Not So Very Different

I am coming to understand Satrapi more and more as the story goes on. She is such a real person. It sounds terrible, but there is always some sort of detachment between myself and the authors I read, that this open honesty, with no metaphors or anything to hide behind, she just makes Satrapi feel more real to me. I feel like she is completely baring her soul to the audience, no matter their feelings on the subject. She doesn’t hide anything, and that makes her more real to me.

Another thing I really like about this book, is that despite her different upbringing, Satrapi “rebels” in the same way the “classic” American does, or for that matter, any teenage does. She smokes, she loves rock and roll, and she participates in drugs, even at one point selling them. She just comes across as so relatable because she is flawed. She has grown up in a major time of war in her country, but she still manages to “rebel” or act out as a normal teenager would. Mind you her parents supported her rebelling against the government with the rock music, but some of it was against her parents as well. She has made mistakes in her past that she is not afraid to come clean about, and that she grew from in the long run, so she is like a normal person. Even though she is not of our culture, she still experiments to find out who she really is, cutting her hair, experimenting with make-up, making new, not totally acceptable friends, and making other mistakes along the way, just like we do.

One scene that I really enjoyed was the scene where she was in the diner and overheard some girls talking about her behind her back (pg 196-197). This scene displays Satrapi most as a real person I think. She had been holding information back from people for so long, that eventually she just burst, and screamed that she was Iranian and proud at those girls. Not that they didn’t deserve to be screamed at, but every person that I have met has, at one point in their lives, blown up at people because they decided to withhold information. It happens to everyone. It is a very human thing to do. We want to fit in with the majority, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I completely agree with some of my classmates who have already posted that despite our different cultures, we still need to treat people from the Middle East with respect. There is a huge difference the radical extremists, and the everyday person. We need to acknowledge that difference, and respect that these people had nothing to do with the attacks on our country, even if they are from the same country or religion as the attackers. I think that the teenage Satrapi rebelling in the same way that we might, really stresses just how similar we are to each other, and how much we need to embrace our similarities, instead of focusing on our differences.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 22)