Persepolis: "Persepolis"

I connected a lot with the outside world while reading this chapter. Thus far in the book we know that Marji’s family was heavily harmed by the Shah’s father, and the Shah himself. She wants to know about her grandfather, but her grandmother doesn’t want to tell her and changes subject all the time. One example of this is frame 4 at the bottom of page 28. In this frame you can see the she is desperate to know about his grandpa and says mentally that her grandma is changing the subject to not talk about it. But we do get that her family was left in poverty by the Shah. In this part of the book I connected to my country of the many women they show in the news that tell their stories of how the guerilla (FARC) took everything from them and left them in extreme poverty. It was (and is) very difficult for them to talk about it and they tried to change the subject; just like Marji’s grandma.

When Marji is very worried about her dad I remembered one day my mom told me a story. This was when the guerilla was very present in the region were she lived. She was still a child. My grandfather was a cow rancher, and the FARC wanted to kidnap all of the wealthy cow ranchers of the region. She told me that every time her dad didn’t arrive at the time that he was supposed to, she thought he was kidnapped or even dead. In frame 4 in page 30 she specifically says: “I thought that my father was dead, that they shot him”. But when he comes back we can see why he took that long. He is a photographer that was collecting visual evidence of all the catastrophes that were happening. 

When I got to the part of the martyr; I made a connection to the every day life here in Colombia. Here people do not like communists, let’s say that if you’re communist; you should go somewhere else. Just like royalists in Iran at that time. The widow of the martyr was questioned on frame 6 in page 34. And with the context of the book, I can infer that the question wasn’t asked with much politeness, but with a tone expressing an accusation. Here in Colombia you might be asked the question: “Are you communist?!” with the same tone every now and then if the listen to you saying leftist things. It has happened to many people I know.