Perseplos Review

In the novel Persepolis the author Marjane Satrapi explains the life she endured growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, and the war with Iraq.  Satrapi is also an artist in this novel and uses simple cartoons to illustrate her often funny dialogue.  While she uses humor all throughout the novel to tell her story, she also delves into a very serious subject matter that has a very somber tone.  As an English teacher I find that this novel is one that could be used as a fun way to introduce graphic novels as a viable literature source.   I do feel that it has more relativity to a history course though, because the subject matter is such an important time in history.  However, I think that the two departments could work together to create an integrated lesson plan.

What Sartrapi does very well is use humor to lighten situations that are very dark for people who have not experienced something like torture, revolution, and repression.  In one instance she is referring to torture, and she says “In the end he was cut to pieces.”  (Sartrapi 52).  The humor part is how she illustrates the picture of the victim and how he is severed at each limb in a very clean and orderly fashion which is not something you would expect from torture.  She also uses her youth and inexperience to at times make fun of the repression her country is undergoing.  In one instance she is talking to a little girl who is missing her father because he is “on a trip” (Sartrapi 48) and Marji replies to her that “don’t you know that when they keep saying someone is on a trip it really means he is dead?  At least was the case with my grandpa.”  (Sartrapi 48). 

The problem I see with Persepolis is that it has not a lot of literary value as far as a real piece of literature.  It has a very simple story telling style, and never really challenges the readers who are reading it.  This is partly due to the simple nature of the narrator since she is a child, and also that it is a simple graphic novel with a story to tell, and not much of a way to challenge readers as far as thought provoking issues.  The readers should already know that torture, murder, war and oppression are wrong.  Something that would be more challenging would be a novel like The Watchmen which asks readers who actually watches the people who are in charge.  While Persepolis only tells the overt story of a nation lost to an ideal that goes against freedom.

Overall the graphic novel is a good work that puts a face to a series of events that many people may not be familiar with. It would work well with paired with a history course, and give some students some valuable insight to world happenings.  It may also have use as a good break for students in between works that are more challenging in the literary sense.

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane.  Persepolis, Paris, France.  Random House inc. 2003.  Print

Mare's War Review

Mare’s War

            If an educator were to pick up a copy of Mare’s War with the intent of teaching this novel to students then I think he or she might be surprised with what they find.  The book chronicles a vacation of a grandmother and grandchildren, and also tells the broader tale of the first U.S. Women’s Army Corps to serve during World War II.  The surprising thing about this novel is that it works well as both a history lesson, and a tale of growth for the characters in the story.  The way these characters develop is a way for teachers to show students a model of personal growth while making the reading fun for the students. 

            This novel fits the classification of historical fiction more than any other category you could put it in.  The best part about it is that it fits an unfamiliar tale into a familiar story.  Everyone is familiar with the story behind World War II (WWII), but how many know the story of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) during this time period.  Most people can cite the impact women had on the work force in the U.S., but very few know about the WAC.  This is even a surprise to a character in the novel when she writes to a friend, “So my grandmother ran away to join the Army when they first let African American women join back in WWII.  It totally explains a bunch of things about her” (Davis 65), the fact this hasn’t even come up in the family before shows just how discreet this knowledge is.  This piece of history is even a surprise to me, a twelve year veteran, so you know it must be new to so many other people.  That is how this book can be a nice tool to compliment a lesson in both the English and History departments.

            The other way this book works really well is as a testament to personal growth in the face of adversity.  Each of the two story lines of past and present has a unique adversity to overcome, and the author shows how people can mature and overcome anything if they have to.  One of the best instances is in the pat when the characters encounter the gas chamber for the first time.  Having been through this, I know it is not a fun experience, and true to form the characters want to quit in the novel.  One of them is even heard yelling “I can’t!  I can’t do it!  I’m not going back in there.” (Davis 100).  However, each and every one of them does the drill again and again until they are no longer afraid and one character even remarks “Didn’t nobody ever tell me I was this tough.” (Davis 102).  This lesson alone is one that educators could use to teach students that they are tough, and no matter what it is never as bad as it seems.  In the future, the girls have to learn that they actually love their grandma which is an idea that doesn’t go over well the narrator even states “I’m not the only one who hates this idea.  You should have heard my sister.” (Davis 3), this is how the narrator sets the tone for the entire beginning portion of the novel.  Of course this attitude eventually changes and the girls come to enjoy the time they have spent with their grandmother by the end of the story.  The end is even capped by a touching scene where “We bump heads and do a group hug, the sort that other people and their grandmothers probably do all the time.” (Davis 340).  This type of family growth could be important to young adults who traditionally at this time in their lives don’t look at their parents as friends. 

            This story is a bit of a longer novel, but with the rich historical details, and the wit the author displays it should have no problem holding the interest of teens, and giving educators plenty of source material to work with.  The only negative to this story is actually a positive, and that is the lack of continuation.  After finishing the novel I can’t help but wonder how the grandmother dealt with other things like the Civil Rights movement or the Vietnam conflict.  With any luck this will inspire further stories form Tanita S. Davis that educators will be able to use to teach African American history through their eyes.

