Like most people, Marji just wants to fit-in but she also doesn't want to forget where she has come from. In these pages, Marji changes a great deal. From a naive child to a rebellious pre-teen into a confused and lost teenager. Marji has suffered the loss of a friend, being kicked out of school twice and thrown into a new culture. Though, her father was proud of her rebellious nature, her mother wasn't. To protect her, Marij's parents decided to send her to Austria to live with Zozo. At first, Marji is okay with the idea of being independent; however, Marji feels trapped because of the promise she made with her parents and her grandmother's advice from before she left for Austria. Throughout her time in Austria, Marji was relocated to a boarding school run by nuns and isolated. She had no friends and was the butt of everyone's joke, but she had good grades. As time passes, Marji makes 4 new friends and becomes close with the family of her roommate. She slowly begins to assimilate into the new culture and accept her new life in Austria, when she is thrown into a loop by the stereotypical comment made by one of the nuns, that gets Marji kicked out of school. Marji finds asylum with Julie. Julie is one of Marji's new friends, who is a little older and more mature.
I felt that when she first started living with Julie, she hadn't fully forgotten of her past life. An example is how, Marji notices the small aspects of this culture and compared them to the ones of her own. Marji, in a sense, loses her innocence when living with Julie. In the remaining pages, Marji physically matures into a teenage but is mentally trapped in the mindset of her younger self. She tries to forget who she is and she longs to erase her past, since she felt guilty of not keeping her parents that she made with her parents. I thought that Marji felt guilty because she wanted to forget who she was but at the same stay true to herself, her family and her culture. Her problem was that she didn't know how. And so, she let the words of her grandmother physically tie her down and mentally block her from understanding the true meaning of what her grandmother meant. It took her feeling small and belittled to stand up for herself and keep her dignity intact. It was in this moment Marji realized who she really was and that it was time to take pride in it.
I can completely relate to the situation that Marji experiences in these pages. I, too, moved from my home country of Haiti at a very young age. I was placed into a new culture and expected to assimilate but I loved my culture, since it was all I knew, and didn't want to forget where I came from. I remember having once pretended that I wasn't Haitian to fit in, I said I was English. Many people believed me because they already thought I had an English accent and so I went with it. I also didn't take to kindly to things that were said about the people of the Haitian culture. It took, my Junior year History teacher's stupid and alleged comment about Haitians being so poor that they were forced and reduced to eating mud pies made with butter and salt. As a means of survival. And that our official religion was Voodoo. His ignorance caused me to get suspended. it was in this moment that I realized that I had to take a stand and set the record straight. And now I can proudly say that I am Haitian.
In this reading, we can see how Marji loses a piece of her identity when she moves to Austria. Before she left, she had a talk with her grandma about staying true to herself but Marji struggles with this as she tries to assimilate into this new country. When she is relocated to a boarding school, she realizes how different she is from everyone else. She doesn’t speak their language or understand any of their jokes, which causes her to isolate herself. We can see Marji’s internal conflict of trying to fit in while also trying to stay true to her roots. Marji realizes her loss of identity when she says, “The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I had the feeling that I was distancing myself from my culture, parents, and origins.”
ReplyDeleteMarjane is just a young girl trying to differentiate innocence from arrogance and guilt from absurdity. This justification of her youth is portrayed throughout the novel and is displayed for all to see. Through the usage of imagery and emotional descriptions, we can supposedly feel with the author. I truly have felt great emotion for Marjane throughout the novel, well most of what i've read. It's not about wanting change, i've learned, it's about taking action and being the change and this is exactly what Marjane tries to prove to everyone in order to be free or such dreadful rules and live the life she's always dreamed of.
ReplyDeleteMarjane is a unique individual placed in an incredibly difficult situation. She is expected to assimilate to a culture which own highlights her difficulties and differences growing up in what must have seemed to be a different world. She is also forced to decide at a young age whether it is better to be true to thyself or true to thy circumstances. Marjane thankfully chose to be true to herself. Furthermore Marjane is fortunate to receive such a valuable lesson in Austria. It is at this point that she realizes she must be careful what she wishes for. She wanted space from her parents and the brutal culture she was growing up in. However, it is at that point she realized the costs of such wishes.
ReplyDeleteMarjane took a big step in her life when her parents moved her to Austria. The culture there was completely different than what she was used to. Back in Iran, woman barely exposed themselves and when they had parties, it was about dancing around and eating food. But when Marjane encounters Julie and her antics, she gets culture shocked and has to take a long hard look at herself and who she is. This section emphasized her coming of age and her growing up on her own. She might change her look on the inside, but she still has the Iran nationalism in her.
