ELA Blog Post for 27 October, 2017
This week, I'd like to write about a detail in Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" that, while small, really confused me. Or, better put, it being so small was sort of the reason it confused me.
On page 223, a very interesting thing happens. Marjane, having skated on through her schooling on her intellectual ability and not paying much real attention, suddenly realizes she is unprepared to take the French Baccalaureate, and will need "a miracle to pass". Then, one night, God himself appears to her in her sleep and tells her what the subject of the test will be, down to the specific work she'll have to test on. The next morning, she calls her mother (who she says she can always count on to pray and have her prayers answered), "who [calls] God, who in turn [sends] his message to the examiner." When the time arrives to take the test, the examiner gives her half an hour to prepare the exact work that God told her it would be.
These occurences, and what Marjane meant to convey in describing them, confuse me greatly. For one, I can't discern whether she is claiming that God literally entered her room and told her the test would be on Montesquieu's "Slavery of the Negroes".
If she is, that's very interesting and makes me think perhaps I don't exactly understand some of the context to her religious beliefs, but still doesn't make the page as a whole make sense. I say it conflicts my understanding of her religious beliefs because, given how infrequently she details direct interactions with God, and as far as I've seen never in any other place depicts him using his omniscience to help her directly, this being the sole example of that happening seems very odd. Its hard to fathom that if she has such direct interventions from God frequently and is used to them that this should be the only, or one of the only few, mentions of such events. Given the things she goes through, I'd think there'd be other places in the book I'd see her go to him for help and recieve or not recieve. At the same time, though, its hard to think that if this is a unique experience, her interaction with God in which he most exhibited his power, it'd be presented so nonchalantly and only take up a single page. All this aside though, if events are to be believed to have gone directly as the book explained, I don't understand the sequence of events. Why, if God came in to Marjane's room and told her exactly what the test would be on, should he need to later be called upon to send a message to the examiner? The best idea I can think of is that the prayer was not to assure the examiner gave a test on the right subject, but instead just a good luck prayer to assure she got a good grade. If that's the case, I personally think the presentation of this specific section was rather convoluted.
On the other hand, it seems possible she does not mean to say that God himself literally let her know what the test would be on, but that he is a representation or indirect influencer of a different miracle that allowed her either to find out the subject beforehand or simply get a good grade. If another event or person let her in on the test subject early, I don't understand why she chose instead to represent it as God. She, as far as I can see, was throughout the book very straightforward in explaining events, never using metaphor or religion to explain things indirectly. The things she did show clearly were often brutally honest and revealing about herself and others, too, so I can't imagine she meant to do something like mask how she got the test subject ahead of time to protect the identity of someone who procured it for her in a dishonest or illegal way. There is the possibility I misinterpreted that section, and she didn't actually know the subject beforehand, the page just explained in a confusing way that she was already knowledgable about the book and her mother's prayer brought good luck and caused the test to be about it, but if thats the case, the panel with God entering her room just seems out of place, in my opinion at least.
All this considered, I really can't hone in on any one explanation that feels most likely correct, which is what drew me to write about the subject in the first place. The page seems both out of place considering Satrapi's writing style and as if it would be generally confusing even if one did know what events truly occured.
On page 223, a very interesting thing happens. Marjane, having skated on through her schooling on her intellectual ability and not paying much real attention, suddenly realizes she is unprepared to take the French Baccalaureate, and will need "a miracle to pass". Then, one night, God himself appears to her in her sleep and tells her what the subject of the test will be, down to the specific work she'll have to test on. The next morning, she calls her mother (who she says she can always count on to pray and have her prayers answered), "who [calls] God, who in turn [sends] his message to the examiner." When the time arrives to take the test, the examiner gives her half an hour to prepare the exact work that God told her it would be.
These occurences, and what Marjane meant to convey in describing them, confuse me greatly. For one, I can't discern whether she is claiming that God literally entered her room and told her the test would be on Montesquieu's "Slavery of the Negroes".
If she is, that's very interesting and makes me think perhaps I don't exactly understand some of the context to her religious beliefs, but still doesn't make the page as a whole make sense. I say it conflicts my understanding of her religious beliefs because, given how infrequently she details direct interactions with God, and as far as I've seen never in any other place depicts him using his omniscience to help her directly, this being the sole example of that happening seems very odd. Its hard to fathom that if she has such direct interventions from God frequently and is used to them that this should be the only, or one of the only few, mentions of such events. Given the things she goes through, I'd think there'd be other places in the book I'd see her go to him for help and recieve or not recieve. At the same time, though, its hard to think that if this is a unique experience, her interaction with God in which he most exhibited his power, it'd be presented so nonchalantly and only take up a single page. All this aside though, if events are to be believed to have gone directly as the book explained, I don't understand the sequence of events. Why, if God came in to Marjane's room and told her exactly what the test would be on, should he need to later be called upon to send a message to the examiner? The best idea I can think of is that the prayer was not to assure the examiner gave a test on the right subject, but instead just a good luck prayer to assure she got a good grade. If that's the case, I personally think the presentation of this specific section was rather convoluted.
On the other hand, it seems possible she does not mean to say that God himself literally let her know what the test would be on, but that he is a representation or indirect influencer of a different miracle that allowed her either to find out the subject beforehand or simply get a good grade. If another event or person let her in on the test subject early, I don't understand why she chose instead to represent it as God. She, as far as I can see, was throughout the book very straightforward in explaining events, never using metaphor or religion to explain things indirectly. The things she did show clearly were often brutally honest and revealing about herself and others, too, so I can't imagine she meant to do something like mask how she got the test subject ahead of time to protect the identity of someone who procured it for her in a dishonest or illegal way. There is the possibility I misinterpreted that section, and she didn't actually know the subject beforehand, the page just explained in a confusing way that she was already knowledgable about the book and her mother's prayer brought good luck and caused the test to be about it, but if thats the case, the panel with God entering her room just seems out of place, in my opinion at least.
All this considered, I really can't hone in on any one explanation that feels most likely correct, which is what drew me to write about the subject in the first place. The page seems both out of place considering Satrapi's writing style and as if it would be generally confusing even if one did know what events truly occured.
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