Poem in relationship to Persepolis[FION]

I have chosen the poem called "Much Madness is divinest Sense" by Emily Dickinson and relate this to Persepolis.

Much Madness is divinest Sense-
To a discerning Eye-
Much Sense-the starkest Madness-
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail-
Assent- and you are sane-
Demur- you’re straightway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain-

To begin this, I will talk about the poem itself first.

To understand this poem better, we need to know the reason for Emily Dickinson to write this poem. Dickinson spent most of her life time in her birth place, Amherst, Massachusetts. It was known that she had "a dictatorial husband and a tyrannical father." Since she didn't make contact with the outside world, much of her knowledge of the outside world comes from the books she read. For a year, Dickinson was sent to a school called South Hadley Female Academy; however, because she didnt' adapt to the new environment and the strictly religious atmosphere, she returned home, and gradually step away from social activities. After a few more years, she started to confine herself in her father's house and didnt' leave that house even until her death in 1886.

No one exactly know when this poem was written, but it was guess that "Much Madness is divinest Sense"was written in 1862. This was during the nineteenth century which woman had many limitations. Many believed that this poem "demonstrates an anger and battle against the limits imposed by the authoritarian male upon the nineteenth century intellectual female."

Relationships.
“Much Madness is Divinest Sense- / To a discerning Eye-." From these two lines, I think, Dickinson is not only rebelling against the men who make the rules which lessens the status of women in the society, but also against the women who blindly accepted them. Just like in Persepolis where every woman needs to wear a veil, although obviously, it is an unfair rule to women, most of them obeyed to it. Like what Dickinson was referring to, society was "madness" however some women sees it as "divines sense" because they dont' have "discerning eyes."

‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail-

Notice that Emily Dickinson capitalized "Majority" and "All," maybe she is trying to put it as a remider that "majority" and "all" didn't truely had the power. Therefore "Majority" and "All" in this case, only applies to men "as All, prevail." This was the society Marjane was in, where men had all the power.

Assent- and you are sane-(1
Demur- you’re straightway dangerous-(2
And handled with a Chain-(3

1) If you agreed with the "Marjority" you'll be fine.
2)If you disagreed with the "Marjority" then you'll be dangerous even if you are right.
3)When you disagreed, you have to face the consequences.

This was Iran.

One day at school, the teacher said that since Islamic republic was found, they no longer have political prisoners. Marjane corrected her teacher by saying that islamic regime does ordered execution and she gave the example of Anoosh which infuriated the teacher. At last she got kicked out of the school: reason being is that she told the truth.

Class act Week 6[FION]

This panel was brought up by Mr.McGuigan.
This the first time that Marjane speaks up to the readers telling exactly what is in her mind unlike the panels from the previous pages where she only makes eye contacts. With only eye contacts the readers can only infer what is Marjane is trying to bring out through the panel.

In this panel, Marjane said "we confronted the regime as best we could," meaning she is not satisfied with the rules and laws by the government in her country; this surely shows her rebellious attitude as if she is saying "this book is mine, I can do what ever I want."


In class Kelvin also brought up a very interesting idea of the cover where the main characters in Persepolis are looking at a person beside them, which forms a cycle. I think this cycle starts with Marjane's dad--> then Marjane's mom--> Marjane's Grandma--> LIttle Marjane--> Anoosh--> Big Marjane. The ending point of this cycle is big Marjane since this cover shows the important people in her life who affected or influenced her to become who she is(the end point to the circle!). These people in the cover therefore reflect to the growing process and experiences of Marjane Satropi.

Week Six: Literary Feature Hunt (Alice)

Literary Features Hunt
panel transitions

Today, I thought I had spent too little time trying out the literary features exclusive for graphic novels, so I tried to find the different types of panel transitions that Ms.Brownrigg taught us. I only had to skim through the end of the book to realize that it was literally everywhere. They were used in wide ranges to describe and emphasize unique moments in her life.

The first one I found was "moment-to-moment transition":

Pg. 304

These three consecutive panels (and gutters in between) show the growing number of students who wanted the freedom to draw people without veils or without having to "draw [a] man while looking at the door" (300). The gutters naturally weave the panels together to actually visualize the increasing crowd. Since it shows a subject's passage of time, I believe it is a moment to moment trannsition.

The next one is "action-to-action transition".

