Beginning of the End

In our last post we discussed the cycle of pain and happiness that Marjane experiences repeatedly in her life. After all the large changes that have occurred in her life, the largely contrasting cultures caused her to fall into a cycle of pain and happiness which usually ran parallel with her sense of freedom in whatever culture she was associated with. Marjane finally ended divorcing her husband and leaving the country so she can truly be free which is what she really needed and always wanted. Marjane’s life really served to accentuate the differences between the culture of Iran and of a more westernized society like the United States or Austria.

Marjane was always in a bit of a gap between the two cultures of the west and of Iran. She didn’t quite belong in any of the cultures she was very much in a middle ground. Her inability to adapt to either side of the spectrum further acts as an emphasis on how radically different both cultures are. While she is in a western culture like Austria, Marjane was very shocked and disgusted by their culture. Compared to the Iranian culture, Austria was very vulgar and sexual which concerned and disgusted Marjane in many different ways. Although Marjane, wanted to put on a facade of being “punk” and “modern”, she still did not fit in whatsoever in that environment that she so badly wanted to experience. Marjane truly had trouble adapting to that culture.

In contrast, while she is in Iran, she is suffocated by the oppressive, traditionalist culture of their people. In Iran she was unable to party at all, couldn’t express her opinion, and couldn’t even show her hair. Marjane was always very opinionated and often even attended protests and expressed her opinion of the state. She would dress like a punk, get rock tapes, sneak posters into the country, disobeyed all her teachers at school, all to just rebel against the traditionalist culture that brought her down so low. Marjane’s parents even tried multiple times to remove her from the country because they knew how unsafe it was for her and how much she needed to get into a culture that was more fit for her personality. Marjane was definitely not meant to live in a traditionalist culture like Iran.

As we can see there is definitely a sizable gap between the two cultures of Iran and the west. Marjane who was by no means a radical had trouble living in both cultures, though, and could not quite find the right place for her. Marjane was almost considered a radical in Iran and was also considered very foreign and pure in the west. She was considered slightly radical in both cultures which even further accentuates how different both cultures are. Many people fight that same battle today trying to fit into a different culture like ours our like Iran. We are sure that if we went to Iran we would have a very rough time of it just as Marjane had a difficult time coming to the west. Our cultures are so radically different that it really is quite shocking when you finally get a little insight in how the other side of the world works. Persepolis and Marjane’s story truly helped reveal that to us.

Pain and Rebirth: The Cycle Continues

In our last post we discussed all of Marjane’s cynicism and disgust with the way of thinking in Iran upon her return home. Throughout her memoir, Satrapi has gone through a cycle of growth characterized by her own outlook on the way her life is turning out and the way her country is evolving. Marjane very often becomes depressed and cynical on the way things are going in her life and often falls into a state where she criticizes herself and her surroundings and loses all motivation. After all this the next step of the cycle begins to manifest itself through an almost epiphany-like realization where she realizes where she is going wrong and changes, usually in a way that further emphasizes her westernized idealogies. In the last section of book 2, Marjane goes through this viscous multiple times before she finally breaks out of it.

Once Marjane starts evaluating her life again, she starts to fall into this depressive state that she has struggled with in the past. This time, though, she takes it to the final step and attempts suicide multiple times. Both times failed and she lived to have yet another epiphany: that she “was not made to die”. She finally took her life into her own hands and began to help herself again by exercising, wearing makeup, dressing nicer, and attending parties with new friends again. After reverting to her westernized self once again, a change starts to show in her. She is once again happy and satisfied with the way things are going. Whenever Marjane finally frees herself and begins to adopt her modern ways again she begins to show happiness once again. The suppression of her expression and freedom has thrown her into this previously mentioned cycle and just serves to drive her more towards a modern and free way of living.

Marjane finds herself with a boyfriend and happily in a group of people who support her free spirit but things once again start to go wrong. The state begins to suppress their western ways and cause a lot of trouble in their lives as usual but Marjane also finds herself getting married. At first she sees marriage as a way to stop hiding her relationship with her boyfriend and is quite excited for it. In the end she realizes that, though she is now free to express her love for her husband, she also caved and had to tie herself down to him in order to do it. She also realized that she was conforming to the ways the oppressive government wanted her to do things. She grows distant with her husband and she also begins to find herself in a state of laziness and depression as before. This time though it is her father who is able to bring her out of it. By bringing her books, she once again finds herself in new company and changing her ways. She joins an intellectual community and she expresses her opinions once again, yet she is still tied down to her husband. She once again looks cynically down upon the Iranian people and their traditionalism.

