Harroop's Persepolis: Week 5

Mirrors by Sylvia Plath:

• Through out the book I think Marjane is always searching for her identity and she does not figure out who she is and who she wants to be. I found a poem called "Mirrors"by Sylvia Plath, and its very beautiful and it links a lot to Persepolis. When she we look into the mirror we usually just look to see how we look but sometimes when we are unhappy with ourselves we try to find the kind of person we are, and looking into a mirror represents this. Marjane also does this in persepolis on page 291 after she falsely accuses a man of harassing her, and her grandmother yells at her with disappointment. In this last panel she looking at the mirror at herself because her grandmother yelled at her for the first time but I think it represents that she is looking at herself and searching for her identity and looking at why she did that because shes against rebellion and is someone who does not believe in the guardians of the revolution and the way the control everything.

Snippets:

• On page 317 we start to that Marjane is realizing who she is and is starting to find her true idenitity right after her marriage with Reza which is strange because after your marriage people like to be happy at least the first day but shes "I had become "A married women," I had conformed to society , while I had always wanted to remain within the margins. In my mind, "a married women"wasn't like me. The picture in that panel is of Marjane starring at the reader behind bars like a prisoner which is exactly what she did not want she wanted to step away from what everyone did and wanted freedom but instead she did exactly what she did not want and that is to do what society wants people to do. Her marriage might have been the only way she could confront herself with what she really wanted in life. I repeated this quotation because I think this shows something about her idenitity.
• Somtimes the kind of hair we have shows the kind of person we are or sometimes we change are hair to define a change in our life or to start out fresh, But in Persepolis this happens a number of times to show the changes which Marjane faces and will face her veil represented something different but the style of her haircut shows a major a change which occured in her life. Like on page 241 her hair is messy and down but then when she recovers at the hospital her hair is tied up as if Satrapi is representing that she is put together now and is better. Then on pages 273 when she tries to kill herself she has her down and it does not look to good like on page 241 when she is in Viennal; however, her hairstyle changes again on page 274 when she wants to start out fresh. This is a representation of why the medium of a graphic novel is so interesting because if this was a novel it would be harder to say that she changed her hairstyle again to start out fresh but in a graphic novel she just has a change and she can show it with a different haircut.