Q: Marjane must learn new cultural expectations, including but not limited to religion, language, gender, and living situations. In what ways does this affect Marjane?
In the second part of Persepolis Marjane moves to Europe. When she first moves there she notices that a lot of things she was used to was completely different than what the normal cultural expectations in Europe were. I think that the thing she would normally not do but she does anyway is smoking. This is from peer preassure not because she actually wants to but she wanted to fit in with the people she hung out with. She noticed that in Europe it was okay to have sex before marriage and she wasn't used to it. On page 186 Marjane was very disturbed but this changed her view later on in the book. She didn't think that sex before marriage was okay until the cultural difference started to have an influence on her on page 213 when she said that she was "too ugly for him to want her." Marjane changes a lot when she moves and she was also affected with guilt. She felt guilty that she was starting to morph into the European culture while her parents were having a hard time back home.
There was an explosion at a cheese factory in France ... De-brie was everywhere!
I think this is really cool how you talked about culture in your blog.
ReplyDeleteI did not think much about how it effected her perception on sex before marriage. Now that you brought it up I can see more of the effect that Western culture is having on her. Do you think that if her parents were there with her she would hold on to her Iranian morals, or would she still conform to the Western norms?
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