She sees the people who ignorantly live happily in an oppressive state and she sees herself becoming one of them as she is tied down to her husband. She once again realizes it is time for change. This cynicism that she once again adopts is what fuels her to finally divorce her husband and move back west. The western culture that we see every day was such a huge influence in her life that by seeing the contrast of it to her own homeland she couldn’t stand to live there anymore. The conflicting nature of her own ideologies and spirit and the states oppressiveness and traditionalism caused her to fall into a cycle that caused her a lot of undue grief.

Marjane had trouble all her life with her modern ideas influenced by her parents and her stay in Austria. The conflicting natures of the west and Iran caused a lot of inner conflict with her and set her into a cycle of depression and happiness. It always seems that the happiness accompanies her freedom and return to modern culture while the depression always accompanies her realization of her disgust towards that society. Marjane obviously needs a freedom that her country could not provide her and is more accustomed to western culture. Only under these circumstances will she be happy.

On Cynicism and Martyrdom with Marjane’s Return

In our last post, we discussed what it was like for Marjane to move to Austria. The Austrian culture was quite different from that of Iran. Marjane was very shocked and conflicted at first by the westernized culture. Attitudes on sex, entertainment, drugs, diversity, and even freedom were much looser there than what Marjane was used to. Marjane was shocked by all of the new freedoms and even some unpleasantness with living in a western society. Towards the end of book two, she moved back to Iran after a long couple months of vagrancy and wandering. Marjane had adapted so much in her adult life to western culture that her return to Iran was even a bit shocking.

Iran hadn’t changed much since her departure. Iran was still quite militaristic and traditional. Marjane had seen absolutely no militarism in Europe unlike in Iran. Iranian culture was very much defined by its religiously driven militarism unlike Austria. Though Austria saw a few acts of rebellion in the form of student protests and anarchist gatherings, but none came close to violence and none caused the amount of conflict as the wars in Iran did. The largest difference between Marjane’s time in Austria and her time in Iran was the militarism in Iran versus the peacefulness and freedom in Austria.

Iranian militarism defined their culture and their way of life. The most prominent aspect of this culture was martyrdom where one finds absolute glory and joy in death on the battlefield. Iranian soldiers found death to be the ultimate release and those that survived actually wished for death  in their religious zeal for suicide was not an option. Marjane was very saddened by this when she returned Iran. The streets were named after martyrs, the buildings were covered in propaganda, and their was absolute disregard of human life for the sake of battle and religion. The obsession with war and death for a traditionalist religion was something that was absolutely foreign to someone who had spent the past 4 years in the west. This glorification of death is something that is not seen at all in the west. One doesn’t enter the military with hopes of death or martyrdom in Western Europe and the United States.

Marjane also has changed much herself coming back to Iran. With her rebellious thirst quenched in the west, Marjane truly turns from punk to cynic upon her return to Iran. Marjane now abandons a lot of her old rebellious behavior and radical dissension for a more reserved cynicism. The west allowed her to be as free as possible so her punk attitude was no longer necessary there. Upon returning to the middle east, Marjane finds herself once again oppressed and helpless. Iran is very different from the west in this way as we have talked about in previous posts. Marjane’s ultimate cynicism once returning is just even more indicative of its oppressive nature in comparison to western culture.

We can see a lot of changes in Marjane upon her return to Iran. All the militarism and suppression is a stark contrast to her experience in Western Europe those 4 past years. With a newly developed cynicism, Marjane is now back in Iran and the differences in culture are already very strongly emphasized. With yet another culture shock, it is very evident how very different our two societies are.

Culture Shock: Marjane’s Big Move

In our last post we discussed how Iranian culture and Marjane’s upbringing differs from that of a more westernized culture like the United States. Iranian culture, according to Persepolis, was very conservative and traditionalist back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This contrasts heavily with the very liberal and more contemporary culture of the United States. Marjane experienced a lot of oppression and had to suppress most of her beliefs from the rest of society. Towards the end of the first book, Marjane’s opinions and actions were starting to make it very dangerous to remain in Iran especially during the war and under the strict Islamic regime. Marjane finally ends up fleeing the country to Austria where her experience drastically changes.