Pg. 307~309

The two pages have no narration or speech bubble, which is unique throughout the entire Persepolis. Since it only shows moving figures, it is an action-to-action transition, no doubt.

Following it is the"subject-to-subject transition".

Pg. 320

Again, the three consecutive panels. They each show a person's opinion on the Iraq attacking Kuwait. The passage of time is minute, or the panels might be depicting the same moment.

Finally, the "scene-to-scent transition".

Pg. 154

I immidiately found the blank page that Fion mentioned in one of her posts. If it is assumed as a gigantic gutter, then the last panel on page 153 and the first panel on page 155 can be seen as a scene-to-scene transition, because on the former panel, Marjane is in Iran; then suddenly she is living in Austria. Ms.Brownrigg described this transition as "transporting the reader across "significant distances of time and space." (16th slide of Comics-Vocab ppt.) I think the panels and the blank page fits into that definition nicely.

Week Six: Snippet (Alice)

Snippet

Page 316

This page describes the process of Marjane and Reza's wedding. Although it should be a joyous event, Marjane does not look happy at all, except for the first panel. When she and Reza got crumbs of sugar loaves sprinkled on their heads to bring joy and prosperity, Marjane is pouting. Also, she is looking away from Reza in the fourth panel, which suggests that she is doubting if the marriage will indeed start out on a sweet note like the ritual bids them. Furthermore, as Marjane is following her mother and answering various people's questions, she puts on a mask (psst! a motif!), a fake smile on her lips. Finally, the last panel on this page--showing her walking down a dark corridor--seems to pmply that her marriage will turn out to be a dark passage, and a lonely one, too. This turns out to be true in the end of the book, because Marjane accuses Reza of being a hermit: "you never want to go out! If I have to go everywhere alone, what's the point of living together?" (Satrapi, 319) What's more, they never look at each other during the their wedding! This observation led me to believe that this entire page is full of carefully-disguised forshadowing details.

Week Six: comment on Harroop's blog ---(Alice)

Harroop brought out an interesting question worth keeping in mind while reading through Persepolis: "Where does our identities come from?" She thought that they derive from our heritage, our peers and some from the media. I definitely agree with this, because Satrapi spends most of her time in Vienna struggling to find out who she is. When the question is applied on her, Satrapi's "identity" has an Iranian ancestry and European friends and abundance of books; but her source of information of current events are weak because News was censored in Iran and she didn't want to hear the news of her mother country when she was abroad.

While pondering about this question, I was naturally led to the motif of her being an outsider. Then it became a sort of a chain reaction--questions following questions. If indeed our identities have roots, then do people with the same background have the same identitiy? That being the case, in a world of 6 billion people, can a true "outsider" exist?

I found these questions very complex. There are other factors to consider, like genetics and environment, and also statistics. My knee-jerk reaction to this question was to say yes to both of these questions, though they are not completely true. I think as long as we are humans that share many similar characteristics (physical and mental), our identities can be identical to an extent. The variation might depend on individual's experience; I do nto believe anyoneone can do the same thing and feel exactly the same about it; riding a rollercoaster, for example. Some people like it, some are scared of it. If the hypothesis, "our backgrounds make up our identities" was true, and people knew about it, then we would have had tons of einsteins and live in a super-developed world.

Week SIX! [snippit] FION

In page 304, Satropi tries to tell the reality that was happening in Iran: although people are are under strict laws which restrict them to do many things, for example partying and putting on make up, people still do it on their own time. "Are the laws effective?" this may be a question that Satropi wants to ask us.

As you can see, the majority of this panel depicts the real life of the people while only a portion of it shows the official representation of Iran. This signifies the majority of these people actually enjoys freedom, as a matter of fact, only the minority obeys to the strict freedom-less rules under theocracy. Also the photo of the official representation of Iran is in front of the partying atmosphere background, seems like it's telling us that these laws are very superficial just like the photo is(in the surface). Underneath the photo, there are many people who enjoys themselves and to do what is against to the laws. So, are the laws effective? Seems like a no. The more extreme the laws get, the more the people go against it.

Week Five--comments (Alice)

Comments

Manny mentions an interesting panel on page 257. In the last panel of the page, Satrapi is lonely and seems to melt into the background. We talked about a similar panel on page 169, where she is again, lonely and blends in with the background. If drawings can have a motif, I think this might be it.