Opinion

Women should never be treated this way, and it is outrageous how much discrimination still goes on in the world, despite all the progress we've supposedly come to. The reason I think that things like this still happen today is because of the material conditions that cause fundamentalism to rise in third world countries. Feminism is an important movement which, I think, attempts to combat discrimination. I would like to comment on what many people are saying, which basically equates religion to fundamentalism, and says that if religion didnt exist these types of things wouldnt happen. That is blatantly incorrect, and evidently there are places where religion is widely practiced where this doesn't happen. 

Persepolis: The Dowry

In this last chapter Marjane gets expelled from school for arguing and attacking a teacher. This persuades her parents to send her to Austria. Marjane is then seen leaving to the airport, and this is the last scene of the book. I made a connection by thinking of a girl I knew who went to a boarding school in Vienna in 7th grade. I remember that she was really scared of going, and didn't really want to go, but her parents for some reason were forcing her.

Persepolis: The Passport

The chapter begins in a point where Marjane is growing up. We are introduced to Taher, a sick man who becomes even more ill after a heart attack. This means that he must have open heart surgery. The difficulty of getting a passport legally makes the wife eventually have to resort to fake passports, though he did not leave on time, as his passport was delayed. I can relate this to the difficulty of getting a visa to Saudi Arabia, shallow as that reference may be. I remember that it took around 5 months to get the visa to enter the country, even though my father already lived and worked there and the company was government owned. 

Persepolis: The Sheep

In this chapter Anoosh and Marjane form a friendship. Anoosh becomes the person which Marjane looks up to and admires. I can make a connection to other mentor-student or guardian-child relationships in books. For example, in Harry Potter, the main character and Dumbledore become close "friends", but the relationship in reality is that of a companion and a child. Also, in Leon (The Professional), in which there is a girl who wants to become an assassin, there is the same type of relationship. 

Persepolis: The Veil

  The first chapter of Persepolis sets the introduction and starts leading the audience to a potential situation that can take place. It starts off by introducing the main character and what she is living through. The chapter closes by showing how the main character desires to become the last prophet of her religion.  This little girl is born in the beginning of the Islamic Revolution. She is obliged to wear a veil over her hair, and is soon separated from her friends at school. Afterwards, she starts thinking of a way to pursue her dream of becoming the last prophet. She has a holy book, and has long talks with God at night. By reading this chapter I came up with several questions, including: What is her name? When does this story take place? Why are the obligated to wear a vail? What does this vail represent? Why does she want to be a prophet when she grows up? When she 'chats' with God at night, is it her imagination or is it really God? Will this book relate to us her experiences with the religion? Due to the fact that it was a short chapter, we couldn't receive a lot of information and therefore I don't have  as many doubts about how the story begins. My last question is, what is going to come up next?

The first chapter of Persepolis takes us to Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The time period is one that is chaotic, during the Cold War. The narrator, which is the author herself, Marjane Satrapi, is raised at a very young age as a proletariat-loving revolutionary, by her parents who are the same way. She also believes that she is the last prophet of her religion. When she is forced to wear a veil over her head, she comes to dislike it. I came up with several questions, including

• What does the veil represent for the women of Iran?
• What is her connection to God?
• How does the time and place she is living in affect her childhood?
• How does her childhood compare to, say, an American girl?

Persepolis: Chapter Persepolis

I can relate the story of the man who was called a martyr to urban legends and/or mass hysteria. Usually, because of the carelessness in relating a story, or some kind of condition which has made people vulnerable to suggestion or mentally traumatized, someone will begin to say something or do something, and because of suggestion or trauma everyone will believe it. The fact that the woman had no proof that the man was a martyr and simply announced it reinforces this. The situation was, obviously, the political instability at the time.