Author: Marjane Satrapi
Rotation #4
Literature analysis
Post: Daniel Choe
Pages: 1 - 62
The first pages of the book shows the reader a story of a girl that has a battle between her religious side, and freedom (What is happening on Earth).
Going into the first idea, when the reader reads the book, he can easily discover that the book's structure is not chronological, but it is a story from the present to the past. To prove, pages 3 and 6 are the answers. In page 3, the girl states, "This is me when I was 10 years old. This was 1980." Furthermore on page 6, the girl says, "At the age of six I was already sure I was the last prophet. This was a few years before the revolution." These quotes shows that the book is not chronological, since the girl starts talking about her life when she was ten, which then leads her to talk about her age of 6. Furthermore this is really important because the reader can see two events that happened in the present to the past, meaning that the reader will be able to understand the book better because he knows what happened in the past that led to the future. For evidence that this is actually what happens, this idea actually happens in the book. In the first page (when she is 10), it appears a picture of the main character using a veil. Adding on, when the main character commences to talk about her past, she states what happened to her to start wearing the veil. This shows that using the present before the past makes the reader understand because the reader connects the past (which he read later) to the present (which he read before), making the reader comprehend what he is reading.
This image is to show chronological order, and "back in time." The reason this image shows chronological order is because it shows how the coke bottles changed over time, which was from glass bottles to plastic bottles. Now this also shows "back in time" because of the bottles of the past that still sells. In some shops, the coke can from 1957 still remains in stock. This shows that idea of "back in time" because old coke bottles still sell, even if new ones were released.
After the analysis on the chronological structure, the reader can also understand that the book is in first person, and not shifting points of view. The example is in page 9, quote "I want to be a doctor." This quote shows that the book is on first person, because the main character refers herself as "I," meaning that she is telling a story about herself, which then proves the story on being in first person. Another example that shows that the story is in first person is page 10. In this page, there is a quote which states, "And I want to be Trotsky." This also proves that the story is in first person, because the author made another character, which isn't the main character, speak in first person, which shows that the book doesn't change from third person to first person, but it remains first person throughout the whole book.
Now, there is a meaning behind why the author chose to make the story in first person. Marjane, which is known as the author of "Persepolis," was born in 1969, in Iran. Furthermore, her book is to show how the German Expressionism affected her childhood life in Tehrãn. (J.E) If this is the her background story, the author wrote in first person to show emotion. Normally, when someone rights something personal (first person), he/she will have more emotion and detail than a story that is written in third person because it is a story as if it was yourself, and not a story of another person. Because of this idea, the author wrote in first person so that she could show the feeling and details about how the German Expressionism affected her childhood.
This image is to show how first person is stronger than third person in details and emotion. In first person, you are the person "driving the car." Furthermore, you understand what is happening, and need to pay attention on not driving when the signal is read. Also, you have to be careful on not crashing. This shows first person because the "driver" feels and describes his experience driving. In the other hand, the third person is different. The third person is the person sitting on the back. The reason is because the person sitting on the back doesn't need to be careful, instead, he only needs to appreciate the view and wait until he arrives at the destination. This is third person because the person sitting on the back is describing where he is going, which is exactly what the third person writer does, describing a character's (that is not you) life.
Overall, the book was written well because she wrote it in first person, and because she used the idea of "from the present to the past."
Works Cited:
J.E., Luebering. "Satrapi, Marjane." Britannica Biographies (2012): 1. MAS Ultra
- School Edition. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
I agree with you, and I am also going to say, that the author is a girl in this nation that is occurring many changes, such as the revolution, which indicates that the people are not satisfied with their leader, yet they want to change, so the nation is demanding a democracy or a new leader. But as this change goes on, Marjane could do nothing but just wait and wait until the people that are "taken seriously" do something about it. Also she is getting affected by it, not only later on because of the veil, but that her life and the people she loves are getting affected, and it is all because the people of the nation demand change, and as they want change they get affected as well, and the children are just there seeing all this change, changes that are good, and changes that are bad.
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