A specific instance of this is shown in Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical book Persepolis. Marjane Satrapi’s unique perspective plays a strong role in her views of nationalism, religion, and social classes throughout her life. Marjane Satrapi’s unyielding sense of nationalism plays a huge role in developing her perspective. The photograph at left (Erdbrink Online) exhibits Iranian women waving their nation’s flag in a surge of pride and nationalism. As can be seen, these women are concerted, patriotic, and proud of
She wants freedom and peace to develop between Iranians solely upon their own efforts. Furthermore, “for a revolution to succeed, the entire population must support it” (Satrapi 17). This indicates that the people of a nation must constantly show their nationalism boldly, with confidence and pride. Marjane is aware of the nationalism, and she has accepted that without the honor and support from a society, the nation cannot succeed in its ambitions. The support from a populace gives the country the encouragement it needs to flourish and thrive.Moreover, Marjane’s system of acceptance and awareness influences the way that the theme loss of innocence is conveyed.
In the graphic novel, Iran, Marjane’s home, is being imperialized by Iraq. While this is happening, none of the people in Iran are fully aware of how to react because the country didn’t have a leader at the time. Marjane had to experience this imperialism during her teenage years and it played a large role in her perspective. To demonstrate this in the book, it says, “‘God did not choose the king.’[said Marjane’s father] ‘He did so! It’s written on the first page of our schoolbook’ [said Marjane]” (Satrapi 19).
In the book Persepolis, the depiction of religion, social classes, and gender roles give a negative representation of Iranian culture and/or Islam.To start off, the theme this photo is portraying is the theme of social classes. The image is showing blocks formed into a pyramid shape with men standing on the different levels of blocks. The men are dressed according to their social class rank as represented by the blocks. This image doesn’t directly relate to Islam and/or Iranian culture, but it gets the point across. For example, in Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, from pages 34 to 37, a maid to the Satrapi family fall in love with an upper class boy across the street.
Persepolis is a beautifully crafted graphic novel with talent spread equally in the photos and writing. Although the writing is very well constructed, the imagery is very important as well. It helps convey the emotions that the words cannot. However, there are many smaller themes that the book does not cover with its imagery. They can all be summed up with how Marjane's negative outlook in Islam affects her presentation of nationalism and social classes.
Images can evoke strong human emotion, both positive and negative, and Marjane Satrapi effectively uses graphic images to symbolize events in her life and to tell the reader of her deep, moving story of nationalism, social classes, and the loss of innocence. The use of images to symbolize important events in a story is a beneficial strategy that can be seen throughout the book. Topics that play huge roles in Persepolis are nationalism (one’s pride of their country), social classes (the separation of the rich and poor), and the loss of innocence (when a person loses their naive nature to the corruptness of the world). These ideas shape the story through persuading people’s actions. For example, nationalism gives people the courage to stand up for their country, as Marjane’s family did during the war.
Another theme in the book Persepolis that is talked about is religion. Religion is the belief in a superhuman with powers like a god or gods that controls everything. An example of all the different types of religions is seen at the top of this paragraph.In Marjane’s graphic novel she portrayed religion as one of these most important aspects of people’s everyday lives. It is simultaneously being represented as something that needs to be followed to its full extent, as an illustration of religion this photo is showing all of the different types of religion that people all over the world worship. In Persepolis, Marjane portrays religion as the most important thing in her life, but she is also feeling that it is being forced upon people.
These images are thoughtfully presented and drawn out in the novel to show Marjane’s loss of innocence, her experience with social classes, and the large impact of religion in Marjane’s life. In the graphic novel, Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s effective use of graphic images contributes to the theme “social classes”. The theme of “social classes” is represented in this image because the hierarchy is present as the pyramid reaches the top. As shown, those in the lower class are closer to the floor or dirty ground, allowing for the assumption that they are worthless and unimportant. In contrast to this, the higher classes are higher on the pyramid, therefore higher in the hierarchy in addition to being more powerful than those in the lower class.
First of all many people believe that national pride is the most important material that unites any nation in good and bad times. So what is national pride? Some believe that national pride is the force that strengthens the country and drives the nation to better future. According to encyclopedia “patriotism is an emotional attachment to a nation which an individual recognizes as their homeland.
During the interactive oral discussion my group and I addressed key points of the novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The reflective statement helped me reach conclusions about the texts cultural and contextual elements in the novel. One of the questions that I think impacted the group as a whole was “In what way does time and place matter to this work.” A fellow classmate answered this question by stating “the time and place has everything to do with the story because during the time, 1979, the Iranian Revolution started and shortly after the Iran-Iraq war begun. Marjane Satrapi was only a child when she wrote her novel, therefore, she writes it in first person point of view to tell her experiences during the revolution and the war. Without