I have a very rough idea of what I want to do for my final paper. Something along the lines of using the article "Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi’s Persepolis" to make a literary argument about Persepolis....I don't really know if that counts as an alright secondary work for literary theory, but I suppose I'll find out. My thesis will be something along the lines of: In Persepolis by Satrapi conventional notions of class are blurred when Satrapi depicts her life as addled by both east and west cultural clashes. It needs a lot of work and quite possibly to be changed, but this is all I have for a Monday night after my Thanksgiving comatose of a weekend....
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
November 19th 2012
Q1: "The narrator of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is what disability workers would call a 'high-functioning' narrator, capable of understanding a great deal about the narratives he's read and the narrative he's in," (574).
"Disability and the Narrative" -Berube
Q2: "This is another reason why I don't like proper novels, because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make me feel shaky and scared.And this is why everything I have written here is true," (203).
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -Mark Haddon
Question: How does Christopher as a "high-functioning" narrator aid in the understanding of the novel for a reader?
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time positively promotes a narrator with a disability. Instead of making the text infinitely more complicated, like other horrendous disabled people (*cough* *cough* Benjy from The Sound and the Fury), the narrator's attention to the truth and a simple narrative make life pleasant. The novel is not as the narrator deems, "a proper novel" and this is something all the happy readers in the world are grateful for. Not only the former, but the simplistic approach the narrator takes isn't even so much simplistic as it is sheer brevity. And to quote Shakespeare, "Brevity is the soul of wit". And so this novel is A++.
"Disability and the Narrative" -Berube
Q2: "This is another reason why I don't like proper novels, because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make me feel shaky and scared.And this is why everything I have written here is true," (203).
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -Mark Haddon
Question: How does Christopher as a "high-functioning" narrator aid in the understanding of the novel for a reader?
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time positively promotes a narrator with a disability. Instead of making the text infinitely more complicated, like other horrendous disabled people (*cough* *cough* Benjy from The Sound and the Fury), the narrator's attention to the truth and a simple narrative make life pleasant. The novel is not as the narrator deems, "a proper novel" and this is something all the happy readers in the world are grateful for. Not only the former, but the simplistic approach the narrator takes isn't even so much simplistic as it is sheer brevity. And to quote Shakespeare, "Brevity is the soul of wit". And so this novel is A++.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Monday November 12th, 2012
"Reviews frequently applaud Persepolis, especially through the figure of the winsome child at its center, for being a universal story-an approach to the book that uncomfortably subsumes the exotic "other" into the "us", erasing the ethic, cultural and class specificity of the book's narrative," (4).
From Chute- "Graphic Narrative as Whiteness"
"I didn't like to smoke, but I did it out of solidarity. At the time, to me, grass and heroin were the same thing," (192).
From Persepolis by Satrapi
Question: What is it about the universality of Persepolis that allows any reader, regardless of their geographical location, to appreciate it with full realization of the "other" becoming the "us"?
In Satrapi's Persepolis, the way in which events are explained allow any reader to immediately feel part of the text. Which is to say, the test itself appeals to a large majority of people. In the selection of Persepolis paired next to the quote from Chute's text, it is evident that Satrapi's ethnic, cultural and class boundaries are broken to meld together the "us" and "them". Satrapi talks about her experiences with dope (marijuana), which she perceives to be the same thing as dope (heroin) in her youth. This theme of drugs is universal that from hemisphere to hemisphere the universality is evident. Suddenly, Satrapi isn't just talking about her own childhood, she is talking about the reader's childhood, and through association the rest of the world's childhood.
In Satrapi's Persepolis, the way in which events are explained allow any reader to immediately feel part of the text. Which is to say, the test itself appeals to a large majority of people. In the selection of Persepolis paired next to the quote from Chute's text, it is evident that Satrapi's ethnic, cultural and class boundaries are broken to meld together the "us" and "them". Satrapi talks about her experiences with dope (marijuana), which she perceives to be the same thing as dope (heroin) in her youth. This theme of drugs is universal that from hemisphere to hemisphere the universality is evident. Suddenly, Satrapi isn't just talking about her own childhood, she is talking about the reader's childhood, and through association the rest of the world's childhood.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Monday: November, 5th 2012
"According to McCloud, there are two important effects of cartooning; the first enables a focus on specific details; the second is 'the universality of cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe' (31). Cartooning, he argues, is a way of seeing, to just a way of drawing, so the simplification of characters and images toward a purpose can be an effective tool: '[W]hen you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face-- you see it as the face of another but when you enter the world of the cartoon--you see yourself' (36).
Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi’s Persepolis
Naghibi, Nima.
"They insulted me. They said that women like me should be pushed up against a wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage. ...And that if I didn't want that to happen, I should wear the veil..."
Persepolis, 74
Question: What effect does the usage of cartooning have on the reader's perceptions of the novel?
In reading Persepolis the reader becomes immersed in a cartoon version of a young girl's story of her experiences pertaining to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Not only does the format enable the reader to have an easier time navigating through Satrapi's story, but it also enables the reader to feel a part of the story itself. McCloud argues that when looking at the image of a cartoon, you see yourself. In reading the portion of Persepolis during which Maryjane's mother is exposed to the mysogynistic nature of the Islamic regime the reader is exposed to the sadness. When reading this in cartoon version, it feels like it relates to all of the audiences. This imagery McCloud describes is entirely evident within Satrapi's Persepolis.
Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi’s Persepolis
Naghibi, Nima.
"They insulted me. They said that women like me should be pushed up against a wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage. ...And that if I didn't want that to happen, I should wear the veil..."
Persepolis, 74
Question: What effect does the usage of cartooning have on the reader's perceptions of the novel?
In reading Persepolis the reader becomes immersed in a cartoon version of a young girl's story of her experiences pertaining to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Not only does the format enable the reader to have an easier time navigating through Satrapi's story, but it also enables the reader to feel a part of the story itself. McCloud argues that when looking at the image of a cartoon, you see yourself. In reading the portion of Persepolis during which Maryjane's mother is exposed to the mysogynistic nature of the Islamic regime the reader is exposed to the sadness. When reading this in cartoon version, it feels like it relates to all of the audiences. This imagery McCloud describes is entirely evident within Satrapi's Persepolis.
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