Week 5 Prompt 1

The blog post I decided to expand and include in my formal paper is Wealth. I found this topic very interesting. In the book Persepolis, money was used for several things but most importantly money helped Marjanes family get away with many dangerous situations. I will mostly be writing about this topic and I will use the Read Response critical theory. I found this theory easier for me because I had many reactions to the events in the book. I also found very distinct opinions on what they were going through during the war and how they managed the situation. Money seemed to be very important for Marjanes family; however Marjane seemed to disagree with her parents social class beliefs. Marjane believed for equality this could have been one of the many reasons she changed into a rebellious young lady. An example is when Marjanes maid is writing a secret love letters to a neighbor’s son and is exposed by her jealous sister who tells Marjane’s uncle where later words get to Marjane’s dad. “Her jealousy was more than she could bear….That is how the story reached my father. Who decided to clarify the situation….Ok, I’ll get straight to the point: I know that Mehri pretends she is my daughter. In reality she is my maid…. Without Hesitation, Hossein gave all the letters he had received to my father(36,37)! This showed how Marjane’s father was disgusted by the idea of Mehri lying about being his daughter. He clarified the situation because he didn’t like the attribution Mehri had taken by saying that he was her father. In this case, he wanted to make people understand that she was only a maid. This proves how he was very strong opinionated about social classes and in this case, how dating had to be within their own social groups. Marjanes reaction proved patriarchy when she decides to demonstrate against the Shah, who her parents supported. Another important symbol that I found very significant towards wealth was the key. While being in war and the recruiting of young men from the lower class, Marjanes family was preoccupied in hairstyling and party planning among other things. Mrs. Nasrine was the maid which had been one of the unfortunate to receive the key. “It is a plastic key painted gold. They gave this to my son at school. They told the boys that if they went to war and were lucky enough to die, this key would get them into heaven(99).” I thought this was very humiliating because they compared a young life with a plastic colored key. No life as poor as it can be is unworthy. Being thrown into battle with no prior knowledge or a basic training is just inhumane. Marjane thought that because one of his cousins was in that specific age range he would have also been given the golden key. To her surprise, he didn’t know anything about it. In addition, her cousin Peyman was throwing a party. “Hey! Peyman? What?...Next week you’re having a party?.. I’ll ask my mom. Tell me, at school, did they give you the keys to paradise. Keys to what(100)?”  

Defiance

In Persepolis, Marjane mocks and disrespects everyone who has authority. As the revolutionist that she is, she becomes involved in the fight for freedom and her beliefs without thinking about the consequences. Rules are made to force us to follow them and not break them again. However, Marjane seems to not understand the importance of following them. An example is when Marjane hits the principle when she tries to take a piece of jewelry from her and is expelled because of it (143). There is no way I see myself hitting, not only the principle but an elder. Ever since I can remember my parents have always taught me to respect everyone even if they didn’t deserve it. I can’t imagine myself being expelled from school because of hitting the principle. To think about my parents’ reaction and the severe punishment that would be given to me by them is a reason enough to not even think about hitting someone. Also, one of the possible penalties of hitting a school employee would probably file a police report and an arousal of problems with the law. A bad record would follow me for the rest of my life. Another example that caught my attention was when she had gone to the black market to buy American music and is surprised by the “Guardians of the Revolution”(133). As we know, the guardians of the revolution were the women’s branch that had been added to arrest and guide women who were improperly veiled(133). Now, this brought my attention because even though Marjane knew that following American culture had been banned she was still being careless and decided to go to the black market to obtain music tapes(131). To me, it seems like she was looking for trouble. Why would Marjane go outside improperly dressed; according to the fundamentalist, and to the black market to purchase American music? As I read this passage I pictured a provoking, rebellious young lady in search of trouble. Was she trying to honor in some way the death and the beliefs of her uncle Anoosh? Hadn’t his death been a lecture enough to prove what would occur to those that opposed Iraqi laws? All these questions were running through my head. While she was being questioned by the guardians her answers were fast and insolent. For example, “Why are you wearing those “punk” shoes? What punk shoes? Those! But these are sneakers! I wear these because I play basketball…….Aren’t you ashamed to wear tight jeans like these? They shrank(133).” In my case; if I were to be the one being questioned by the guardians, I would probably not know what to answer and immediately apologize for any wrong doing. Even though she was careless and reckless about her actions I admire how strong opinionated she is. However, there is a limit to our actions and Marjane realized that when she was about to be taken to the committee where she could have been whipped or detained for days or hours. At some point, everyone will always have a limit. For example, a DUI(driving under the influence) could cause imprisonment, an expensive fine, community service, and possibly an accident. All actions have consequences that will not always end up nicely, so why take the risk?