Name: Maiju Savolainen Due Date: October 15 or 16 Section: C / D / E / F
Persepolis 1. Primary Source a. Describe the primary source you are planning to use. If it is a picture, be sure to mention what type. I’m using a picture that’s relates to the book. It is a black and white cartoon of the main character Marji wearing punk clothes from the 1980’s.
b. Why did you choose this source, i.e. how is it connected to your book? My book is a comic about the Revolution of Iran so since it has a lot of pictures I want to include some pictures on my review as well and that picture that I chose is from the book and it includes the main idea “NO PUNK”! It shows this idea because Marji loves punk style and music but she is not allowed to wear to listen to those things because it’s against the Islamic laws.
2. Secondary Source a. Describe the secondary source you are planning to use.
I’m going to use an opinion from a person from 1980’s and what she thought the life was like at the period of time. “They had a concert and it was saposed to be live, and the disk started to skip in the middle of it. The singer tried to play it off like he was singing like that puposly, but the it never stopped skipping, so he ran off stage. I remember bright neon colors in all of my clothing, and big Poofy hair. We didn't know what Aids was, or the Internet. If you wanted to find your favorite song on a tape, it took forever to wind the tape where you wanted it. We would wait by the radio all day with a blank tape, waiting for the DJ to play our favortie song so we could hit the Record button. So, usually on all of your tapes, the Very begining of all the songs were cut off becaues you couldn't get to the Radio in time.”
b. Why did you choose this source, i.e. how is it connected to your book? I chose this source because I wanted to know if the life style was not just in Persepolis but somewhere else as well so I girl that was a teenager in 1980’s tells what her opinion was about the life then. It’s connected to my book because in Persepolis they had the same thing, they couldn’t go and buy CD’s for themselves so they had to record the songs from a radio when it was playing. 3. Review: Your review should try to persuade another grade 8 student to read it. a. Begin with a brief summary of your book. b. What are at least 2 reasons why you think someone else would enjoy this memoir? Reason Because it includes humour even though it’s a book about the Islamic Revolution.
Evidence from your book There was a man in a prison that a girl went to see and he was going to be killed afterwards. The girl’s last words “Let’s have a baby right now. I paid the guard so he won’t bother us. I want a living memory of you.”
Because it’s from a little girl’s perspective
“This was me when I was 10 years old”.
Also because it’s a comic!
The book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is about the Islamic Revolution in 1980’s. The purpose of writing this book was to show that Iran is not a country of fundamentalists and terrorists. A 10 year old girl is forced to wear a veil for school to show respect to the “new” Iran. And that isn’t the only change; boys and girls are separated for education. Marji, the protagonist, isn’t happy about it and so isn’t anyone else. Her mom protests to the school and the next day a picture of her is on every single newspaper across the whole Europe. Marji talks to the God everyday to ask for an advice. She is a curious girl so she wants to know everything so her uncle and dad tell her a lot of different stories about the history and the last war of Iran and after those stories she feels unstoppable. When the war starts part of Marji’s family gets killed and a lot of her friends as well so her parents start considering about sending Marji somewhere else for education. But the problem is no one can leave the country for at least two years... This book was absolutely fantastic. I loved it in every way and that’s why I would recommend this book to everyone. You don’t need to be a history lover to enjoy this book. I would recommend this book to everyone because even though this book was about the Islamic Revolution it had a lot of humour in it. (An example from the book: There was a man in a prison that a girl went to see and he was going to be killed afterwards. The girl’s last words “Let’s have a baby right now. I paid the guard so he won’t bother us. I want a living memory of you.”)(58) Also the book was written from a 10 year old girl’s perspective which is pretty interesting. (“This was me when I was 10 years old”)(3) This book is also a comic so it’s much more fun to read than a book with 300 pages of just text.
A picture from the book.
