Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Second Persepolis Blog Prompt
I apologize for the delay in getting this up. I would like you all to consider Marjane's experience of traumatic events in her young childhood and throughout her teenage years. How do her representations of these events change? What is she clearly imagining? What is she actually witnessing? How do her depictions of traumatic events move from childish depictions to more realistic ones? Are there some events which she cannot record? What distinguishes these events, and how does she note the gap - the silence - that marks their absence in the text? Thanks. Try to write at least two or three paragraphs. You can take a week.
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Matthew Ogorek
ReplyDeleteThroughout the memoir, Marjane shows her reader traumatic events Marji has gone through throughout her childhood that should not be experienced by a young girl such as Marji. She had witnessed traumatic events and expresses it to her reader by her lack of words, as on page 142, and her lack of the true visual using instead imaginational imagery of these events, as is shown on page 52. What she had witnessed are a series of events that are not normal conditions t a child should be exposed to in there developmental stages. Marji, as well as her parents, are constantly fighting against the governments demands, for example, when they threw a party for the new baby. It was dangerous not only for the adultsbut for their children as well. Marji is also being trained to constantly be fighting against those who have the power to hurt her. One has to realize that there is a time to fight but when times get tough one much also know when to back down and in Marji’s case it’s time to back down.
Marji hears a loud boom go off while she is shopping for jeans. She rushes home finding out that it had hit her block, right near her house. It was the Baba-Levy’s house and passing by the destruction she notices the bracelet and that “ it was still attached to… I don’t know what…” she knew what. We all knew what it was attached to. Based on her lack of words and the visual shown to her readers, it was something so terrible she didn’t want to finish her sentence and by showing Marji covering her face she couldn’t bare the sight.
In the chapter “the Heroes” Siemak Jari and Mohsen Shakiba are released from prison along with 3,000 others after the overthrown of the shah. Mohsen describes the torture of a man named Ahmadi had to go through before being “cut to pieces.” They forgot to spare m Marjie this terrifying experience. When Marji was exposed to the use of an iron used for torture she makes a comment that she had “never imagined that you could use that appliance for torture,” showing clearly that a girl of Marjie’s age should be naïve to this however she is being exposed to it early and doest help her innocence she should have. She is being forced to grow up quickly but shows us in the very next visual that she still can’t handle the visual of Ahmadi then being “cut to pieces.” As adults, we picture this as messy, bloody, and just ugly all around however marjie pictures him cut up cleanly, no blood, no bruises and broken up into section such like a doll could be broken up.
As Marjie grows up into her teenage years she has obviously experienced a lot. Thinking how a normal child would act as a teen after experiencing traumatic events like these, it would be hard to say that they would handle it as well as Marjie does throughout her teenage years away from home. Besides from her experimenting experiences so far Marji seems to be doing well on her own when I would think one with experiences such as Marji’s would be totally scarred psychologically throughout these teenage years. I’m curious to see how things turn out.
Daniel Portal
ReplyDeleteIn Persepolis, as in all war and revolution settings, trauma plays a role in everyone’s daily lives. Though, as a growing and gradually maturing child, Marji’s experience of these traumatic events which happen every day are different than the experience of a mature adult going through the same encounter. Throughout her maturation, “her depictions of traumatic events move from childish depictions to more realistic ones”(Reznick). Upon hearing of the torture of Ahmadi and his end of being cut into pieces, young Marji pictures this almost as a cut up toy doll, obviously not how decapitated Ahmadi actually appeared. Young Marji can only imagine these events as if they were cartoons or comics, like any young child would relate to.
The author uses highly stylized visual and verbal form to give the reader a better idea of the trauma little Marji is experiencing. When Marji’s uncle is executed, the author relays this information on the cover of a newspaper, perhaps to show that what Marji is feeling cannot be justly represented in any way. Additionally, after seeing the collapsed house of their neighbors and realizing that her neighbors were killed in the bombing, Marjane Satrapi’s last two frames of the page are wordless; the last is just blackness. No words or pictures in the world could do justice to the emotions and trauma Marji experiences at this point. As Marji grows older, and her depictions of traumatic events become more realistic, she also is away from home more and away from the trauma of a war environment.
