Satrapi’s
memoir was her journey of figuring out who she was. At fourteen, she is sent to
Austria by her parents, ostensibly to protect their daughter. This is a time
when an adolescent is figuring out her identity; in Austria, the job is made
all the more worse as she is away from her parents, everything familiar, and
put into her mother’s friend’s home with it problems. Marjan is placed into a
Catholic school; her rebellion against the nuns is her frustration at yet
another displacement from home. Leaving that for the boarding house was not
much better, and her attempts to try to fit in at her high school are
difficult, intensifying her feelings as an outsider.
While living
with her friend Julie, she tries to assimilate. Page 39 summed it up well: The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I
had the feeling that I was distancing myself from my culture, betraying my
parents and my origins, that I was playing a game by somebody else’s rules.
From this point, she is trying to fit in, but feeling she is betraying her self
as an Iranian.
She notes on
page 40 of where she came from: I wanted
to forget everything, to make my past disappear, but my unconscious caught up
with me.
Her
grandmother’s advice “Always keep your
dignity and be true to yourself” (p 41) brought her to an epithany on page
43 “I am Iranian and proud of it!”
Still, the rest of her time in Germany, she was trying to fit in while still
trying to reconcile that lifestyle with her Iranian roots.
Even though
Marjane feels proud and understands herself more and is comfortable with herself,
this is all tested when she returns home. Faced with the dichotomy of religious
rules and norms imposed by the religious government of the Ayatollah, she now
continues a journey of trying to figure out who she is. She notes the contradiction
in the lives of her friends between outside their homes and indoors. Even in
what we would consider a safe space – one’s own home – the government had free
reign to enter and arrest people for having parties. The party episode (p 155)
is chilling, a man dies in an attempt to escape arrest, all because they were
participating in a party that went against the religious government’s dictate
of living one’s life. In a very public way of trying to fit in, Marjane marries
a man she really did not love, and denying her true feelings. She realizes the
mistake on p 163, conforming to what Iranian society dictated was compromising
her being true to herself. The image of her behind prison bars conveys her
realization.
Throughout
the story, I was reminded how often we try to fit in when we know in our hearts
and souls it is not a good fit. Sometimes we try to convince ourselves to
pursue a lifestyle, career, relationship even though it does not feel totally genuine.
We live contradictions in order to please others, whether they be our parents,
peers, country of origin, or where we are at a given place or time. The
stressors that are created by these behaviors can come out sideways, as with
Marjane with the parties, smoking, drugs and anger. Her grandmother’s advice was her talisman to
hold on to, and ultimately gave her the direction she needed to leave, forge
her identity and her future.
I also thought the frame on pg. 39 that you talk about was very effective at summing up what kind of seems like a lose-lose situation: how is one supposed to figure out such complicated ideas of identity not only in an extremely unfamiliar and foreign place, but at the age of 14? She goes from being the adored only child of her parents to being lumped into a household in a foreign country in which she is not even welcome. Also, in reference to her marriage, could it be that she really did love Reza, until she felt the effects of what it meant to be institutionally below somebody, even if her particular husband didn't abide by the regime's conception of women? I felt that she was very lucky to have such a strong female role model.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting Annie, that her identity can't even stabilize at home, even when she lives there for stretches of time--the country shifts, women's rules shift, it's a mess. Your observations about assimilation are apt in light of this
ReplyDeletee
"The stressors that are created by these behaviors can come out sideways, as with Marjane with the parties, smoking, drugs and anger. Her grandmother’s advice was her talisman to hold on to, and ultimately gave her the direction she needed to leave, forge her identity and her future."
ReplyDeleteabbbsolutely! i appreciate marjane taking us through her adolescent years as she attempts to form her own sense of self in a place where she has no allegiance to. while reading this, it's hard to remember that the teenage years are only a *part* of who we will become. those words that her grandmother gave her stayed in her subconscious and haunted her, even while she was attempting to be punk-esque, to have circle jerk intellectual sessions with her crew, while dating 19 yr old losers to "fulfill her carnal nature"...what stood the test of the time was being true to herself. adolescence is a rocky period already, and even rockier when you're thrust into a complete other environment. although she was forced to go back to Iran, her attempt to feel at home was still rocky. the world, though, can't exist without its hybrid identities...