Monday, August 30, 2010

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Blog 14)

"I didn't know what justice was. Now that the revolution was finally over once and for all, I abandoned the dialectic materialism of my comic strips. The only place I felt safe was in the arms of my friend." (Satrapi 53)

This clip of the comic strip hit me sort of hard, and bounced around my mind quite a bit. A question has been asked at what point do we allow the children to risk safety to stand up to what they believe, and at what point do we keep them in the safety of a protected environment?

I reread the story, and realized how much there is being tossed around. Marji moves from hearing everything but being allowed to act on nothing, forming thoughts and ideas on her own in her mind. She started seeing contradictions in her own home and what was being said (like when she spoke about riding in the Cadillac on page 6 and 33) so she decided to protest anyway. She goes on to hear about what happened and is told to forgive, justice will be served. A bit later, her mother tells her that "bad people are dangerous but forgiving them is too. Don't worry, there is justice on earth." But when thinking about all those who were lost and everything Marji was told up through this point, how can a child understand and process all that is to be done? It is confusing enough for an adult to be supporting and fighting for a cause, as more information comes out thoughts usually change at least slightly, but how does a child take it all?

This quote spells it pretty clearly, sometimes no matter how badly we want to fight for something, we need to take the time to process it all. When it came down to it, the only constant, reliable thing in Marji's life was God. What a scary place to be as a child.

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