PRESCRIBED LITERATURE IN
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ENGLISH LITERATURE A1
NAME: SAI SIDDHARDHA K
CANDIDATE SESSION NUMBER: 003528-0011
EXAMINATION SESSION: MAY 2016
NAME OF THE INSTRUCTOR: MRS. BINDU C.G.
TITLE: WAR AND LOSS OF INNOCENCE
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REFLECTIVE STATEMENT
How was your understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work developed through the interactive oral?
In our second interactive oral, we discussed about the graphical novel Persipolis written by Marjane Satrapi.
War often has the tendency to scar a person’s life. It makes people live through some very terrible experiences. War has left nations crippled, turned cities into rubble and humans dead. People fight over a territory, for politics or simply…show more content… However as the revolution progresses Persepolis also deals with the loss of innocence of young Marjane as she lives through the war and is also a metaphorical aspect in the book. Marjane tries to make sense of the revolution from the beginning, however being a 10-year old, understanding the cruel world around her is difficult. In the seventh chapter when Marjane listens to her parents’ friend Moshen telling about the cruel punishments faced by him in a prison with an iron, Marji said to herself “I never imagined that you could use such appliances for torture” (7.30). After listening to a part of this story, the happy-go-lucky nature of Marjane disappears, she has lost a part of her innocence by knowing about the cruel horrors in the world. God who had accompanied Marjane through the early days of war disappeared from her life as she had abandoned her faith in God after Uncle Anoosh’s death. This symbolises the slow degradation of her innocence. Due to the constant oppression and violence around Marjane, it had an impact on her social development. As she approaches adolescence, Marji turns rebellious “After the death of Neda Baba-Levy, my life took a new turn. In 1984 I was fourteen and a rebel. Nothing scared me more.” (p. 145). By the age of thirteen, when Marjane smokes her first cigarette she says “With this First cigarette, I kissed my childhood goodbye.” It was not just smoking her cigarette at a young age but her rebellious nature that let the loss of her innocence. The strong oppression of women in the war let Marjane to act out more. Henceforth, Marjane is no longer considered a child. This transformation is complete when her parents ship her off to