After reading Persepolis, I read a book (The Believer books of writers talking to writers) which includes an interview with Satrapi. In this book I could understand more about the author’s motivation and could feel how strong it was when she started drawing and writing her experience.
In her interview in Believer, Book of writers talking to writers, Satrapi says about her works. “There were things I didn’t plan, or really didn’t remember at first, that just came out." (Believer, p284) This shows how her motivation to write a novel was strong when she writes. Just like in Up to the Yangtze, Chang was shocked by modern China’s appearance, Satrapi was shocked by people who look Iran strangely and think they are different. She went to France and saw her nation was dealt with an extremely simple image in cable news, she says. “Just like in the U.S, where the people are not represented by Bush, in Iran the people are not represented by the Ayatollahs.”
She advocates for human’s similarities and she doesn’t say in her book which is right or wrong. I venture to guess this is related to her background that she could achieve as a “cultural bridge”. Her background is from a Middle East country but staying in the western country alone, it must be really hard. No question. Also she doesn’t say her family was very rich directly but we could find some clues. First her grandfather was prince and her father had a great vehicle. Second, she likes shopping in the book even when the war was occurred and her parents seemed highly educated if we see her parents’ dialogue. But when Marji was outside she could feel her surroundings and recognized how different it is compared to her secure condition. But whenever she interacts with people she finds people’s similarities, basic emotion such as love, grief, passion and so on. I think she tried to focus on human’s life in Iran rather than Iran.
Her novel is so popular that Persepolis was even translated to Israel. (I was surprised by this actually!) I think because she is not on a side but she embraces both of them. She is not only humanist but also fundamentalist. Her philosophy is that all human is same even they have some differences. Her neutral background and various experience seemed to influence her narration style and topics. If she was dealing with exaggerated national pride and telling about just Iran not Iranian’s life, I think it wouldn’t be successful like now.
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I had actually seen the movie before we read the book, and after watching it again I think you can see how she wants to focus on the people. I find it interesting that she chose to make her movie (and originally write her book) in French. Clearly it was for the French people. Because this is her audience, we can assume that she is trying to show the French the "human life" of Iran.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in the movie Satrapi relies more on her characters rather then her actual narration. Marji's grandmother and uncle Anoosh play much larger roles in the story of her childhood and self identiy. You can see this after telling a young man that she is French, Marji is walking down the street and her shadow is her grandmother telling herself to be proud of herself. This scene was not in the book.
The movie was obviously for someone not Iranian for the purpose of showing the "human life" of Iran.