Heng Qi
ReplyDeleteIn Persepolis, Satrapi describes many traumatic events that Marji has experienced during her childhood and teenage years. Also, her predictions of these traumatic events when she was a child become more and more realistic as she grew older. For example, on page 52, when she was describing that a man was cut to pieces, she presented an image of a person being cut like a Barbie doll. This is clearly not the real image, but a child’s interpretation of the event. The real scene would be too terrifying to be accepted as a little child like Marji, and is also beyond her imagination. However, on page 263, she again presented a picture of a man being blown into a thousand pieces. This time, the image is much more realistic in comparison to the one on page 52. As she grew older, she gradually gained a better understanding and was able to provide a more sensible interpretation of the events happening around her.
On page 142, after Marji got to know that her neighbor’s house was bombed, she saw her friend’s bracelet in the debris. She described “the bracelet was still attached to… I don’t know what…” Then she covered her eyes, and the last picture is a total blackness. This traumatic moment exists as a gap in her which she could not process it. It is beyond her representation, thus, no words can really describe it. On the other hand, on page 268, when Marjane thought about her life in Austria, she covered her eyes. Then she lowered her head and covered her face with her arm, when she felt that “my secrets weighed me down.” This picture is not completely black anymore, although her face is not shown. Obviously, her experience in Austria was a miserable one for her. However, as she grew up, she learnt to accept and accommodate to all these traumatic events, which began to have clear images on her mind that she cannot avoid.
Marji, being in such chaos, was force to experience things that she should not be facing. She has to accepted truth and reality that were too heavy for her age. And she was pressurized to mature and to handle things that she was not really ready for.
In Persepolis, Marji was born in Iran. In her childhood was experience in revolution settings and war. Those traumatic even that happened are different from her teenage years. For example, in “TYROL” part, on page 168. Everybody have a plan for celebrate Christmas without Marjane. She said that “In Iran we don’t celebrate Christmas.” When her friend talked to each other about the plan of the charismas vacation, she was thinking that “our new year is March 21.” Because Marjane’s experience was different from other, so that she did not like flowing everyone to celebrate Christmas.
ReplyDeleteAnother example represent of there event change is in the “PILL” part, on page 185. Her friend did her hair and drew on a thick line of black eyeliner and makeup, they went to party. At that night, she thought that “the party was not what I margined. In Iran, at parties everyone would dance and eat. In Vienna, people preferred to lie around and smoke.” As soon as Marjane joined the party in Vienna, she thought that was totally different from Iran. As she imagined that everyone in the parties would be dance and eat.
Marji was born in Iran. When she was a little girl, the revolution setting and war was actually happened at that time. She didn’t know that how dangerous in the demonstrated, and so many people died in the revolution. But she knows that happened. As her teenage years, she was life in Vienna and other countries. Because she has different experience, so that she always has different opinion than others. On the other hand, those traumatic events are beast gift for her when she becomes a writer.
Sammy Salamon
ReplyDeleteOver the course of this memoir there are many different traumatic events that Marjane experiences throughout her teenage years. Over the course of her account of what has happened she depicts these events as any child would, in simplest form.
Throughout Persepolis there are numerous events that are considered traumatic. There are many times throughout the book where she just has nothing to say because she is in awe and shock. But one that sticks out most is when she is at a protest. She depicts these protests as any child would with people just raising their fists, but in reality there are violent actions at the numerous protests including stabbings. This is best portrayed on page 38 where you see her describing them protest throughout the night. She portrays this as any child would as just with many people just holding their fists up. As Marjane increases in her age she starts to depict many traumatic experiences as someone would at that given age.
The author uses high stylized visual hybrid to explain the traumatic events Marji went through from childhood to teenage. Sometimes pictures without words are more effective to represent Marji's feeling during childhood. For example, the best depiction of the trauma events is the last three pictures of page 142 when Marji saw her friend's bracelet in the destroyed house by bomb. She writes "The bracelet was still attached to...I don't know what..." and the next two pictures were no words. She knows what it was attached to but she cannot finish the sentence because it is too traumatic. In addition, on page 52, she imagines the body pieces like a doll. Young Marji takes the literal meaning of "cut to pieces" because it is too terrifying to think of the real way. Moreover, on page 15, she visualized people as ghost as they were burning alive in theater.
ReplyDeleteWhen Marji's uncle, Anoosh was executed, the author uses a newspaper format as the memory on page 70. She feels betrayed by God and loses faith in him. Additionally, on page 102, there is a contrast between the traumatic and joyful memory. In the upper picture, people are being bombed to death but the people are remembered as shadows holding a key to heaven. In the bottom picture, the scene is clear and the people at the party can be seen with detail. This difference shows the authors attempt to forget the details in order to cope with traumatic event. As she grown up her depiction of traumatic events is clearer and more realistic. For instance, on page 309 the pictures are more detail.