Works Cited

Davis, Tanita S.  Mare’s War.  New York: Knopf, 2009. Print.

Critique of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

In his novel The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie tries to answer a question all young children growing up ask themselves, and that’s “Where do I belong?”  Any teacher looking to assign a book to their class should always assign a book that has both meaning, and should be a story that gets students excited to read.  Every student would be able to relate to Alexie’s main character Junior, and his trouble to find a place in two worlds that don’t exactly want him there.  As a teacher, this book would be one that they could use to show kids that even thought they don’t always fit in, they will always be able to make their own place to fit.           

Junior uses his talent of drawing in the novel to represent his insecurities about his situation and his life as a “part-time” Indian, yet they are also a great tool for teaching since he also uses the drawings to represent escape for Junior.  This would be an exceptional way for a teacher to try and relate to their students and find a talent that an outsider could escape from any real or perceived horrors in their life.  Junior expresses his lack of belonging on the “Rez” by saying “You’ll be the first one to ever leave the rez this way,” Mom said.  “The Indians around here are going to be angry with you.” (Alexie 47), this shows just what he thinks about how the people of the Rez feel about him.  He then goes on to further explain how he feels at Rearden, his new high school, by saying “I didn’t deserve to be there.  I knew it; all of those kids knew it.  Indians don’t deserve shit.” (Alexi 56).  With thoughts like this it would be easy to see how this kid does not feel like he fits in.

Alexie writes this book as if it were an autobiography of sorts, although the characters are fictional, and uses experiences from his own life to help relate to young adults.  While this story is about an Indian that doesn’t fit in anywhere, he is speaking to all kids who feel they may not belong.  He continues on to show how he deals with abuse, alcoholism, death, and poverty by using humor.  He may be an Indian, but he tackles heavy problems that many people can recognize and identify with. 

To address these darker issues, and then get over them Junior uses humor to fight back his despair.  This is never more so evident than when his grandmother dies.  Junior tells a story about a man named Ted that comes to the funeral mistakenly.  At the end of Ted’s tale, which was false, Junior says that “Two thousand Indians laughed at the same time” (Alexie 167).  He then goes on to explain that “When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing” this showcases perfectly how his character of Junior uses humor to cover his sadness and cope with tragedy. 

The message behind this novel is one that every teacher should hope to impart on students in their classroom.  Alexie shows that despite adversity in life, there is a way to deal with and overcome the obstacles ahead of you.  This fits in our classrooms well because it is a time in young kids’ lives that they are struggling with who they are and where they belong.  Alexie deftly uses his novel to tackle these issues and show children that there is hope after all.

Literary history

When I was younger reading was somewhat of a challenge for me.  I really cannot remember why this was so, but prior to third grade I had no desire to read and the school thought it was necessary to put me in the reading readiness program.  The memories of this class are vague but I do know that the actual act of reading was not an issue for me like some of my other classmates; it was the idea and desire to read that I did not have.  This all changed however, after my time in the readiness class.  Since then I have been an avid reader who at times would push off work in class so I could read whatever Stephen King novel I had that month.  The rest as they say is history, and now I read all genres that I can.   Some of my favorites are the thrillers King has, any sort of biographical novel, down to the book that may be my favorite Dante’s Inferno.  Dante turned into a small labor of love for me because even though I enjoyed it, it took me many years to read it through, and understand what I was reading.

What this course had taught me so far is to fully consider everyone’s view of the work.  I take both literary interpretation and adolescent literature, and both classes rely heavily on dissecting these works.   Often times my view of the story is completely different than others.  That however, does not mean that one of us is wrong and one is right, and I think this is the beauty of having a classroom discussion about completed works.  I know I have been able to put forth ideas that others did not have, and my classmates have been able to put forth thoughts that I hadn’t considered.  I think this is an important lesson to remember for prospective teachers.  The students in your class may not see Romeo and Juliet the way I do, and I may not be teaching it the way they understand it, but by opening the room to discussion we may be able to get a common ground where we all agree. 

Sharing with students my passion to digest good literature may be something that I will have to work on as I grow during my undergraduate degree.  I think that one thing I will need to consider is how you actually can us YA lit as a stepping stone toward what many people define as the “classics.”  My ultimate goal would be to share authors like Dante, Hemmingway, Bradbury and Kundera.  I do understand, that all student’s may not ever reach that level, but by using YA lit to open their eyes to reading for pleasure, I may be able to inspire some to reach out on their own.  From the start I do plan on having a teacher’s recommended reading list in my classroom that has a wide variety of both challenging and fun novels.

If I had to recommend a stepping stone for other adults to start enjoying YA lit, then I would try to lead them toward a novel that mirrors their own childhood.  When I was an adolescent, I could not get into The Scarlet Letter, or The Great Gatsby, and looking back on it I think that is the inability to relate to those stories.  I was too young to really understand what adultery was, and was not close to being rich at all.  I feel like the ability to see you in the story somewhere can be a key ingredient to enjoying literature.  This way I can open that adult up to reminiscing about their youth, and hopefully the mirror effect will make them enjoy it all the more.