Persepolis I

How does conflict forge identity?

In Persepolis, I feel like these people are happy to serve and die for their rights in the revolution. For example, on the first panel on page 31... we see the people carrying the body of a dead man killed by the army in the midst of the revolution. The man was carried by a crowd of people, whom were proclaiming him a martyr..

In Stephen Crane's "War is Kind", he explains how people should be proud of the soldiers and/or loved ones that have died during it. Even though I disagree because I think war brings nothing but pain, others may be "pro-war" and have a degree of patriotism to an extent. On lines 8-9 we read:

These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them.

I think these two lines interact with Persepolis' panel in which the young man is recognized a martyr for being killed by the army in the revolution protest. We clearly see the unexplained glory by having a random crowd of people praising this boy because he died in the revolution; something everyone is willing to die for at that time.

Also,[comparing Persepolis and "War Is Kind"] on page 40, that the first panel is of dead people, looking up, and it states that "After black Friday, there was one massacre after another. Many people were killed". I can see on Crane's poem, line 22, "And a field where a thousand corpses die".

This war, or conflict, forges the identity of global war and killings in our world both in the past and present..hopefully not the future, anymore! We can see the language of war globally in all nations and worlds. It brings on the same deaths, and people who have given up their lives for it.

Poems about war

I read "War is Kind" by Stephen Crane (1899). I disagree with the poem. I don't think war is kind and that there's nothing you win out of it other than death and pain for others...and I think war gets you no where.

In a multimodal sense, I can see a man wearing worn out clothes and carrying a gun, wounded, stumbling on the river with his hand on his heart and taking his last breath and falling dead to the shallow water.

"Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died" (line 13,14)

Intersections

2 Panels I would like to discuss in class are the panel on page 301 and page 304. In these panels, Craig is very nervous about going to sleep with Raina in her bed. In that same panel you can tell that Craig looks shocked and kind of dumbfounded when she asks him this question. Then, on page 304, as he is undressing and ready to go to bed [with Raina] he starts reciting in his mind bible verses about the sin of the body with adultery and love and the fire burning within the man when he loves a woman kind of thing, and he looks just as worried and nervous about having a little "sleepover" with Raina! I found these very interesting because I think that he is only nervous because of the way his faith has brought him up to be.

In "Blankets" and "Oranges", the literature speaks to each other by having the same sort of concept when it comes to the individual's Christian upbringing and their own path of discovering who they really are. For example, I think that on page 60 in "Blankets", Craig is getting rid of his passion for art choosing God instead. In "Oranges" Jeannette was to choose between God and her relationships between Melissa and Katy. They are speaking in the sense that they are losing themselves in order to be close to God and continue their expected spiritual lives. In the end, both Craig and Jeannette leave their Christian ways and pursue their lives without Christianity as the center of it. With that point said, I would ;ike to add Emily Dickinson's poem, "Some Keep The Sabbath", she explains that she connects with God simply by discovering nature and not being a churchgoer. I think that she does what she wants to in her life, without God being the complete and utter center of it all. And I think it is what Craig and Jeannette do at the end of their stories, when they let go of their family's strict religious ways!

Blankets...In Class Blog 3 Panels

I liked the panels on page 57, 58, 59 and 60 on Craig Thompson's, "BLANKETS".

As Craig is reading the bible, he comes to a halt and decides that his drawings (which is his method of "Escapism" along with dreaming), are a distraction to his bible studies in his life. He then decides to burn them all and he goes through this torture of trying to rid his memories with his drawings. At the bottom on page 59, Craig looks like he is in a state of torture, almost like a demonic exercism, of Craig's memories and love for art and drawing coming out of him. It leaves him looking like he has lost a big part of himself. On the panel on page 60, I continue to see this inner torture as it "leaves his body".

I think Thompson's book converstaes with Jeannette Winterson's "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit" through both characters wanting two things at the same time but one is apparently evil and the other is good. For Jeannette, she was torn between God and being a lesbian and dealing with her relationships with Melanie and Katy. With Craig, I tihnk he is torn between God and his passion for art.

Belief...

I was raised Catholic, and my grandma was the most influential person as far as that went! My parents would take my brother and I to church every single Sunday whether we wanted to or not. I wouldn't say we were as "hard core" about it like Jeannette and her family in "Oranges..". We would just go to church on Sundays and my whole family would meet at my grandma's house and we'd have a big family lunch/dinner and hang out. I remember them being very fun!
As the years went by however, and things changed my mom left the church, and my dad got closer to it when they divorced. My grandma was the only person who would take my brother and I to church for the years that followed.
Today, my brother and mom do not go to church, but I still like to go on Sundays if I can. I don't take religion very seriously. I mean, I AM Catholic and I believe in God, and I like to go to church, but I'm not as crazy about it. I'm very laid back as far as religion goes.