Persepolis...

Author's note: This has been an off-week for me. Like seemingly everything else in my life right now, this blog entry is disorganized and potentially incoherent. My apologies.

Graphic novels are an interesting genre because one not only has to read the text itself, but also the visual images that connect with them. The visuals add another dimension to the text as well as make the reading of the novel more approachable.

Why did Satrapi write this novel? To inform the public of the experience of the marginalized Iranian? To release her story from inside herself? To pay homage to her family and their experiences? I cannot answer this question. But, I'd like the approach the first question of whether Satrapi is able to inform people of the experience of the marginalized Iranian.

Satrapi is different from many in a few ways. For the sake of the thought experiement, I'd like to compare her adolescent experience and some of her decisions to that of my own. Satrapi grew up in a two parent home that had an involved extended family. I grew up in a single parent household with the marginal presence of an extended family. Satrapi's family was able to afford to have a maid come in and clean. A maid would not have been a luxery even thought of for my family. When the situation gets bad, Satrapi's parents are able to have her leave the country to continue her education. In addition, when the situation in Europe gets bad, Satrapi's family can afford to bring her back home. Though adolescents has the potential of sucking for all young people (myself included), leaving the USA was never an option. Grin and bear it was my message. My family took a very Germanic approach...adolescence and its embarassments are character building. Go get some character.

Granted, the political situations in the United States and Iran are really different. I have been fortunate enough to have never had war on my home soil, which Satrapi experienced as a child. However, given my family circumstances versus Satrapi's, if my family had been in Iran, which one of us would have been able to tell our story...Satrapi or myself? Satrapi would have won out.

Satrapi's experience is a memoir. A reflection on her own life. While I don't think she pretends to tell the story of all Iranians during the Islamic Revolution, the real danger can come in when a Western audience like ourselves project Satrapi's story onto every Iranian out there. Satrapi's socioeconomic status allowed her the opportunities to leave and tell her story. I can't help but think about the many young men who recieved plastic keys to heaven if they only fought in the war and died a marytr. This was a reality that, had Satrapi been a boy, would never have had to worry about because her family had the means to look outward. This memoir, while informative and comic, does not and cannot tell the story of the Iranian people as a whole though. We must keep that in mind when reading so we don't pigeonhole the Iranian people.