Week 7--Salty Persepolis?

I wasn't a huge fan of the Book of Salt. However, I really enjoy reading Persepolis! I like the idea that she uses a graphic novel to tell her story. She talks about serious topics like war, religion, and Iraq's history, but by telling it through a comic like way, she makes these topics easier to read. There's something about comics that makes the story humorous and almost relatable. If this were a novel, the material would be serious and would have a different effect on the reader. Also, by showing pictures, the author shows the reader what she wants to convey. I could see the Marji's and the other character's feelings through the pictures. The reader gets the exact meaning. I remember someone in class mentioning that she does not know much about Marji's culture, and she would've had a different understanding of the story if this were a novel instead of a graphic novel. 

 I can see the theme of feminism in this novel because Marji wants to be a liberated and educated woman in a society that changed to a more conservative lifestyle. She lived through the transition of her culture from being liberal to conservative, and she wants to be able to go back to the liberal lifestyle.  

This story caught my eye after our readings this week:

U.S. officials are looking into the arrest of an Iranian-American student who was working on her thesis project on women's rights in Tehran. Esha Momeni, a grad student at Cal State-Northridge, was arrested on Oct. 15 for unlawfully passing another vehicle while driving. She is being held in a section of Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, which houses many dissidents and political prisoners. At first, officials promised Momeni's family that she would be immediately released if the news of her arrest was not published, but when her parents went to Iran's Revolutionary Court five days later, they were told not to return until the investigation into her case had been completed. More information about the campaign for Momeni's release is available on the blog Free Esha. [CNN]

While I enjoyed Book of Salt, I so far really enjoy Persepolis.  This is the first book we've read that I can say right from the beginning, I know why we're reading this in a feminist studies class.

I think graphic novels are great, because the story is basically told twice at the same time.  The words are still telling the story, but the pictures just add to it.  I love putting my own images to the text I'm reading, but sometimes, when there's a lot of dialogue, I'm not sure if I'm understanding the emotions correctly.  I love graphic novels because I understand how the dialogue is meant to be felt.  Also, in my opinion it is so easy to feel a connection with  Marjane, because the way she acts reminds me of any child.  And its fun to watch her grow up.

            When considering the power of images verses words, I really feel that it is all about the attitude taken when considering an image or a written work. If a person takes a rigid approach to analyzing a work, visual or literary, they are limited to a strictly defined composition, content, construction etcetera.  While this extremely precise evaluation may be useful for scientific observations, this emotionless consideration of words and images is difficult for humans who base their knowledge on life experiences. When emotions, memories, and imaginations are allowed free range with an image or a written work the potential reactions from the reader are endless. The thing that hinders my decision about which is more powerful is the fact that they are so complementary. Words draw illustrations in the mind, but at the same time an image can inspire a story. But if concretely considering the division between words and images, there is still ambiguity in my mind because aren’t letters themselves images? I find Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese letters (characters) and words beautiful. Perhaps the emotions inspired from an unknown written language are similar to the connections created from listening to an unfamiliar language.             

When considering the power of words, I think that titles for papers can allow the author to create a hierarchy of the ideas in the paper, but also a title can simply act as a reference. I think it was Amanda who brought up the idea that titles are more similar to names. I imagined getting rid of the titles of all novels, articles, textbooks, etcetera. It would be terribly confusing! The only reference we could use would be the author and maybe the subject of the writing, but then describer is the one in control of creating the hierarchy of the ideas based on the details they chose to highlight.             

The idea that The Book of Salt is extremely progressive because it focuses on Bin as a person rather than an object of his sexuality makes me wonder if the creation of this work is a reflection on the progressiveness of the author or the society. The creation of the novel its self seems to be a reflection on the author, while the response to the novel is a reflection on the society.

I am really interested in talking about Tamar Lewin's article about the Sisters in the Middle East. The idea of recruiting in an area of the world where women are marginalized seems to be positive for women's college if, as pemwrez2009 propsed, a women's college is place for people who have been marginalized for their gender. I have recently been thinking about the role of women's colleges in the Middle East because Bryn Mawr is considering constructing a branch of BMC in the UAE under the umbrella of their larger university. At first I was very excited about the idea of spreading Bryn Mawr to other parts of the world. But when I proudly announced the idea to my boyfriend, he questioned whether opening women's colleges in the Middle East because women are sometimes not allowed to attend co-ed institutions only reinforces the divide of gender in their culture. Usually, I am not able to be presuaded about the importance of women's colleges and, as a tour guide, I can recite backwards and forwards the advantages to attending a women's college. But as I started thinking about what it means to me to be at Bryn Mawr, it seemed as though perhaps reinforcing the purposeful and cultural divide between the genders can work against the feminist cause. Attening a women's college because you want to is extremely empowering. But attending a women's college because you are unable to attend a co-ed college, because a women's college is your only option for secondary education, seems to be a step backwards. Though it is empowering for me to attend Bryn Mawr now, as an institution that was created at the end of the nineteenth century for the "education" of women, I guess I just wonder whether or not the construction of women's colleges today is actually progressive. I also think that the women's colleges that are being set up in the Middle East are not, as Lewin points out, the same as the Sisters: "While single sex schools in the Middle East are protected enviroments, reflecting women's traditional roles in Muslim society, the American colleges...are liberal strongholds where students fiercely debate political action, gender identity, and issues like 'heteronormativity'" (Lewin 1). This statement makes me question whether a branch of Bryn Mawr in the UAE will actually be a Bryn Mawr in the Middle East or whether it will be just be a method for maintaining the traditional female roles of Muslim society. Certainly, I would not support putting Bryn Mawr's name on an institutution that is not in support of breaking down the structure of gender roles and gender identity. I think that in creating a women's college today, we can not return to the model on which the college was founded. Is it really even possible to recreate Bryn Mawr as it is today in the environment of the Middle East?

