"The Thing Around Your Neck"

Simplification and Numbness

In Adichie's novel, the chapter "The Thing Around Your Neck" has a very distant, cold, and numb feeling to it. This is emphasized through Adichie's use of the second person "you" to tell her story. This emphasizes her distance from her live during the experience and the reader. It seems as if Adichie wasn't experiencing these events but rather an unknown "you". Adichie also emphases these feeling through writing shorter, less complicated sentences. She takes a difficult time for herself and simplifies it through easy to read and understand sentences. 

Adichie's use of these two writing mechanism helps the reader understand how she felt while living in America. It helps us understand the distance she felt from her family and the inability to effectively connect to those around her.

The Beloved Uncle Anoosh

From Persepolis the movie

This is the most heart-wrenching scene for me in both forms of Persepolis the book and movie. In the movie, this scene was well drawn to show the dramatic event that was taking place. The film uses the technical affect of black and white contrast on the walls, floor, light coming through the window onto Marji and Uncle Anoosh. It is interesting that in the Uncle Anoosh is pictured in a white shirt and Marji in a black. I associate Uncle Anoosh wearing white as him being the light for Marji in this time of war. And Marji wearing a black dress to show her sadness in this experience.

Another technical characteristic of this scene is the distance of the camera from the scene. This helps evokes several different emotions, such as this being a private experience for them and the isolation that they would soon feel.

One point of interest I have not yet comprehended is the importance of the swan. He made the bread-swan in this scene while in jail. It is very possible that he used a very substantial portion of the food he received to make this swan. It is a act of self-sacrificial love. In the movie and the book Uncle Anoosh says, "I made you another bread-swan. It's the uncle of the first one." I believe that this means Uncle Anoosh is saying he will always be with Marji.

Overall, this scene was carried over very well from the book into movie format. My only critique that the movie did not emphasize Anoosh and Marji's relationship as much as the book. Making this scene in the movie less emotional than in the book.

Closure for The Complete Persepolis

Closure

In Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's "Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives", one of their elements of a life narrative is closure. They state, "Does the ending seem to bring the narrative to a tide closure, and if so, how? Does it seem to be a permanent closure?" (Smith and Watson 13). Marjane Satrapi absolutely applies closure to her book, The Complete Persepolis, through the panel below. 

Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel is about a girl growing up in revolutionary Iran. The panel provides much closure for the novel, because it shows Marjane's triumph over her trials during childhood. Here she is waving goodbye to her parents as she begins her new adult life in the west. She states, "There was no longer a war, I was no longer a child, my mother didn't faint and my Grandma was there, happily...". After her family's experience with the revolution, her experience in Austria and in Iran post-war, her family was still together and supportive of her decision to leave Iran. 

The other aspect of closure is the death of Marjane's grandmother. Marjane writes, "She died January 4, 1996 ... Freedom had a price...". She seems to be saying that even though her story ended well, her Grandmother suffered from Iran's past, 

Overall with Marjane's future in Europe and the death of her Grandmother, she seems to say people must move on, but not forget what was given up. This closure echo's Marjane Satrapi's introduction to The Complete Persepolis, "One can forgive but one should never forget".