Part 1 vs Part 2
I was opening up the pantry door to get an ingredient for my mom. As I reached in, the strong smell of cardamom flooded my nose. I was instantly brought back to my grandmother’s house and memories of me as a young child fiddling around while she laughed and crushed cardamom to make chai. They say that different visuals, smells, and feelings can bring back a plethora of memories, and throughout watching the second part of Persepolis, I couldn’t help but feel like similar things had happened before. Upon further investigation, I realized that the first and second journey, though different, followed a rather similar pattern.
The first part, illustrates the trauma Marji faced as a young child in Iran, as well as a struggle to figure out what she believed and who she wanted to be. She went from wanting to be a prophet to hating God, from considering imprisoned rebels, “heroes”, to wishing her Uncle was still alive. She is constantly unsure of where she stands on issues and feels lost (the visual of her floating in the dark illustrates this lost feeling rather well).
The second part has a pretty similar structure, Marji goes to Vienna and struggles to find her place, is it with the anarchists, the hippies, the punks? She has a difficult time figuring it out and never really feels like she belongs in Vienna. She also endures trauma in Vienna, from moving all over, to having many failed relationships, to living on the street. When she returns home to Iran, she still struggles to find herself, who she wants to be, what she wants to stand for, and who she wants to surround herself with. She still feels lost, and we see the same image of Marji lost, floating in space except she’s much older now.
The biggest difference in the reader’s understanding of Marji in the first part vs the second part is that Marji is so young in the first part that it’s hard to truly understand her thoughts and emotions. When she gets older, it’s easier to see when she’s sad or angry.
One more interesting similarity is that during both parts, Marji celebrates aspects of Western culture. She listens to western music and wears western fashions despite being told that the Westerners caused the Middle East lots of trouble.
Overall, while both story lines are different, they have the same over-arching theme of Marji trying to figure out who she was. Both are powerful and I really enjoyed them!
The first part, illustrates the trauma Marji faced as a young child in Iran, as well as a struggle to figure out what she believed and who she wanted to be. She went from wanting to be a prophet to hating God, from considering imprisoned rebels, “heroes”, to wishing her Uncle was still alive. She is constantly unsure of where she stands on issues and feels lost (the visual of her floating in the dark illustrates this lost feeling rather well).
The second part has a pretty similar structure, Marji goes to Vienna and struggles to find her place, is it with the anarchists, the hippies, the punks? She has a difficult time figuring it out and never really feels like she belongs in Vienna. She also endures trauma in Vienna, from moving all over, to having many failed relationships, to living on the street. When she returns home to Iran, she still struggles to find herself, who she wants to be, what she wants to stand for, and who she wants to surround herself with. She still feels lost, and we see the same image of Marji lost, floating in space except she’s much older now.
The biggest difference in the reader’s understanding of Marji in the first part vs the second part is that Marji is so young in the first part that it’s hard to truly understand her thoughts and emotions. When she gets older, it’s easier to see when she’s sad or angry.
One more interesting similarity is that during both parts, Marji celebrates aspects of Western culture. She listens to western music and wears western fashions despite being told that the Westerners caused the Middle East lots of trouble.
Overall, while both story lines are different, they have the same over-arching theme of Marji trying to figure out who she was. Both are powerful and I really enjoyed them!
You're right that the older Marji is better able to articulate her specific complaints about the revolutionary regime, or about poseur-anarchist Austrian punks, in the second part (although she's a remarkably astute social critic as a young child, as well!). But there's still such a consistency of character between both parts of her life, and this is driven home through a number of "deja-vu" moments (like when she challenges her teachers about the veiled models in the figure-drawing class at college, which directly recalls her challenges to teachers as a grade-schooler, which eventually led to her going into exile). There's a strong sense of character development, but it's also easy to see the roots of the adult Marji in her younger counterpart.
ReplyDeleteI believe this novel Persepolis is a hero's journey, not because she distinctly fits the Campbell model of a hero's journey, but because she goes through such a significant character development and starts to understand things a lot better.
ReplyDeleteIts super interesting seeing how Marji ends up. Its interesting seeing the book two that we never read. I think that in the end, the filmmakers really wanted to stay true to the books. This is also why a lot the the facial expressions show just as much as the dialogue. In the book, there's a really big emphasis on the faces, since we can't hear all of Marji's thoughts. In the movie, I feel like the directors really decided to emphasize that part, and as she grew older, just like real life teens, she really began to show emotion, and I think the directors decided to step it up, and really show off the faces.
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