lot about how people view “Islam,” a concept that has pervaded our classes since day 1. For example, often the Western’s general portrayal of the Islamic world is one that is monotonal, stereotypical, and devoid of the necessary complexities that accompany a religion so diverse and so widespread throughout the world. This artwork, too, features as a discussion about the idea of perspectives. It portrays different perspectives of the pumpkin and allows audiences and viewers to see the pumpkin from a profile view, a birds-eye view, and a close-up macro lens view. Each view reveals something different about the pumpkin. Moreover, with each picture, we see and focus on a different aspect of the pumpkin. The pumpkin can represent Islam, which can be viewed from different lenses, often based off of geographical/ cultural influences and more!
Recent Comments