Our Shared Shelf discussion

I loved this part as well! I think it provides a great insight into how children see the World in such a simple way in comparison to how it unfortunately is at times. I like to think that by her grandmother asking how to prevent the elderly from suffering that it got young Marjane thinking more in depth on how to truly help others. I'm sure her book certainly has helped others in their struggles with fitting in, culture shock, loss of friends and family members, and so much more! So, this part in the novel is so telling of what was to come for both Satrapi and the book in general.

One of my favourite parts of the book!

I loved this too. I think this part (including her conversations with God) is a good representation of how people sincerely believe in a religion and want to do good things in the name of it. It's simplistic to assume that religious people are all bigots who just use religion to justify their bigotry.

I'm still reading the book, and this is definitely one of my favorite parts.
Her innocence towards the reality of the situation is really what we all need a bit of in these tumultuous times today. There is a child in all of us that we, almost always, choose to neglect or ignore when making real decisions. If we could just pay a little more attention to it, we'd truly realize how similar we all are, even with our differences.

I loved this part also because it shows how she was free to dream to become everyone she would want to be! In some countries girls usually just dream about being a wife, a mother, a teacher, a nurse... while boys can easily dream about being a doctor , an engineer, an astronaut... It often just depends on the social and familiar context.

I loved this part of the book! I love that a little girl can recognize the inequality going on in her own home and that she recognizes the needs of others. I also love that her grandmother encourages her to think through HOW she'll implement her rules, how she can be the change she wants to see in the world, and I love how her parents support her right to choose her own career in the teacher meeting. The Last Prophetess anecdote is not only entertaining but powerful.

I loved how it shows the thoughts of a little girl about religion. Just about love for everyone regardless their condition. I wish everyone read religion like that little girl, the wold would be better off if the holly books were not read by the powerful just to promote hate. This really reminds me of The Colour Purple and Shugs wisdom.

“It’s fear that makes us lose our conscience. It’s also what transforms us into cowards.” page 298, “Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi , 2000

“It’s only natural! When we’re afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators’ repression.” page 302, “Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi, 2000

These two quotes regarding fear came at just the right point in time for me. The more I educate myself about the world, the more afraid of it I become. I started out strong, with the desire and the drive to spread a positive message and create change.

Then the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida took place and I, along with so many others, felt completely powerless, watching the all-too familiar script play out in the aftermath. It continues on, this never-ending cycle of hatred and violence, without a resolution in sight.

It's discouraging and heartbreaking and enough to make me consider finding a job that I could do remotely from my computer, sign up to have groceries delivered weekly to my door, and lock myself away, completely giving up on the idea that our world could ever be a safe or good place.

Then I finished "Persepolis" and the above quotes danced across my path and I felt better, somehow stronger because I was so aware of my own fear.

My mom brought out my baby book the other night (my birthday was exactly one week ago, so she's been feeling sentimental) and read me a passage that she wrote twenty-one years ago, when I was three-years-old, about how I was learning the importance of being pretty on the inside, to be a good person, and be kind to everyone. "Amy thinks everyone is beautiful," my mother wrote.

I'm trying to find the balance between being well-informed of the difficult (and scary and rage-inducing) issues today's citizens of the world are facing and maintaining the positive, even joyful, outlook I had as a child, when everyone was beautiful, instead of a potential threat. It's a struggle that I identify as being similar to Satrapi's display of childhood innocence and her desire to do good and fight for justice.

It's also the only way I can conceive of not letting this fear, this all-consuming anger, turn me into a coward, so easy to control, or make me lose my conscience, as it has so clearly done for others. Is that where evil comes from, lost consciences due to overwhelming fear and feelings of helplessness?

I related to this part of the book so much! I remember being extremely religious as a child and wanting to be important to God and for his purpose. I even came up with an entire synopsis for a book where God leads a character (that was suspiciously similar to myself) on a journey for His purpose, at age 9. I gradually grew out of such beliefs as well.

I also wondered if God coming to visit her less and less when she was a child was related to her naivety about the world. It seemed to me that the more she learned about what was going on in her country, the less frequently God visited her. He also left when the movie theater was burned down (page 16, The Bicycle) and she ordered him to leave following the news of her Uncle Anoosh's execution (page 70, The Sheep). I've had a similar experience with my faith being knocked around by realizing some of the evils in this world. Perhaps I'm drawing too much of a parallel to my own life, but did anyone else consider this connection?

Elisha wrote: "''I wanted to be JUSTICE, LOVE, and the WRATH OF GOD all in one.''

That is the description of a WOMAN / PROPHETESS"

And it's a perfect one in my opinion.

In my opinion, everybody who is telling the people in which way they behave wrong, is a Prophet. Because that's how the Prophets in the Bible act. So, does anybody think, following this definition, that Satrapi is a prophetess, or not? Btw, there were prophetesses, but their stories never came into the Bible. That's patriarchy, again...

But it really reminded me of myself, since I also believed very much in God when I was little. Life changed that, but I still believe in God, although in different ways.

I agree. One of the things I loved about the novel is how much Marjane reflects on situations in her childhood or conversations between the adults in her life that she did not understand at the time, revisiting them as an adult. It's awesome that as she grew up she did not forget those conversations with God or the conversations she had with her Grandmother :-)

Some people literally changed me and I now come to think of what they told me and I can understand why they didn't know, or acted in some ways.

I hope I'll never forget them. They are my role models.