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ReplyDeletexuyang sun
ReplyDeletein this book, marji experience many traumatic events through her life in Iran. The images about these events are changing when she grow older. As older as marji grows, the more realistic the images become. On the contrary, in her childhood, her representation of these traumatic events is rather what she imaged than what she actually saw. On page15, she pictured the victims in the theater by drawing ghosts. That was not what really happened. it is what she imagined what dead people look like. And also on page 52, the man was not actually being cutting to pieces like the way she introduced in the book. It is the child innocent that transform what she see to what she imagine.
As marji grows older, the images she receive changes. They are becoming more realistic. On page 70, The way she tell readers her uncle was executed is not like what she introduced death when she was young. She doesn't picture the ghost to describe dead people. there is a newspaper shows her uncle’s picture. I think it is the sign of her mind is transforming. Later on, on page 142, she didn't see her friend die. Instead, she saw the bracelet on the ground. The image she present is becoming more realistic. The reason she change the way of picturing traumatic events is make sure readers have a better view of the book.
Shuai Han
ReplyDeleteIn Persepolis, the author creates various pieces of Marji’s personal and traumatic experiences. Moreover, Margi changes her standpoint from childish to realistic ones.
On page 52, the author employs a very highly stylized picture that has a human body is cut into pieces. That picture shows the gap between the childish perspective and realistic adult perspective. The panel that the body cuts into pieces is only an imagination from Marji’s mind.
After Marji becomes mature and experienced, she becomes very realistic when she deals with different situations. For example, when Marji hears friends talked negative things about her, she was really upset. However, she didn’t go away, she confronted with her friends. Most importantly, she said to her friends that she is very proud of being Iranian. Another example is the last chapter of the book, Marji was asked to complete a theme park that has traditional Iran cultures. She came up with a very comprehensive idea. Even though when the mayor rejected her idea, she didn’t act naïvely and immaturely like before, yet she becomes very realistic and educated young adult.
Over the course of Marji’s experience, various circumstances and traumatic events shape Marji’s identity from a young and naïve teenager to a well-educated adult.
Kathy Lee
ReplyDeleteIn Persepolis, little Marji is the narrator and she talks about lots of traumatic events she experienced during the war in Iran. As she growing up, her style of depiction is changed. At first, she depicts very traumatic events look childish even though she saw because she is a immature little child. For example, when Marji describe a man cut into pieces, she draw his body like a barbie dall or mannequine. When she became a teenager, however, the depiction style seems more mature and when she became a grown-up woman, it is close to realism even though drawing cannot capture whole the moment.
Satrapi sometimes shows just drawing without any words. This is because these situations are too traumatic to depict with any words even though she is already grown up woman. Nothing can express exactly that the moment was really horrible. Therefore, she let the panel black or just show shadow of people without facial expression.
Throughout the comic book Satrapi talks about the traumatic events that she experienced while living in Iran and Austria. What was unique to Satrapi’s story is that the traumatic event was depicted in a graphic novel so the reader could see Satrapi’s view and interpretation of the event. On the other hand, trauma is something that can not be represented or depicted. Trauma substitutes a representation that is not realistic. The inability to realistically represent a traumatic event is more profound when the comic book is created by using a child. Earlier in the memoir one can see that the events were drawn from the imagination of a child. For instance, Marji heard about the men in prison from Siamak, a friend of her fathers, who were tortured to death in prison. Towards the end of the story there is a narrative that states, “In the end he was cut to pieces” (Persepolis, 52). Below there is a picture of a man literally cut to pieces. This image illustrates the mind of a child and her interpretation of a traumatizing event.
ReplyDeleteThere are some events in the comic book that Marji felt so shocked that she there were no words to describe them. In a panel there would be Marji’s reaction to a traumatic event and there would be no dialogue or narrative to accompany it. What is different to these kinds of images is that Marji actually witnesses the event and it completely makes her speechless. In Persepolis this is shown on page 142. Here, in one panel there is no narrative but Marji is evidently very sad. The next panel is all black and it says below, “no scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger.” In regards to the first panel one can see that Marji is sad; a commentary is not necessary. The other panel, on the other hand, Marji was so angry about what happened to her friend that her feelings of anger and suffering were beyond representation.
As Marji got older and she moved to Austria her idea of trauma has transitioned from shocking to a way of adjusting. In Marji’s mind boys and girls touching in public was unheard of. For Marji to see men and women touching was shocking to her but not traumatizing. She acknowledged the lifestyle and accommodated to it.