ReplyDeleteBetween the beginning of the book and now we see a drastic change when it comes to Marjane's identity. She was once so proud of her home Iran, but in the middle of this passage of the book she completely denies her orgin. At the very end we begin to see some of the old Marjane return when she stands up and talks to those that were talking bad about her and her homeland. I believe that during this time in Austria she initially lost herself because she was so worried about fitting in. She was doing things she would not normally do, and things she was not proud of. But as previously stated, in the very end of this passage we do see some of the old Marjane return.
ReplyDeleteAs a young girl we can see Marjane is going through a lot. when she moves to Austria she feels as though her identity is gone and that everything is changing. When she attends boarding school she faces normal problems that could happen to any kid. Sometimes it hard to realize that this little girl is going through so much. She wants to fit in with the kids at her new school and be normal. But she struggles with doing so because of her surroundings and what she sees growing up. As Dakota said, I feel like even though she started acting differently in this knew place because she wanted to create a new identity, she goes back to being who she truly is. She knows what she does at this new place is wrong and has her grandmas advice in her head at all time. This character definitely struggles with keeping her identity constant, because of her circumstances around her.
ReplyDeleteIn these pages, there is a big theme of identity. Marjane is trying to find who she is. I agree with Dakota, since she moved she has lost pride in her country. She wants to fit in and be like the people around her. Being thrown into a new culture distinct from the one you grew up in is really hard especially for someone who lived in a place where everything was constantly changing because of the war. I agree with the people who said she had to assimilate into a new culture and how hard that must have been for her. When Julie tells her about how many men she has slept with and how she's taking birth control, Marjane is shocked because that is not what she is used to. Her culture is so much different than the one she was put in so it was hard for her to stay true to what she grew up in.
ReplyDeleteThe coming of age is a huge theme in this graphic novel. Marji reaches a critical point in life, especially after seeing her friend die due to a bombing in her neighborhood. She becomes a rebellious teenager, which is displayed when she hits the principle in her school. She moves to Austria and she experiences many things, like her first kiss with Momo. All these aspects that take part in her life show how similar she is to us teens. She also gets to see how the Western culture is and how different it is from her own culture. Although she starts to drift farther from her nationality, she manages to remember her grandmother's words, "always be true to yourself."
ReplyDeleteMarjane's life had always been interesting and she was always very outspoken and lively when she was in her home in Iran. She grew up and the situation progressively became worse and her parents thought it was time for her to leave to have a better life. When Marjane got to Austria she loved the freedom and she had enjoyed the fact that she would not always have to wear a veil or live y certain rules. That was not the case for long though. Marji had struggled making friends and she was always made fun of. Every time she did make a friend, that person either moved or she was never invited back to spend time with him or her. Marji was lost; she did not know who she was or how she will live her life in Austria. She had troubles with her identity and often remembered what her grandmother had told her but it was hard for her to follow that advice and also fit in with the people around her.
ReplyDeleteAs teenagers, there is a point in life where we have to deal with change and by doing this, we try to fit in. When Marji left for Austria, she was happy with her freedom. She didn't have anyone to tell her what to do or what to wear; she felt like a grown-up. Of course, as time went by, she felt alone. Most of her peers dressed in a punk-rockish way and to try to blend in, she completely changed her look. In Austria, people didn't care about public displays of affection, something very different from her culture. Little by little, she started losing her innocence and her culture. She realized she was breaking away from her ethnicity and didn't want to go against what her grandma told her, "to never forget where she came from," but she was in a struggle between fitting in and accepting her culture. Marji didn't know what to do. She even lied to her friends saying that she was French because she was ashamed of being Iranian. At a restaurant, she finds some girls talking bad about her and of her Iranian descent and that is where she finds herself again.
ReplyDeleteIn this section of reading, Marjane significantly develops both physically and mentally. She struggles more and more with respecting authority and holding back an inner rebellion. The entire time she lives in Vienna, she never escapes the feeling of being an outcast. Although, Marji remains incredibly outspoken. Her opinions more often than not get her in trouble.
ReplyDeleteAs we can see in the story, life in Austria is completely different from life in Iran. He life in Iran involved a lot of rules and restrictions. When she goes to Austria and understands all the freedoms she has, she transforms into a completelt different person and abandons her culture completely until the end of the novel.
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