Native American Culture In The Complete Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi

In the graphic novel The Complete Persepolis the main character and author Marjane Satrapi also feels a sense of disconnect from her culture while she is abroad. Like the Ganguli’s Marjane struggles with the cold reception she receives from the French while she is away from Iran during the Iranian revolution. Unlike the Ganguli’s though Marjane does not have a person to turn to while she is in France who truly understands the struggle of being a minority in a country where she is unwelcomed, while the Gangulis are able to build a Bengali community while in America, Marjane does not have the same luck. Marjane at the time is also a teenager, and thus, like Gogol decides that it is easier to assimilate, or at least try to assimilate into French culture. Marjane, while abroad ignores her Iranian heritage, because of the terrible treatment she has …show more content…
This is best seen in the first story of Alexie’s collection entitled Traveling. In the story the speaker, his father, and friends are travelling back from a basketball tournament when they are pulled over and harassed by a State Trooper who is looking to abuse his obvious power over the Indians in the van. Alexie starts off the interaction of the state trooper and the father off with a line that hints at the colonization and betrayal that the Native population received from their colonizers. He states that the trooper “walked up to my father on the driver’s side cool and sure, like he was ordering a hamburger, and fries or making a treaty” (Alexie 13). Alexie infuses this sort of language throughout his work, as it makes the audience constantly aware of the two-ness a Native American must feel, knowing that they had not only their land, but also their culture taken away by the very people in power who are continuing to abuse