Marjane’s move to Austria was completely influenced by her parents fear for of her safety and for her numerous rebellions against the strong Islamic culture. In her move to Austria, she was immersed into a radical culture on the opposite end of the spectrum from where she was from. Austria was very westernized, similar to the United States where we are from, and gave her a new perspective on the world. This radical change is able to emphasize the many differences between our two cultures.

From the beginning, it can be seen that in this westernized culture, diversity is widely accepted. When Marjane meets her new roommate on page 161, she notices immediately the differences when she can barely even communicate with her because of their language barrier. Even when she summarizes her new group of friends she emphasizes the diversity in it. On page 167 she notes that her new group of friends consists of “an eccentric, a punk, two orphans, and a third worlder”. All of them have very different political views and talk of them openly, and many are interested in very different things, even death. None of this is frowned upon and their diversity is very accepted in the community. Such diversity from her home country would be absolutely unheard of and Marjane is both excited and overwhelmed to be part of such a diverse group.

Other than just diversity, you can see that even sex is thought of in a very liberal manner in the new culture. Marjane is both interested but disgusted of the openness of her new roommate, Julie, on page 182. Western culture embraces sexuality as not just normal but as a way of life. In Persian culture, sex before marriage is an offense that can be punishable by whippings, beatings, and even death. You can see the strictness of the laws on premarital sex by reading the following link on laws in the middle east.

http://voices.yahoo.com/countries-where-sex-outside-marriage-crime-138309.html

Marjane is also very shocked with the different methods of entertainment and having fun between the two cultures. Marjane was “turned off by all [the] public displays of affection”(185) and by the use of marijuana instead of more traditional partying methods like music and dancing. In Iran, the Satrapis had to hide the fact that they were even having parties because they were strictly forbidden along with drinking and any signs of western culture like modern music and fashion. In contrast, we can see Marjane’s experience in Austria was much different.

Marjane finally experienced a bit of western culture and adopted some of it as well when she moved to Austria. She experienced a bit of a culture shock and was excited by some of it, and turned off by some. Marjane’s culture shock, depicted in the reading, serves as an emphasis on the contrast between a westernized culture, like the United States, and culture in the Middle East.

Introduction to Persepolis

There are very many differences between culture in Marjane Satrapi’s, Persepolis and the culture in the United States today. Most notable of those differences are the way the youth are raised in both areas of the world. In Iran most youth faced a lot of oppression and were forced into conservative values throughout their upbringing. In contrast, American children grow up with choices and freedom to do with their lives what they want. In Persepolis, most children were segregated based on race, culture and gender as you can see on page 4 of the book where Marjane’s school was closed down by the state and those that attended it were separated into different groups based on the previously stated guidelines. On top of this, on the same page you could see that all females were required to wear veils now instead of being able to choose their own dress and show their hair. This culture is very different from what we see in the United States today. Could you imagine being a woman and having to cover every inch of your body? Or not being able to be around those of a different culture or sex? The United States views diversity with a much less conservative lens, in that those of a different background can interact and even integrate with others. Here in the United States, being different is celebrated, not shunned or frowned upon. The two societies outlook on diversity are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

On top of the segregation and discrimination, even those who believed in capitalism and decadence were persecuted as you can see by the leader portrayed on page 4 of the book. This affected not just the children but even the adults in the Iranian society. If you demonstrated different political views other than that of the state then you were tortured and even killed for your opinions. Even dancing and alcohol consumption faced major consequences as you can see on page 108 of the book where Marjane’s father was held at gunpoint outside his car simply for suspicion of drinking. In the United States, capitalism is the unanimously agreed upon way of life and decadence is glorified.  Drinking and partying and dancing are a very big way of life and none of that is punishable by torture or even death. If suppression of enjoyment and opinions wasn’t enough, even love was suppressed in Iranian society as well. Mehri, the Satrapi’s housemaid, was prevented from loving their neighbor on page 36 of the book. Her lower social class caused her inability to form a relationship with the man after he found out about her status. In America, anyone can marry anyone, regardless of their success or upbringing. All aspects of life whether you are young or old are affected by the oppressive Iranian government.

In Persepolis, a society is portrayed that is very opposite of our own in the United States. The government is very oppressive and dictates exactly how you live your life when it comes to your opinion, love, methods of enjoyment, and even your social class or ethnicity. The United States gives its citizens a choice, something that is almost unheard of in the Iranian society. This is something we hope to continually explore in the context of Satrapi’s book.