Towards the end of Persepolis, Marjane is making increased efforts to look better to her new husband, Reza. While wearing makeup for this very purpose at a local bazaar, she notices that the Guardians of the Revolution have gathered for a raid. In an attempt to distract them, she claims that a man on a set of steps was harassing her. (The majority of this occurs on pages 283 and 284). On the first panel of page 283, she explains her whole reasoning for doing this, and I believe that it was a very selfish act, as one individual wearing makeup in public would make so little of a change and a statement to the Islamic government that the avoidance of possibly having a man tortured or killed was not only an easy choice, but a very necessary one. Thus, Marjane's scolding by her grandmother was the least the woman could have done to set the immature wife straight.
Frederick Douglass, as mentioned at the very beginning of Chapter I, was separated from his mother at a very young age. In fact, really the only thing he remembers of her is the fact that she talked to him at nights when he was a very young boy - but when he woke up in the morning, she was gone. Unfortunately, such an event was not uncommon with slaves. Because slaves were treated as property rather than people, slave families were often separated to prevent a human bond between them, which would likely interfere with the ordering of harsh, strenuous work and even harsher punishments. Additionally, Douglass mentions the fact that slaves were to know as little of themselves as possible, in order to preserve them as property, born not to think or feel but to work. In the masters' eyes, this would have likely had slaves see the world as one to work on, and so that is exactly what they would do. Of course, slaves eventually did rebel against their masters and go to every length to de...
Comments
Post a Comment