perspolis

The book Perspolis by Marjane Satrapi is a great graphic novel of Marjane’s memoir during the time of shift of governments. The author Marjane wrote about her childhood memory in Iran when there were political changes from time to time. Her grandfather was the prince of the Persian Empire which was soon thrown away by the Shah and became Iran. After the Shah took over Iran, there were much political interference by Western countries and those who wanted oil from this country. Marjane was a little child when all these shifts were happening in this country and she approached to her readers in a friendly way to deliver the events in little Marjane’s point-of-views. I think her tactics to give a full and easy way of describing the country was successful because she made the readers think like the little Marjane and indirectly experience those events by heart. Her comical ways of describing her relatives and acquaintances were grabbing much attention.
I, as a reader, was experiencing many feelings by reading this book. I was mad, happy, entertained and felt suppressed when new form of government was trying to put veils on women because women with hair revealed was seductive to men. There, I could have experienced patriarchy. Also, I experienced societal class through meeting her house maid who fell in love with higher class man across the window. Another issue of class was teen-age boys being forced to enter the war against Iraq without any preparations. They were given keys and illusions that there would be better life in heaven. Just because those boys weren’t educated and were young, the society used it to give them illusions to be in the war. I loved how Marjane, at the age of young, knew how to pity the society of lower class.
Overall, I was very impressed on how she was very successful in writing with point-of-views of adolescent and teenagers in first part of the book. Her family was very westernized and open compared to the ones that were Iranians during that period and this created much easier and better understandings of the book at heart. Also, they were not completely traditional and they were rebellious against being suppressed and governed by religious Muslim groups. Marjane was very good at making connections with American cultured children and Iranian children by explaining and exemplifying both cultures.