Feb. 26 Discussion Post: Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis, 251-352

Hi all,

Pardon me, my page numbers are off.

I have no sense of what interests you so I decided on a buffet approach. I suppose you might comment on whatever resonates with you.

The Veil: Marjane’s stay in Austria has come to an end. She puts on her veil and comments, “so much for my individual and social liberties…I needed so badly to go home” (91). Marjane is clearly aware of the freedoms she’s giving up. Why does she decide to go home? What does this imply about the relationship between coming of age, independence, and family? What’s the significance of the veil?

The Return: One way of reading this chapter might be by using space as an organizing tool. Marjane moves and comments on the environment to which she has returned. How do these spaces compare to her memories of them as a child? To similar spaces in Austria? Marjane has a crisis of experience in this chapter. Her father catchers her up on the events she’s missed which results in Marjane feeling like her “Viennese misadventures seemed like little anecdotes of no importance” (103).  In a coming of age story, a protagonist who can’t make sense of their experience isn’t quite on the right path. Marjane will have to come to terms or salvage that experience at some point. I’m making a note, we’ll see.

The Joke: Marjane is visited by her family and friends and visits her childhood friend Kia. The visits, like the spaces of the last chapter, offer an opportunity to explore difference, particularly the difference between reality and people’s perceptions. What’s going on here? One of Marjane’s criticisms of her friends is that they are “ready to get married at the drop of a hat” (105). What’s marriage got to do with Marjane’s development/identity formation/self-actualization? After visiting her childhood friend Kia, Marjane says, “That day, I learned something essential: we can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable…once this limit is crossed, the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it” (112). What does she mean? What does this lesson signify about her development? Do you agree with her “essential” knowledge?

Marjane’s comment resonates with Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” and notions of the absurd, suicide, and coping philosophies. How interested are you or how appropriate is it to read Marjane as an absurd hero?

Skiing: Satrapi might have called this chapter “The Ski Trip,” so that it fit with the rest of the chapter titles. Is there anything to be made of this? Marjane spends a lot of time watching a Japanese show called “Oshin.”  Marjane says she learned later “that Oshin was in fact a geisha and since her profession didn’t suit Islamic morals, the director of the channel had decided that she’d be a hairdresser…It was believable because Oshin and her courtesan friends spent their time making chignons” (114). This instance suggests something about the relationship between what an object is and morals. This comment suggests rhetoric is epistemic. The troubling implication is that a thing can pass as a thing it is not because someone on a moral high horse said so. How might this contribute to Marjane’s difficulties? Where else does that sort of logic at work in Persepolis? Marjane attempts suicide and has some surreal experiences, which might interest folks reading Marjane in an absurd tradition, but is ultimately unsuccessful. Her failure is chalked up “divine intervention” (119). From divine intervention Satrapi moves to a makeover, some conspicuous consumption, a fitness regimen, and destiny. We’ve been interested in the veil but Satrapi introduces an alternative type of clothing identification – the “sophisticated woman.” What’s the relationship between clothes and identity formation? If the veil can be read as a sign of oppression how does Marjane’s new wardrobe operate differently?

The Exam: In this chapter Marjane meets Reza at a party. The visual style changes to black silhouettes in a white room. Is there anything to be made of this change? Marjane worries she won’t pass the religious exam but luckily is interviewed by “a truly religious man.” That statement suggests that Satrapi advances some logic of religion in Persepolis. What is it?

The Makeup: The conflict in this chapter results from Marjane falsely accusing a man of lewd behavior. How does this chapter work narratively? Put another way, I expect that we agree with Marjane’s grandmother, why? Beyond the logic of her thinking, it seems to me that Satrapi characterizes Reza, Marjane, and her grandmother in such a way that the reader is conditioned to side against Reza and Marjane.

The Convocation: On pages 52 and 53 of Understanding Comics, McCloud positions a number of artists on chart based on their artistic style. Where would you position Satrapi on McCloud’s chart based on the visual style of this chapter? What does Satrapi’s  visual style do differently that other styles do not? Do you find her style effective? Deficient? We also get a picture of resistance in this chapter. How does Marjane’s resistance compare to other types of resistance in Persepolis? Any meaningful implications?

The Socks: In this chapter I’m interested in the impact of morals on art (see Oshin in “Skiing”), Marjane’s run (a disembodied voice, a ridiculous double standard, the insistence of viewing the female body with the male gaze), the notion that “everything was a pretext to arrest us” (148) and the implications of that sort of logic on psychology and behavior. In addition to these instances one might discuss the lack of any words for a number of pages (McCloud might inform your reading).

The Wedding: One might be discuss the images of Marjane in jail, the Marjane Reza married, the Marjane Marjane thinks she is, and Marjane’s relationship to Reza. What do you think of their relationship? What sort of relationships do you compare it to? There are ideas about marriage unbounded by text and ideas about marriage put forward by Persepolis (the relationship between Marjane’s parents vs the relationship between Zozo and her husband), what’s the significance of it all?

The Satellite: In this chapter one might draw conclusions about political conscience, education, and technology. You might investigate Marjane’s development as it relates to these facets of life.

The End: Marjane, “leaving for good,” says, “The goodbyes were much less painful than ten years before when I embarked for Austria: There was no longer a war, I was no longer a child, my mother didin’t faint and my grandma was there, happily…happily, because since the night of September 9, 1994, I only saw her again once, during the Iranian New Year in March 1995. She died January 4, 1996…Freedom had a price” (187). Paradoxically, Marjane depicts her grandmother crying. It seems that Marjane has done the same resignification that Oshin’s channel director did – she’s insisting on making a thing a thing it was not. What does this suggest about narrative revision, coming of age, making sense of the world? Can you construct a logic to Persepolis which applies differently to Marjane and the channel director? How might this ending fit in line with Camus’ smiling Sisyphus and the absurd?