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Aaron Krug Critical Essay #1
26 October 2004
UNST 121D
Newlands
Curiosity Killed the Cat
Persepolis is the story of a young girl living with her parents in Tehran, Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In an innovative and original way she tells this story through her own eyes as she remembers it from when she was a child. This allows her to tell the story with a kind of objective innocence, while still using her art to convey personal meaning and connection to the events in the book. Her illustrations in the graphic novel are in no way complex, making it an easy book to comprehend, as well as allowing her to talk about deeply confusing and complex times in a non-intimidating manner.
When a subject mentions the Islamic Revolution, most people just acknowledge it in an abstract sense and go on, even though they don’t really know what the Islamic Revolution was. The actions, times, and places described in Persepolis were anything but normal in the life of Iran, and anyone living through it had to endure much hardship, especially if you were a woman. Not knowing about this can seriously hinder one’s ability to understand Persepolis, and will definitely not allow one to realize the feat which Satrapi has accomplished by bringing this first-hand information from inside Iran to us in an interesting and engaging manner. Satrapi doesn’t really explain the details of what is going on, because she is telling the story through her own experiences as a child, so she doesn’t understand completely what is going on. It is almost like she grasps the plot of what is going on around her but not the themes. It is for this reason I will provide some background information.
The Islamic revolution was a time of political upheaval in Iran. Unhappy with the current leader, Mohammad Reza Shah, the people of Iran, supported by the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, began to demonstrate heavily against the regime. The Shah used the secret police force to keep the demonstrators in check, killing and imprisoning many, thereby imposing fear in the hearts of any who would dare join the revolution. Over time, the people prevailed, and on January 16, 1979, the Shah left the country, unable to control his own people.
It was at this time that Khomeini returned to the country, setting up his own government and killing any of the Shah’s supporters that could be found. An election was held in which one question was asked: Islamic Republic, Yes or No. The republic passed, and a permanent government was set up according to Khomeini’s religious guidelines. These rules included strict dress codes for women, with harsh punishment for disobedience. Unfortunately for Iran, they had replaced totalitarianism with fundamentalism.
Seeing Iran as a nation weakened by infighting and civil revolution, Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. Iran was caught by surprise at first, but was able to hold its own defensively. Throughout the next few years much political unrest followed in Iran, all the while still at war with Iraq, until August 20, 1988. It is this period of Iran’s history that is known as the Islamic Revolution; these are the events in which Satrapi lived through, and this is the world in which her perspective of life was shaped. (History)
Persepolis tells these disturbing events through the eyes of a child in a simple, straightforward manner, disarming the reader from their previous bias concerning that particular set of events. From the child Marjane’s misunderstandings about revolution in her country to her childhood games of persecuting a young boy because of his father’s beliefs, she reflects the ideas and actions of the adults in Iran without asking us to condemn them. This allows us to look at the events with an objective point of view.
The graphic novel has many ways of communication, rather than just the written word of the regular novel. Many times the picture means as much or more than the words printed in the caption. In Persepolis the picture is often used to convey the feeling of the moment, with the words filling us in on the facts. It also allows us to have a deeper connection with the characters, because the images of them let us feel like we know them.
Satrapi lived through many hard times, but as a child, she only grasped the concept of what was going on, rather than its meaning for her and the implications it had. This is evident in the Veil section of the story, where her only real concern was the fact that she must wear the veil, and not so much what it meant for all women in her country. This actually has its good points, because the story doesn’t overwhelm us with the whole of Iran’s misfortune, but only with a single person’s experience representative of the rest. It is important to note, however, that Satrapi’s family was pretty well off in Iran, and was probably not subject to many of the things that people of a lower economic standing were, or at least not to the same degree.
Some might say that Satrapi was blissfully ignorant of her surroundings as a child, but when you read the text carefully, you find that she has a strong desire to understand and participate in the world around her. From her talks with her Uncle, her curiosity about Dialectic Materialism, and even when she spoke to God, she had fervent desire to know what she cannot or should not. Her parents worry about her because she wants to know, but they realize the importance of understanding, and they try to explain the things going on around them to her in the most delicate way, leaving out many of the details which Satrapi would only come to know later in life. Even with this atmosphere of openness, Satrapi wants to know more, and continued in her efforts to become involved. She went out to protest on Black Friday, quizzed her uncle and grandmother about everything, and tried to gain the knowledge that only experience can teach.
Roger Shattuck in his book, Forbidden Knowledge, would classify this sort of action as “Knowledge Prohibited by Divine, Religious, Moral, or Secular Authority” (329). Indeed, many of the incidents that occurred in the book can be related to this type of forbidden knowledge. Her fascination with things forbidden to her, such as the Nike shoes, Michael Jackson button, and western music can all be related to this. There are numerous other examples all through the story of Satrapi wanting to reach beyond the limits that have been set before her; limits set by her parents, her schools, and even her government. Her curiosity for the forbidden knows no bounds. In the Black Friday incident, she even went so far as to put herself in harm’s way to know what it was like to be one of the protesters. One cannot read through this book without seeing that it is curiosity that drives young Satrapi.
There is another aspect of this forbidden knowledge, and that is Satrapi’s internalization and subsequent externalization of her curiosity. In the beginning of her book, she asks God most of her questions. She accepts his answers and applies them, sating her rabid curiosity in this manner. Then after she becomes angry with God she sends him away and refuses to speak to him. In doing this she is almost announcing to herself and the world that she is no longer happy with the answers given to her, and she will now seek out the information that she wants to know on her own, without regard for the consequences of her actions. These are both aspects of what Shattuck has defined as Forbidden Knowledge (329).
The actions and incidents described in this book are extreme, but share many similarities to things that happen to all of us in our own lives. Knowledge is being forbidden to us all the time. Our government has lied to us about many things, not the least of which were Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, to more recently the so-called “War on Terror.” These things effect each and every person living in America, as well as nations abroad. Times like these make one wonder how many other things we have been lied to about. Another form of our government forbidding knowledge is withholding information in the name of national security. What does that mean, and how would this knowledge jeopardize our safety? Who makes the decisions on what is withheld and what isn’t? And, like young Satrapi in Iran, doesn’t that just make us more curious?
Even closer to my experience are my parents. I can relate to Satrapi’s desire to have the music and posters forbidden to her, because for a long time, my parents forbade me certain music and knowledge of certain subjects for fear that I would not be able to fully understand them and therefore be indirectly influenced by it in an unintended manner, much like Satrapi and her experience with Dialectic Materialism. Her parents also sugar-coated some subjects for the same reason. This action, often taken by parents, can, at times, have the opposite effect, as it did with me and smoking. I was never told anything about smoking, except that it was bad for me and I should never do it. I think this made me far more curious about it than I ever had been before, and when I met people who smoked, I wanted to try. I have now been a committed smoker for five years.
We are all affected by knowledge forbidden by an outside source, and many times we don’t even realize it. When we do, like Satrapi, we are often more curious than we were before, just because of its forbidden nature. This curiosity complex was often the motivation for Satrapi to learn and try to understand, and is many times the same case for the rest of us. Satrapi’s curiosity sometimes got her into trouble, as it has with me. Though she didn’t die, the consequences of her rebellious nature were at times very large and long lasting. Indeed, maybe ‘curiosity killed the cat’ was a warning that should’ve been heeded.
Works Cited