Textually, Persepolis is a very quick read. It was not infrequently that I found myself hardly looking at the pictures at all, experiencing the book instead as a quick succession of dialogue combined with blurbs of (often setting-related) narration. I've noticed this preference for text in subtitled movies and television programs with closed captioning: even if I understand the language the people on screen are speaking, I can hardly tear my eyes from reading the text long enough to actually watch what they are doing and saying. I'm wondering if this is a common experience, or if it has something to do with my being an English major and someone who reads a lot. A friend of mine was skimming through Persepolis before I began reading it and advised that it would only take a couple of hours to read because graphic novels are so much quicker than conventional, textual novels. I am coming to think that this is not actually the case: it is true that I spent less time reading the pages of Persepolis than I spent reading the pages of Middlesex, but I fear that it is only because I, dependent on text, did not give the images the time they deserved.

When I did catch myself not paying attention to the visuals, I would go back to more-thoroughly examine the frames and end up spending a lot of time trying to analyze Satrapi's artistic style. I was intrigued by the use of only black and white. In uncountable instances, it is only possible to tell the outlines of the figures by (perhaps unconsciously) assuming their shape. Take the whole-page image on p42, for example: most of these "shirts" are not actually outlined; instead, we have to infer their borders by where the patterns end. When an outline is physically drawn to distinguish between two different objects of the same color, it must by necessity be of the other or opposite color: see p95, on which each girl is separated by lines of white. Often, Satrapi could have avoided the necessity of outlining in the opposite color by making the entire background that opposite color; instead, she chooses to illustrate people in the same color as their background. This has interesting implications for the understanding of people as separate individuals: either they have to be clearly separated from their surroundings, or the literal lines between them and their surroundings become unclear and distinguishable only based on assumptions.

One thing that struck me was how much watching or gazing went on in the story. Skimming through again you could see this on:

male/gov't/guardians gaze: 4,5,14, 55,60, 66, 75, 76, 105, 108, 109, 110, 125, 129, 132-4, 143

There were also warnings/stories about torture, and once torture specific to women on p 145.

To sum up, I interpreted this as a theme of control. I also think it is interesting to see that a person wasn't allowed to 'gaze' back (p 29) you see the father, Ebi, is feared for being dead because he takes photographs.This suggests that watching something gives you power of what or who you watch.

She mentions several times a desire to educate herself, to gain clarity of a situation, but I think also to gain power.

I thought this was an interesting quotation:

"we were not in the same social class but at least we were in the same bed" p37

Why is every think in the upper case? Is this important or just a minor detail?

I'm not sure if this a me thing or a reader of this book thing, but I really identified with the main character Marji.

The graphics combined with words in Persepolis allow me to be further invested in the characters and their immediate emotions. I find that the images allow for the reader to provide their own more specific interpretation of the dialogue, while a worded description of an emotional reaction is less personal. The graphics also provide contradictions to the dialogue and statements about the plot that are vital to the novel. For example, in the beginning of the novel, when the narrator is talking to God and considering him as a friend and savior, there is a drawing where she asks him to be quiet and "wait a second" in order to hear the burning of the Rex Cinema. In this drawing, God is unaware of the burning and merely a spectator in her life, making a huge statement about the author's belief in fate and God's actual control over the wars of her country.

A theme I find incredibly interesting in this novel is the differences in beliefs between the different generations of women. Satrapi is vibrant and ready to revolt. She sees justice where it is present, and is aware of the irony when justice is not present. For instance, she describes the newly established dress codes for fundamentalist citizens, and she describes the "justness" of men having codes just as much as women do. Satrapi's mother reacts more from a place of motherhood and wifehood to the politics and war. Her deeply personal reaction to the men telling her she deserves to be raped and killed is an example of her personalization of the political within the private sphere. Satrapi, on the other hand, constantly wants to take her personal into the political sphere. When she hears of a classmate's father killing many innocent people, she leads a group of people to torture that classmate, making a political statement for that personal offense. However, she soon realizes the political is not straight-forward, and everyone's personal reaction to the political makes things extremely confusing. Satrapi's mother's most interesting contradiction is when she first tells her daughter that there is no justice in the world, but then says it is important to forgive because that is the only way there will ever be justice.