Innocence and Feminity in Salman Rushdie’s, East, West and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis
In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi shows the struggles from childhood while growing up in Iran to the subsequent encounters in Europe. Salman Rushdie’s “East, West” on the other hand uses fiction and reality and blends the two in its most controversial perspective. Despite the difference in style and writing language, the two books are documented in certain themes with complementing ideologies. The main objective is to determine the similarities and the differences between the themes of innocence and feminity as portrayed by the two authors.
In the beginning, Marjane portrays herself as that innocent child being brought up in a surrounding, which is apparently at a stage of transition. Although, still a child, the author could identify with the images of Iran’s past which presumably, were better than the present one. To her, the changing world of Iran can only be depicted using comic representations, with the past being a little inaccurate in her memory. As a child, Marjane is so innocent that she fails to notice the differences within the society such as gender, religion, and that of social …show more content…
This is evident when Miss Rehana seeks a permit that would enable her to travel to London to meet her fiancé Mustafa Dar. It Rehana’s parents who arranged who had arranged for her to marry Dar even without her consent. Having rejected the proposal, Rehana deliberately decides to answer all questions wrong so that she would remain in Lahore instead of traveling to England. This scenario violates the freedom that women like Rehana and Marjane desire. Meanwhile, unlike in Iran, the government uses initiatives similar to the western culture by dealing with the issue of family planning and birth control mechanisms (Rushdie 1995). Concisely, the two authors concur that feminity is an issue that needs a redress in the present
In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi shows the struggles from childhood while growing up in Iran to the subsequent encounters in Europe. Salman Rushdie’s “East, West” on the other hand uses fiction and reality and blends the two in its most controversial perspective. Despite the difference in style and writing language, the two books are documented in certain themes with complementing ideologies. The main objective is to determine the similarities and the differences between the themes of innocence and feminity as portrayed by the two authors.
In the beginning, Marjane portrays herself as that innocent child being brought up in a surrounding, which is apparently at a stage of transition. Although, still a child, the author could identify with the images of Iran’s past which presumably, were better than the present one. To her, the changing world of Iran can only be depicted using comic representations, with the past being a little inaccurate in her memory. As a child, Marjane is so innocent that she fails to notice the differences within the society such as gender, religion, and that of social …show more content…
This is evident when Miss Rehana seeks a permit that would enable her to travel to London to meet her fiancé Mustafa Dar. It Rehana’s parents who arranged who had arranged for her to marry Dar even without her consent. Having rejected the proposal, Rehana deliberately decides to answer all questions wrong so that she would remain in Lahore instead of traveling to England. This scenario violates the freedom that women like Rehana and Marjane desire. Meanwhile, unlike in Iran, the government uses initiatives similar to the western culture by dealing with the issue of family planning and birth control mechanisms (Rushdie 1995). Concisely, the two authors concur that feminity is an issue that needs a redress in the present