In Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, The Stranger by Albert Camus, and the current college process that I am engulfed in, existentialism proves itself to be true. Existentialism is intimidating until an overarching lesson is learned through the choices and responsibilities, passions (or lack thereof), and the isolation of a person, such as Marjane, Meursault, or myself. On the surface, the three of us are extremely dissimilar, but we all experience relatively negative things that teach us more than we knew before. Marjane Satrapi is a real woman who grew up in Iran, Meursault is a character from North Africa, and I am a real teenage girl from a small seaside town. Nonetheless, when it comes to existentialism, the three of us stand as examples of the legitimacy of its philosophy. There is an established thought that every person must be an active participant in their life, and this is done by making choices; however, it is accepting responsibility that controls our lives and the people around us. Marjane Satrapi is an outspoken female, who is not afraid to stand up for something she believes in. As she grew up, Islamic Fundamentalists created strict moral and dress codes for the people of Iran. As a woman, she was forced to wear a hijab in a certain manner. At the time, Marjane was studying at an art school. Marji …show more content…
The way that such intricate, specific, and divergent books and life events relate is quite showing that the choices we make do affect others and ourselves, our passions define us in positive and negative ways, and being alone in an indifferent world makes us more aware in the end. Hardship and toil prove themselves to be worth it because for Marjane, Meursault, and myself, the results of our hard work with teach us more strength and independence than before. Existentialism exists more than we can see, and its philosophy promotes learning from
I will focus on the author’s tone that reveal the attitude of the speaker have toward life. However, the Sedaris illustrates the fear he faces of returning to school and the challenges he faces, his fear of failure, and overcoming his fear. The Sedaris first dilemma he faces is experience of moving to France.
Existentialism is a philosophical theory that was developed by Nietzsche and many other philosophers in the 19th century. In the first four chapters of the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the protagonist and the narrator, Grendel tells a story of his adolescence. Like any teenager, Grendel encounters multitude of events which molds him into what he is; an existentialist. Through the use of diction, personification, and simile in the narration of Grendel, John Gardner illustrates the cause of Grendel’s existential outlook.
Poets and other writers often express life through their works and characters. Some poems convey a depressing, gloomy attitude towards life, while others show the world as a joyful and simple place. Two skilled creative writers, Edgar Lee Masters and Edwin Arlington Robinson, wrote detailed poems describing the lives of characters with extremely different perspectives on life. Many obvious differences can be identified between the lives of Robinson’s Miniver Cheevy and Masters’s Lucinda Matlock. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem about Miniver Cheevy paints life as miserable and useless.
People are like cameras and their personal experiences can be their lenses that change and modify the actual picture. This evident in Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis because the whole book is about a girl growing up, and forming her own opinions. Furthermore, Marjane has to mature in the turmoil of an Iranian-Iraqi war, she also has to survive the brutal Islamic regime governing her. This creates a very particular point of view considering that the parents raising Marjane are against the new form of government, and actively protest, risking their lives. As a result, this rubs off on her creating a very rebellious and dauntless little girl, who isn’t afraid of the new oppressors.
First, after her rejection of Allah, Satrapi began to reject a fundamental part of her country’s culture - tradition. To better comprehend this, we must first
Along with the rule in Marijane’s country, women have to wear restrictive clothing. In Iran, Marijane is forced to wear a veil at young age after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Of course, she did not understand why she had to wear the veil so it’s no surprise Marijane and her friends played with the veil instead(1). However, Marijane never agrees with the clothing standards and goes against them constantly throughout her life in Iran.
Through her art Marjane Satrapi shows that, in Iran, a person's social class should not define or limit them because a person's class
Marjane states, “With this first cigarette, I kissed childhood goodbye. Now I was a grown-up” (Satrapi 117). Marjane, just like the girl in this image, has shown her loss of innocence through her perspective. She can no longer be sheltered from her parents or be ignorant in relation to the world around her. The theme of gender roles has heavily impacted Marjane 's perspective in regard to the events occuring in Iran.
The Meaning of Satrapi’s Suicide Attempts in Persepolis Marjane grew up in a place where her ideas did not conform to the laws practices, or society as a whole. After a short amount of time in her youth, she realized that she couldn’t find or even be who she was born to be, giving her several struggles growing up and many identity problems. In Iran, the Islamic fundamentalist were in power, and their rule was extremely strict; the last thing they wanted was women and minorities to rise against the power, so her feelings had to be suppressed in order to survive. After years of being shamed and hidden by the law, she fell in to deep depression, realizing that she did not want to live this way. Her suicide attempts come into play at this point, and you realize how badly oppression and identity struggles can affect a person.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Soren Kierkegaard are two widely known existentialists who agree on many of the main principles of existentialism, but also disagree on several of the finer details. For example, they both agree that what matters most is action. What a person actually does is what defines the person, and the process of defining one’s self never ceases. By comparing and contrasting how they portray the emotion of anguish - specifically, in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and Sartre’s The Humanism of Existentialism – we see another example of the two agreeing on some principles while disagreeing on others.
It also illustrates a belief in personal freedom because she is wearing clothes that are frowned upon. In this panel, Satrapi is challenging the negative stereotypes about Iranians by showing that people do still want to be free and not part of the Islamic regime. In the book Persepolis the author shows many reason as to how everyone in Iran didn’t want the Islamic regime. Satrapi challenges stereotypes about Iranians by showing people still want a better life and also by showing Individualism in Marjane.
Anita Brookner describes existentialism as “being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.” The viewpoint of an existentialist was a common way of thinking during the Modernist Period of literature. One particular writer who held this modernism viewpoint was Joseph Conrad. This multicultural artist advanced his existentialism through his literary works. In such works, Conrad took on a whole new writing prose, one which upon first glance is seemingly awkward, but upon examination is found to have been masterfully knitted together.
The argument Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, presents on existentialism helps to prove the foundation which is “existence precedes essence”. Existentialism is normally understood as an ideology that involves evaluating existence itself and the way humans find themselves existing currently in the world. For the phrase existence precedes essence, existence’s etymology is exsistere or to stand out while the term Essence means “being” or “to be” therefore the fundamental of existentialism, literally means to stand out comes before being. This can be taken into many different ideas such as individuals having to take responsibility for their own actions and that in Sartre’s case the individual is the sole judge of his or her own actions. According to him, “men is condemned to be free,” therefore “the destiny of man is placed within himself.”
Scanning through his past several years, he returns to his mother’s death and analyzes her choice to seek a lover at the end of her life. While before he thought it was strange and even somewhat aggravating, he realizes now, being so close to death, that people will enter a desperate search for meaning when their time left is fleeting. But at the same time, he reasons potentially as a coping mechanism, there is no difference whether he dies by execution later that day or in 40 years because he will be dying all the same. Together, these two realizations, though somewhat contradictory, create his bridge to Existentialism. By establishing these two points, he can allow himself to, “open up to the gentle indifference of the world - finding it so much like himself”(122), and apply whatever meaning he wants to life in order to make it as rich and enjoyable as desired, rather than drifting along as a pitiful being waiting for some greater power to guide him along.
The graphic novel shows how we carry on, with laughter and waterworks, in the face of absurdity. Satrapi clarifies the complications she had altering her typical ways and getting in trouble for articulating herself with the things she enjoyed. Although we see Iran’s way from young Marjane’s eyes; as we learn about Marjane, we also learn about: her mother, father, grandmother, uncle Anoosh, and more. There were many changes for the people of Iran during the Revolution. Marjane just wants to grow up as a normal teenager, listening to rock music and doing what she wants.