Rough Draft Peer Review

My short draft was reviewed by three students – thank you! I got some positive comments and some negative ones – that was good! The positive comments are encouraging, while the negative ones help me to focus on the areas where I need to improve. There were three reasons for the negative comments, and they were all justified; so the students were doing their job! The reasons were: a- the draft was not complete, b- was lacking MLA citations, c- there were a couple of run-on sentences---I know this was true. This is kind of my writing style and I tend to use too many semicolons. The reason for that is I try to avoid using too many short sentences. Another comment was, “I am not sure what this paper is about.” That was a good comment, too. I am an aspiring writer, and I am here to learn. And I am learning. “Writing is hard work,” as Ms. Knapp often says.     

Persepolis: Taking Another Look

          The book Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, tells a powerful and fascinating story of a young school girl growing up in Iran during the time of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The book is a memoir of a very smart and equally ambitious young girl, who is being educated at a French non-religious school---for she was born into a well-to-do family.  Although Satrapi was only ten years old at the start of the revolution, she shows wit and wisdom beyond her years. This is demonstrated by the things that interested her at that young age; she seems more interested in having conversations with intelligent adults than with kids of her own age, with the exception of Mehri, the family's maid. The book is interesting and compelling for a number of reasons; the story is intriguing because it speaks of the social-political realities of Iran at the time of the revolution; and it also speaks of the oppression and injustice suffered by the people of Iran---at the hands of their own government---going back into ancient history. Pulling no punches, Satrapi weaves this fascinating story, and she puts it in the historical context of the people, the culture and the history of Iran---also known as Persia, its ancient and former name.

          Persepolis is such an interesting book that there’s no wonder why it has received so much praise from American institutions like the New Youk Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today, among others. The book is compelling even before one opens the first page of the book; just the title itself, Persepolis, is very appealing. The title is just one word, comes from the Greek, and it just flows off your lips very smoothly: Persepolis---it’s genius! And then the red color, which is a beautiful color, it’s all part of the design. I mean, the red is so red that if one looks carefully enough and closely enough, one can probably see the hammer and the sickle right on the book’s cover (now I did take a good look, but I am colorblind and have sort of a poor vision - for reals). 

          Additionally, the book’s cover has an illustrated picture of Satrapi---which was done by Satrapi herself---as a young girl, wearing the veil that she was forced into wearing. Also, the book is an illustrated book with very powerful images throughout the book---we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words---without the images the book would be a very small book. Furthermore, this is a story about a smart and beautiful young girl, who at every young age saw the injustice and suffering of her people, and she just wanted to make a difference. After reading the book, what else can one do but fall in love with her.

A draft... to be continued...

For My Formal Paper

For my Formal Paper, I’d like to do it on the book Persepolis. I find the book interesting and fascinating, and I would like to expand on the story of the book and the characters in it.

Ms. Knapp, do you think this is a good idea?

Thanks! :)

Thinking About Your Thinking

 

Wow! It’s good to learn something new every day! Lately I have being learning so much that my head is spinning like a trompo. Not only am I learning about ideas and about people I never heard of before, but some of these ideas even have Greek names --or at least they all sound Greek to me. I think that is the reason why my head feels like it is functioning in overdrive: too many Greek words in such a short time. On second thought, I also have been drinking more coffee lately, so that would be an alternate theory. I am referring to a new word I learned this week: metacognitive. If someone would have asked me a short time ago, what were my “metacognitive skills,” I would have answered that I had none, and that my health was excellent; because I would have assumed that they were talking about some kind of illness. But now I know that this has to do with, or is about, thinking about your thinking…

I think that thinking about your thinking is a good thing, if you really think about it. The brilliant French philosopher, writer and mathematician René Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) said it best when he said, “I think, therefore I am.” Now because Descartes was a Frenchman, he actually said it in French, “Je pense donc je suis.”

Now how often do we drink the kool-aid that is given to us and we swallow it, dead flies and all (ugh!!!), without thinking? I think this explains a lot of indigestion out there… but then again I am not a science major. I say this because I’ve been there... done that. For a long time, I was brainwashed by a certain political ideology; however, in the last seven years, or so, I began to see things very differently.         

To be continued… I still need to get to my main point…

Character Description

The protagonist, the main character in Persepolis is Marjane. Here I want to focus on how Marjane sees the heroes in this story. She is very much disappointed that her father is “not a hero” when she declares, “My father was not a hero, my mother wanted to kill people… so I went out to play in the street” (52). The picture here is of a little girl walking away very disillusioned that her father was not a hero. For her father to be a hero, she wanted him to have spent time in jail, be tortured or have his limbs cut off; anything less, disqualifies her father as a hero in Marjane’s eyes.  

