Persepolis, lesson 10:Old friends, new ways?

L.O. understanding the struggle to re-adjust & Iranian culture as Marjane finds it on

her return

• In the chapters ‘The Joke’ & ‘Skiing’ find as many examples as possible of panels that show Marjane is to Iranian for the West and too Western for Iran.

Starter

Marjane’s strugglesDiscuss in pairs, then feed back to the rest of the class:•What does Marjane find hardest to deal with when she comes back? Find the panel that proves this.•How is Marjane (partly?) to blame for her own misery?•What makes her take control at the end of these two chapters & how does she do this? Connect this to the issue of (re)integrating into her own culture

The Iranian people

• In the two chapters ‘The Joke’ and ‘Skiing’ Satrapi shows us a side to the people in Iran that isn’t all that different from people anywhere else in the world.

• How does she manage to combat stereotypes in these two chapters?

• Find out what stereotypes people have of Iran and how Satrapi manages to contradict these in these two chapters (a.o.) of the novel.

• As usual, find out how she uses her drawing for this.

• How does this panel accurately sum up the base of Marjane’s problems in these chapters and much of the novel?

Plenary