4. Works Cited
Deneuve, Catherine. Persepolis. 2007. Photograph. France. Persepolis. N.p.: Pantheon, n.d. N. pag. Quardian. Web. 2007. <http://http://www.google.fi/imgres?q=persepolis&num=10&hl=fi&biw=1066&bih=492 &tbm=isch&tbnid=F4Iv2EyZ7qKbYM:&imgrefurl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie /118580/persepolis&docid=70G5QIzT44o4WM&imgurl=http://static.guim.co.uk/sysimages/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/06/06/persepolis460.jpg&w=460&h=276&ei=3fiEUIG8Ks nktQaO5oH4Cw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=285&vpy=210&dur=602&hovh=174&hovw=29 0&tx=217&ty=158&sig=111071699708898421347&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=205&star t=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:85>. Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003. Print. B, Sheri. What Was Life like in 1980's? Rep.Web. Short story Maiju Savolainen Ms. Cross LA8 C October, 25, 2012
Million Candles
It was sinister outside. Trees were humming in the wind, I saw no one on the streets. It was just me and emptiness. Getting a chance to live in a city like this was a dream come true for me. Pleasant atmosphere, caring people, fresh smelling nature, freedom. Persepolis. Every time someone mentioned Persepolis, the first thing that would come to his mind would be sunny or sympathy. Or used to. Until the day everything turned the opposite. “Amanda! Could you come downstairs?” I heard my mom shrieking from the kitchen, from downstairs. “Coming!” I replied and started to descend down the stairs. My family meant everything to me. Since I was the only child, I helped my parents with almost everything. Cooking, cleaning and laundry were my jobs to do after I got back from school each day. Sometimes my mom and I would do it together but she works a lot so usually I do it by myself. My dad unfortunately, lost his job two weeks ago because the company he worked for was destroyed by the Islamic army that attacked Persepolis a while ago. Nevertheless, that my dad lost his job we can be glad that nothing more horrible happened to him because most of his friends even died from that attack. “Could you please set up the table?” she queried me. Grabbing the plates from the kitchen table where my mom had put them ready for me, I answered “Sure”.
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The plates where so shiny that I could see a reflection of myself when I was setting them on the dining table one by one. My blond medium length hair and glasses made me look a little bit older than 12, which was my real age. Actually almost every time I would go to cinema with my friends to watch a movie that was for over 15 year olds, the cashier wouldn’t even ask for my age because he assumed I was older than that. In my parents opinion though I look like a normal 12 year old girl so I believe them because I hate being different. When my dad got back home from work we had dinner which today was all grain rice and fleshpot that my mom and I had made. After dinner I slouched to my room. On the walls I had posters of different actresses and singers and next to my bed I had a CD track that was full of CD’s my parents had given me. I wasn’t allowed to go out and buy my own CD’s because my parents told me it was dangerous to go alone because you could get kidnapped or something. I changed in to my pajamas and clambered to my bed. It only took me couple of minutes to fall asleep. The next day I had to wake up for school. I grabbed my lunch and hopped into my mom’s car because she always drives me to school. “Amanda. Today your dad and I will be going to a meeting so you’re going to have to walk home from school but you need to be careful. We are going to be back by dinner OK?” “OK”, I replied, “I’ll make dinner then”. “Thank you honey! Have a nice day at school”
I got out of the car when we got to the school’s parking plot and at the same second the bell rang for the first morning period. Eventually when school was over I said good bye to my friends and started to head back home. On my way home I tried to be careful like my mom had told me in the morning even though I didn’t understand why. It was quiet and peaceful. Nothing like I had expected. The last 200 meters from the corner shop to our apartment, I ran. When I got inside of the house I started to make dinner right away because I knew my parents would be home any minute. The walk had taken me more time than I thought it would have had so I only had 15 minutes. At 6 o’clock I was finished with the dinner so I decided to sit down on a couch and read till my parents would come home. I only got to the second page of my favorite book “Punk Rock” when I heard a bang from outside. Tensing, I jumped up and hurried to the window. It was too dark to see what had caused the explosion so I decided to take a flashlight from a cabinet next to the door and go outside. But just when I was about to open the door, the doorbell rang. Frightened, I pressed down the door handle. “Amanda?” A giant man that to me looked like a guard asked. “Ye-Yes?” I stammered. “Could I come in?” The man inquired. I didn’t know what to answer so I just nodded. I didn’t know who this man was but he looked like a kind man so I led him in.
“Amanda,” the man started slowly,” You must of heard the explosion couple of minutes ago.” It wasn’t a question. “Yes, yes I did. Do you know what it was?” The man took a deep breath and then looked me in the eyes, “Close to the parliament building there was a battle. And I’m afraid that your… your parents were among the victims.”’ “My- my parents?” I cried. “Yes. I’m sorry.” I ran out of the house. It couldn’t be true. My parents couldn’t be dead. But when I glanced in front of me, I felt like someone had just cut my legs off and I fell on the payment. Wet, salty teardrops were draining down my face. There were corpses everywhere an eye could see. If every corpse were a candle, there would have been at least million candles.