However, I see her father differently: he is a good husband and a good father. Her father is an engineer; he is providing for and taking care of his family.  Her father is not a wimp (my word), he is going out to protest in the streets and he is taking pictures; by doing that, he was risking his life. Marjane laments about her father, “If only he had been in prison.” Then she just lies to some kids: “They cut my dad’s leg off, but he still didn’t confess!… so they cut off an arm as well” (54).

Marjane’s true heroes are: Siamak, Mohsen, Ahmadi, her uncle Anoosh (especially him) and her great-uncle Fereydoon. Siamak and Mohsen spent six and eight years in jail (47), respectively --sure they are heroes. And Ahmadi was horribly tortured before he was cut to pieces (51/52).

Now uncle Anoosh is Marjane’s great hero, and he is family. She declares, “And now I had a hero in my family… naturally I loved him immediately” (54). So Marjane slobbers all over him; then she goes to the kitchen and whips up hot chocolate for him and for her. She is seen carrying a tray with two cups, and the caption reads, "dialectic materialism?" They stay up late, so uncle Anoosh tells her his great story of how he swam across the Aras River and made it all the way to Moscow (if true, this is very interesting), where he was educated; he proudly tells her he got a doctorate in Marxism-Leninism (59). Interesting, he does not mention if in his studies he learned how many millions of people Lenin killed… but that’s another story.  

Is there a scene in the book that I relate to personally? Well… everyone has been in love at one time or another, right? The story that Anoosh tells about uncle Fereydoon and his girlfriend is fascinating! It’s a love story, and the girl is the bigger hero here because, without her, nothing happens. The man she is in love with is in jail, and she knows that he will be executed the next day, so she goes to see him for the last time (58). They are hugging tightly and she is crying while she proposes, “My love… let’s make a child.” He seems surprised and asks, “Here? Right now?” --“Yes," she replies, "I paid the guard. He won’t bother us.” So they consummate their love, and voilà!… a son was born in due time.  

Persepolis Part One: The Veil

The personal narrative of Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis is a powerful and compelling story. In the book, she tells us her personal experiences as a young school girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Marjane was born into a well-to-do family, and she was getting her education in a bilingual non-religious French school (4). Life was good for her and for her family. Her father drove a Cadillac, and her family had a maid. Although Marjane was only ten years old, she already knew what she was going to do with her life: she was going to be a prophet, “the first woman prophet,” and “the last prophet.” She had known this since she was six years old (4). However, the revolution put in power a dictatorship government. The first changes the dictators made: they closed down all bilingual schools, and made the veil obligatory to wear at school (3).
 
The main protagonist in Persepolis is Marjane herself, and she leaves no doubt about it. However, Marjane tells not just one story, but three stories in one; she gives us a quick lesson in the history of Persia (Intro.), tells the story of her family (22) and her own personal story. She pulls this triple-play very effectively. She traces the history of Persia way back to the second millennium B.C., and identifies the Persian people as descendants of the Medes and the Persians. She mentions Cyrus the Great (Intro.; 28; @footnote), who was a Persian emperor in the 6th. Century B.C. Marjane gives these important historical details, evidently, because she is very proud of the history and culture of her people.

What will happen to Marjane in the book? She will probably face a lot of drama and danger; and she will put herself in the center of it all; there will be many twists and turns, but she will not be the hero. Her attitude is that of a smart cookie. I am sure she was, and is, smart. Her tone in the book---at least I see it this way---is that she was smarter than both her mom and her dad. Let’s remember that she was only ten years old when all this drama started.

Marjane will also end up somewhat confused, but not too confused. Why do I say this? Marjane is only ten years old and she is idolizing Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (10). Where did she learn about these guys, in school? Were French schools teaching communism at that time? I have no idea. Her family was communist (22), but there’s no word that they had indoctrinated her at that young age, though that would have been more likely. Also her concept about God is misguided (13), in my view, but she is certainly free to believe what she chooses to believe.

In summary, the book is enjoyable to read, and I learn much from reading it. I especially enjoyed the Letter chapter (33) where she writes the love letters for the maid (35). When the maid loses her boyfriend because they were from different social classes (37), Marjane tries to comfort her; Marjane says: “We were not in the same social class but at least we were in the same bed.”

@ Cyrus the Great is in the book of Isaiah the Prophet in the Jewish/Christian Bible; he is a prominent figure. Isaiah lived more than 100 years before Cyrus but prophecies about him, identifying him by name.