So You Haven't Read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi?

literature gives us the opportunity to experience lives perspectives and worlds different from our own though remember friend a good story has many readings and this is but one we open on a teenage girl living her best life in 1983. she listens to kim wilde's kids in america wears a michael jackson button and has an iron maiden poster on her wall at school she's always breaking the dress code and getting in trouble for questioning authority but now she's starting to get in trouble with authorities in her super conservative town and her parents are worried for her future now i know that sounds like the start of an 80s teen movie but this story is actually central to marjan satrapy's persepolis a comic book about growing up in iran during the tumultuous 1980s you've read it right no well i hope that's not due to the old false comic books aren't real literature stigma because as we're about to discuss this medium is perfect for personal stories like this you know kind of like how animation can be perfect for lit discussions wink [Applause] [Music] thanks so much to world anvil for helping us discuss important worlds in literature so you haven't read persepolis by marjon satrapi i gotta say you're missing out originally published in french as a four-part comic book from the year 2000 through 2003. today we'll be talking about the complete persepolis collection and since this work is based on her real life experiences we'll start by exploring why satrapy chose to share these details about her life but a quick heads up before we start some of this story contains references to suicide and violence so no worries if you want to skip this one and come back next time imagine moving from a country that had been the subject of decades of negative propaganda so much so that even in your new country the friends you make make the same uninformed assumptions about you and the place of your birth so as you find yourself explaining the complex reality of your life over and over again maybe you'd start thinking you know i should just write a book well that's exactly what marjon satrapi did after moving from iran to france in her book's introduction she discusses how no country should be judged based on its most extreme citizens and satrapi employs her work as a window into the lives of iranian people leading up to during and after the 1980 iranian cultural revolution so let's take a peek through that window to the first part of persepolis it's 1980 and patriotic 10 year old margie as her parents call her is adjusting to the new restrictions imposed by the new fundamentalist government in iran fortunately though margie has a very close relationship with her family so she feels loved and supported her parents expose her to both iranian and western philosophy and culture her grandmother relates the family's rich history and she has a special bond with her uncle anush who fled to the soviet union to escape persecution during the reign of the last shah of iran like many iranians margie's family supported the protests to remove the corrupt shah from power and hoped that would result in a less oppressive country but unfortunately this was not to be margie's father teaches her that the new government is an extension of iran's history of 2500 years of tyranny and submission starting from their own ancient emperors to the arab invasions to the mongol invasions and to western imperialism side note for a little more of iran's history you can always check out our kosovo onoshirowan series and when the shah finally abdicated and left for exile margie's family joined most of the country in celebrating their new liberation many political prisoners were released or allowed to return uncle anush among them but that celebration was short-lived as the new government is run by religious fundamentalists who institute new rules like gender segregated schools strict dress codes and forbidding western cultural items worse the new government rounds up the old regime's political enemies to execute them on false charges including uncle anush before his execution he has allowed only one visitor and he chooses his beloved niece margie his subsequent death provokes margie to start speaking up against government propaganda in school and start going out in her illegal punk clothes furthermore since iran has gone to war with iraq their city is being periodically bombed so her parents decide to send her to live in europe soon she boards a plane for a new life in austria like some other major contemporaries in comic book writing and illustration margin satrapy prefers the term comic to the term graphic novel also her bold black and white style of illustration both helps tell the story and allows us to better empathize with their characters in fact according to scott macleod's understanding comics readers tend to see simplified phases as themselves the saatropi's art style allows us to more easily experience margie's story as our own socrapy also adapted persepolis into an award-winning animated film in 2007 and through her recent work continued to try to foster a greater understanding of the iranian people and culture in the west her guiding principle being that we as humans aren't all that different from each other after all of course when the teenage margie lands in her new home the people she meets there often still reacts to her based on their anti-iranian prejudices furthermore she experiences culture shock when she discovers that the european norms and morse particularly in regards to sex and drugs are much less restrictive than in her culture she tries her best to assimilate by behaving like her new friends but finds she starts to feel that she's losing her identity margie eventually finds herself so alienated that she spends three months living on the street until a near-fatal case of pneumonia leads her to decide that she should return home to iran though once home her downward spiral continues as she now feels she's too much a westerner to belong here her friends call her immoral for the way she lived in austria and margie sinks further into depression disconnecting herself from her family and friends and eventually she attempts to take her own life however after her attempts fail she decides she's not meant to die and starts to try to turn her life around but even as she works to improve her health enrolls in art school and gets married margie finds herself growing increasingly put off by the absurd fundamentalist restrictions for example in her art class she's assigned to do a figure drawing of a fully dressed male model but is instructed to do it without actually looking at the man because that would be immoral and once again margie finds herself rebelling against oppression she speaks out publicly against dress restrictions attends mixed gender parties with alcohol and decides to amicably divorce her husband divorce being a particularly problematic issue for women in conservative iran one of the many areas where women are legally subordinate to men so as the novel ends margie moves to france for good this time of her own accord which is where of course she continued to encounter so much ignorance about iran that she decided to write persepolis full circle this series central thesis is that literature can help you see perspectives different from your own and persepolis does this in spades by showing us that great books also help you find things in common with people you may have thought at first glance were completely different from you but through marjon satrapy's teenage experiences written in such a way that will seem familiar to almost anyone and her simple yet iconic art style both act as a beautiful invitation to your brain to put yourself right into her illegal sneakers but don't just take my word for it do yourself a favor and find a copy of persepolis for yourself that way you can open up that window and maybe see your neighbors a little more clearly and if the 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again that's code extra credits for 40 off any annual membership and as always thanks so much for your support we can't wait to hear about the worlds you build greetings i'm ed ziad turk alicia bramble angelo valenciana casey muscha dominic valenciana joseph blame kyle murgatroyd and o'reills one y'all are the best [Music] you

Channel: Extra History

Views: 114,269

Keywords: Classics (Field of Study), So you Haven't Read, Education (TV Genre), Persepolis (Book), Marjane Satrapi (Author), Humanities (Field Of Study), Literary Criticism (Field Of Study), Book Review (Award Discipline), Classics (Field Of Study), Literature (Media Genre), Classic Literature, Literature Review (Literature Subject), animated, summary, explained, Analysis (Quotation Subject), young adult, female authors, Persepolis (Movie), animated stories, edutainment, graphic novel

Id: PrEL9ehTWk0

Length: 9min 21sec (561 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 16 2022