Persepolis 10/29

The panels that I'm going to write about are panels on pages 334 to 337 towards the very end of the book. These are the panels in which Marjane meets Behzad after he gets home from jail for making an illustration of a bearded man. He was beaten up, but explained to them that it was never his intention to make bearded men come off as sissies. Marjane and her magazines graphic designer go to visit him, and they talk with him and his wife very briefly. On the way home Marjane is really pissed off that she considered Behzad her hero for so long (well not really that long but 20 days to be exact). She starts on this rampage about Iranian men and how they won't ever let their women speak and how all the laws are on the males side. Her friend tries to convince her otherwise letting her know about some of her past experiences with Spanish men and how they are the exact same, but Marjane is infuriated. 

She goes on to say that "if a guy kills ten women in the presence of fifteen others, no one can condemn him because in a murder case, we women, we can't even testify! He's also the one who has the right to divorce and even if he gives it to you, he nontheless has custody of the children! I heard a religious man justify this law by saying that man was the grain aned woman, the earth in which the grain grew, therefore the child naturally belonged to his father! Do you realize? I can't take it anymore. I want to leave this country." 

It's amazing to look at the way that Marjane feels and how strongly she feels about it. War and the traditions of her country have made her completley change her mind about how she feels about her country and not for the better. Because of the wars, the law, and the tradition, these are the reasons that Marjane wants out. Conflict has completley created Marjane's identity. Conflict being war shapes Marjane to be who she is. It may even deny her of who she wants to be. I felt like this was the exact reason that she wanted out of her country so badly: so she could be free to be who she wanted to be and not only what her country wanted her to be. 

This works in context with all the poems we read, especially I explain a Few Things by Pablo Neruda. This poem tells two sides of a story, the happy go luck side and the evil war side, and illustrates how easy it is for war to ruin/tear apart a beautiful happy country. In the beginning Pablo states the question he thinks we are going to ask, "Why don't you write about the happy things, the flowers and the birds anymore?" And at the end he answers it "Come and see the blood in the streets." The first half of the poem is all about the happy suburb of Madrid, his house was even called "the house of flowers because in every cranny geraniums burst." But in the second half of the poem something terrible happens. "And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings". All of a sudden war comes and turns this nice suburb into a hell hole. He than talks about the blood of children, death, knives; all the pieces that come with war. He even talks about how his house has changed. "See my dead house." His house went from being beautiful to dead. And finally at the end he basically says, the reason I don't write about the flowers, birds, and beautiful aspects of Madrid is because war destroyed them. This poem in itself is a perfect example of how war changes everything. War is a universal concept and no matter where you are from you can relate to it and death. It can not only forge your identity, but as we see in Persepolis it can also deny and transform your identity. 

Blankets

First, I'd like to look at the panels on page 12. The first four panels the boys are ruff housing and fighting over the blankets when all of a sudden they hear their father coming down. Than in the very last panel on the page it shows their father for the first time. He's asking the boys "What's going on up here?" I think its interesting to look at how Thompson showed the father in this panel. It's very shaded and has a thick black border around it. From my interpretation, I understand that maybe the father isn't such a nice guy. He's kind of an ominous figure, kind of scary and dark. 

Second, I'd like to take a look at the panels on page 13. The boys are making quite a ruckus from their bedroom, so their father comes upstairs to yell at them. When the boys question their father and ask why they have to sleep in the same bed, they get the same answer that I'm sure ALL of us have heard at one point; "Don't question your parents authority." (Also with the thick black border around it). It's funny to take a look at the fourth panel exactly and see just how the author illustrated the fact that the dad has all the authority in the room, he is quite larger than the two boys. In fact the father takes up over 3/4 of the panel itself. The boys are both quite small in the very bottom corner of the panel. I think its interesting to look at that from a different perspective. All parents have authority over their children, and Thompson chose a really good way to show it, with not only words but also pictures. 

Finally I looked at the panels on page 35 where he almost misses his bus. The driver stops and lets him on and than in the very last panel on the page where he is sitting with everyone else, he is basically miniscule in comparison with all the other people on the bus. I interpreted this to be exactly how he felt; small and worth nothing, less than everybody else. 

I think this book and Oranges Aren't the Only Fruit are similar in the fact that Jeanette experience some of the same feelings. Craig gets made fun of a lot for being an outcast and so does Jeanette when her mother is forced to send her to school. Jeanette is also a social outcast because she decides to play with her sexual identity.