Iranian Escape The book I chose to read for the reading without walls challenge was The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I chose this book because it is about a character who doesn’t look or live like me, it is about a topic I knew very little about, and it is in a format I don’t normally read. Persepolis is a fairly long graphic memoir about the author, Marji, and her lifelong challenges stemming from her Iranian family. Marji was born in a dangerous time in Iran and went through her childhood facing war and frequent bombings. As she grew up, she began facing more and more legal challenges as a woman in Iran. She was forced to wear a long head-scarf, baggy pants, and clothes that left everything to the imagination. People in this time were not allowed any freedom for expression, and even simple things from music to alcohol to makeup and nailpolish to certain types of clothing and shoes were banned or frowned upon. Parties and fun gatherings were strictly prohibited and women were largely repressed. At about the age of fourteen, Marji’s parents decide it is best to send her to Vienna, Austria to keep her safely away from any bombings and allow her to be more free and expressive. Both during and after finishing her high school education, Marji faces many struggles against drugs and ends up homeless until she finally returns to Iran. Once home, she believes things will become much easier for her, but it ultimately just becomes more and more difficult for her. Reading about Marji’s life in a setting thirty years in the past and seven thousand miles away gave me an entirely new perspective. I used to know next-to-nothing about Iran, but after seeing the detailed description and images that Marjane provides in her story, my understanding has grown quite significantly. According the Persepolis, Iran is often a place that faces war and has nearly since its creation as a country. This story surprised me quite often with the unfair and claustrophobic laws that were getting updated and changed almost every day, and how living in a compressed society where everyone is expected to live almost exactly the same. Since I didn’t know very much about this topic, it very much changed my outlook on many things. The women in Iran were almost always fighting a war of their own, in which men of higher power were suppressing their creativity and hiding their true appearances with sexist laws that even said that women weren’t allowed to testify in a court of law. As many people would expect this to be happening very far in the past, laws like these were still in place and even still getting added to in 1990. This story brought me a whole new perspective about the ways that people should be able to express themselves, and the importance that feminism has even in our modern society. “Why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two inches less of my head-scarf?” - Marjane Satrapi By Maddie
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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