Analysis Of Marjane Satrapi 's Persepolis And Ta Nehisi Coates ' Between The World And Me

“People say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Truth is, you knew what you had, you just never thought you’d lose it – Anonymous” (Quotes). Marjane Satrapi was born to a wealthy family and had parents who adored her. She seemed to have everything, and even as the war raged on, her family still managed to have something more than the next family. In spite of their good fortune, the war was taking a toll on the family and it was decided that Marjane would be sent to Austria. Thus leaving everything Marjane loved behind, leaving her to fend in the darkness of the unknown. In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Marjane starts off as a rebel, though naïve at the same time, to an attentive but scared girl in order to show how the war has triggered Marjane's reality to crash down, clarifying the world around her.

Adolescence is an age where children began to find themselves or, in some cases, lose themselves, an idea clearly developed by Satrapi in her graphic novel “Persepolis”. Satrapi explores the challenges and difficulties experienced by a sheltered and naive girl during the tumultuous and uncertain years of the Iranian revolution and attempts to solve the oppression she witnesses by the Islamicist government. This is important to the whole text as it identifies the religious conservatism and Islamisation of the state causes distress and confusion in Marjane who consequently had to redefine herself, given that her freedom and personal liberties were denied them in schools, public places, and even her own home.

Ta-Nehisi Coates describes the American Dream as, “It is the perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like strawberry shortcake.” In Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates teaches his son, Samori not feel like he has to be like the Dreamers because they will have to find themselves out of the Dream by going through the struggle which they’ve created. He also says the Dream is mainly for rich white people and those people who believe in the Dream are called the Dreamers. Coates argues that the “Dream” is to have the perfect white, wealthy life and the “Dreamers” are the white people who believe in the “Dream”.

The book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a poignant reminder that the battle for equality is still ongoing for African Americans, and that the average black reality is rife with perils, which could easily lead to the destruction of life or liberty. In the wake of the recent string of deaths involving unarmed African American citizens by the hands of local law enforcement, Coates presents his narrative in the style of a letter to his son. Writing in the form of a letter offers a deeper sense of intimacy both with its perceived intended subject (Coates’s son) and the reader. The intimacy expressed through this narrative style denotes Coates’s own intense emotions to the reader regarding race in America. In this way, Coates offers a view that is authentic, humanistic, and emotionally charged contrary to just being an omniscient narrator.

Throughout the Iranian Revolution, many events and changes took place that largely affected the views of Iranians by other nations. The graphic novel, The Complete Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi (Satrapi, 2003), conveys many of these events and changes through the eyes of a child growing up in the 1980s in Iran. Satrapi’s main purpose for this book is to describe how the Iranian government was corrupt, causing foreign nations to have a tainted view of all Iranian citizens. The Complete Persepolis does so by presenting major events and changes in a manner that is directed towards audiences that are willing to have an open mind about ethnicity and false stereotypes, and an audience that is young and can relate to the “coming of age” aspect of this novel. By exhibiting a credible first hand account of how Satrapi and many others were affected by the events that took place during the Iranian Revolution, The Complete Persepolis can effectively persuade a reader to eliminate the “Islamic extremist” stereotype that the corrupt Islamic Republic gave all Iranian citizens.

The book, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, was written by Marjane Satrapi; it is the story of her life in Iran from birth to fourteen years old. The perspective of Marjane, in her novel, affects the overall presentation of revolution, religion, and social classes. Consequently, with no background knowledge, we only have her perspective which affects our own opinion about the events of the book.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Between the World and Me delves into the controversial topic of racism and white supremacy as Coates explains his take on the matter. This essay will analyze ‘The Dream’ repeatedly mentioned by Coates and determine what margin of people are applicable for the Dream and those who can never obtain it.

Amazing, intriguing, and unimaginable are just a few words to describe how I felt about Persepolis while I read this true life story of Marjane Satrapi. This book has helped me to see all the life struggles, good times, and adversities that Marji faced between the ages of nine to thirteen. The Islamic Revolution had such a daunting effect in the Middle East, especially in the county of Iran where Marji and her family resided.

A young girl lives in Iran in the late 1970s, early 1980s and lives while the revolution is going on. She tells the story through her young self, and shows an accurate perspective of Iran in the 1980s. In her book, Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s perspective influences her representation of social classes, loss of innocence, and gender roles in Iran. Three themes that will be discussed is social classes, loss of innocence, and gender roles.

Western culture has often misperceived the east and the way that their society functions. In Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Satrapi uses graphic novels as a way to demonstrate to the western culture how the east has been misrepresented. The use of media helps to depict to the west how their views of the east may have been unfairly formed in the past. The media has only revealed limited knowledge that only shows partial perspectives because it is difficult to get perspectives of the minorities although they are the ones who hold the most truth. In other words the use of graphic novels and a child’s perspective give the west a new idea on how it is that society in the east functions. This style of writing brings the connection between the two

It is debatable that most people of western societies especially here in the U.S share a common perspective about the country of Iran having a reputation for terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. In the media today, Iran is accused of having nuclear weapons and various politicians have made references to its contribution to the constant violence in Iraq. The information that we absorb everyday from news reports adds to our biases and enhances our negative opinions of Iran as a country. Through the help of the media, people of our culture stereotype the Iranians based on an ethnocentric viewpoint without developing a clear sense of understanding or the reasons behind their beliefs. In the graphic novel Persepolis, the

Persepolis and Realism “The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I had the feeling that I was distracting myself from my culture, betraying my parents and my origins, that I was playing a game by somebody else’s rules” (Satrapi 193). In “Persepolis 2: The Story of Return” Marjane Satrapi illustrates rhetoric into every panel presented in the novel. She conveys rhetoric by placing realism into every piece with guided drawings to help focus her perspective of the situations. Much of the focus is placed on Satrapi growing up and realizing her views of the free side of the world isn’t how she imagined it all to be. Satrapi alludes to many of the changes she faces as a refuge living and growing in Austria, and how many of the faces she felt comfort to in the past changed as well.

Many people know of Iran as a country to avoid. Many fights and wars happen in Iran, but Iran was not always like this. Persepolis is a graphic memoir by Marjane Satrapi in which she describes her life growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane however, struggled in Iran because of her unique situation where she would become a diaspora. This means that while Iran was changing Marjane still held on to the identity of the old Iran.

From “The Complete Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi: “I never imagine that you could use that Appliance for torture” They have burn him with Iron. When I was reading the novel I found out that some of the people was deeply tortured during the Islamic revolution. The attackers does not have the feelings concerning the human dignity. The quote moves me because the little Marjane was really feel bad on how they toured people without sympathy, especially the way they have maltreatment ahmed. However the worse part of it is that after all, they cut Ahmed into pieces like an animal. My question here is that how can someone treated like animal? The saddest moment of the war.

In her autobiographical comic Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, within the first five pages of the book, tells the reader that she was born with religion. She immediately explains (in regards to the Islamic practice of veiling) that “I really didn’t know what to think about the veil. Deep down I was very religious but as a family we were very modern and avant-garde” (Persepolis, 2003, pg. 6). For western feminists, this ambivalence towards the veil has been a common topic of discourse. In secularized western countries, the veil is often viewed as a symbol of patriarchal oppression. In France (where Satrapi currently lives), for example, there have been numerous laws banning different forms of the veil (such as the burka and the niqab) with many critics, such as former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that they are “oppressive” and “not welcome” in France (“The Islamic veil across Europe,” 2014, pg. 1). This is the western view of the veil, but what do Muslim women think of the veil and the fundamentalist values that westerners often associate with it?