User:Marisamasanchan/Persepolis (comics)

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Reception

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Manuela Constantino’s article, published as part of the University of Toronto Press, argues that Persepolis was released during a crucial time that aided its reception in North America. In 2003-04, tensions over middle eastern evasion were on the rise in the United States. At the same time, Persepolis started to circulate in the North American education system. It’s possible that “its arrival could be read as a political attempt to shape an understanding of Middle Eastern cultural practices by presenting a liberal Middle Eastern viewpoint amidst radical unrest” Constantino speculates if Satrapi’s memoir had anti-American or anti-Western sentiment, “would it have been so widely circulated and therefore so popular”? This makes Persepolis "easily accessible and seemingly transparent," Constantino states that these childlike reactions to the horrors they are exposed to bridge the gap between human and history. The complicated historical facts of war are broken down into easily understandable moments in history, and help people understand what is usually complex and culturally intricate into relatable and educational.

Mahdiyeh Ezzatikarami and Firouzeh Ameri of the International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature published their article the strengths of Persepolis as a memoir. Telling the story from a child's point of view allows Satrapi to facilitate "supreme authenticity and immediacy" to her memoir. Satrapi created an identity that readers immediately relate and identify with. This is seen through her childish ways of coping with evil. When Marji's grandmother asks how she will install the rule of old people never feeling pain, Marji states she will simply forbid it. Seeing how children react to the violence of war makes Persepolis "easily accessible and seemingly transparent."