Visual RA# 2 (The Key- pgs. 97-99)

Chris Dunfield

Stacey Knapp

English 1A

24 March 2013

Visual RA #2: Persepolis:The Key

The book Persepolis was written by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian-born French women who has also written several other texts in both English and French. This particular text is written in an informal and inquisitive tone, displayed through comic strips and text bubbles. The readers are assumed to have some prior knowledge into the background of the long-standing feud between Iran and Iraq and of the Islamic Revolution of 1979; furthermore, the readers are most likely assumed to be Western minded people.

Marjane depicts the inconsistency of ideology prevalent in the Iranian working class and educated activists to that of the educational system, government, and fundamentalists. This message is supported in the novel when Marji and her classmates' parents get called into to school because the girls are acting out against being force-fed fundamentalist thought. The teacher tells the parents that they are educating their children wrongly, and, “to make sure their (kids are) well behaved!” (98). The tone of this scene is both mocking of the teacher and defiant to her ideology; it is intended to further show how overwhelmed Marji and her classmates were. This is supported through Marjane's illustrations when she shows the outrage in the parent's faces. She depicts the teacher as a veiled fundamentalist, and she comically pokes fun at the teacher. In the last box on the page, Marjis' father even tells the teacher that, “If hair is as stimulating as you say, then you need to shave you mustache!”(98).

Marjane Satrapi portrays the inconsistency in thought among the population, especially between the younger and older, the government/elite and the proletariat, the revolutionary and the fundamentalist. She emphasizes the parents outrage to the teachers' demands, and chooses to ed-emphasize the views of the teacher. Iranian culture, religion, and historically relevant ideology are incorporated both into this scene and throughout the text. However, Marjanes' main message is that of rebellion to the traditional views and assertion of the strain of secularist thought that Marji and her surrounding acquaintances support.