Sam Pastol
Professor Walawalkar & Andrew
Froshman Seminar
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Essay #5
Throughout this semester in class, we read many books and articles where authors talk to the reader about their personal and social changes around them. While reading those book and articles, three authors stick out to me and they are Marjane who is the author and the main character from The Complete Persepolis, the one and only African-American speaker named Malcom X and Amy Tan. Not only I found them interesting, inspiring and unique, they all relate to one another. All three authors connect to each other because they have educated themselves, promoted awareness and are self-made people.
The first author who describes personal and social changes at a young age to an older women is the main character and author of The Complete Persepolis, Marjane. In the entire book, she uses her artistic skills with only three main colors; black, blue and grey with detailed imagery and speech bubbles to explain the overlap between her personal and social changes. Many chapters in the book describes the difficulty of personal and social changes she went through. One chapter titled “The Vegetables” specifically talks about Marjane going through puberty and trying to change her appearance which indicates personal change.
At the beginning of the chapter, Marjane goes through the stage of adulthood and describes the changement of her physical appearance: “My mental transformation was followed by my physical metamorphosis. As if my natural deformity wasn’t enough, I tried a few haircuts. A little snip of the scissors on the left. And a week later, a little snip of the scissors on the right. I looked like Cosette in “Les miserables.” So I coated my hair with gel, I added a thick line of eyeliner, a few safety pins, which were replaced by a scarf. It softened the look. It was beginning to look like something.” (pg. 189-190) Marjane drew pictures of herself slowly cutting her hair and later gave a style to it. She wanted to be different so she tried something new.
In that same chapter there is another sign of personal change when Marjane speaks about having challenges before accepting the fact that she is an Iranian women. One day, Marjane found herself alone in the café near her school when a group of student sat behind her. They started talking about random things and then switched the subject that involved Marjane. She listened to their conversation and the group of students seemed concerned about Marjane’s personal life. She get so overwhelmed by their none sense chitchat that she stands up and said: “You are going to shut up for I am going to make you! I an Iranian and proud of it! I wanted to die. Where were my parents to take me in their arms, to reassure me? But really, I had nothing to cry about. I just had redeemed myself. For the first time in a year, I felt proud. I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn’t comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.” (pg. 197) After leaving the café crying with the need of her parents by her side she felt a sense of relief and finally comes to an understanding that she must accept who she is before going further.
In The Complete Persepolis another chapter titled Skiing focuses on a social change Marjane underwent. She decides to move back from Vienna to her homeland but as days go by, she began having thoughts of suicide from her changes. At the start of that chapter, she states that coming back got Iran would liberate her from her old days although she wasn’t able to step back, breath and take a break. Her family tried to get her out of the house to do something productive but nothing seemed to work. She quotes: ““When I was in Vienna, my life didn’t matter to anyone and that obviously had an effect on my own self-esteem. I was reduced to nothing. I thought that in comping back to Iran, this would change.” Marjane felt so shutoff that she cried and smoked to let her old days go away. Even talking to any members of her family would be a waste of time because her mind would blank.
The second author that describes personal and social changes during his life in prison is the African-American, Malcom X. He taught himself to read and learn while being imprisoned because of his frustration at not being able to express and articulate his feelings and thoughts through writing. His motivation for studying all the words in the dictionary made him fell in love with reading and understanding books. The knowledge he was grasping was liberating him.
Malcom X goes through a personal change after reading a book and began to understanding what the book was actually about: “Months passed without me even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been truly free in my life.” (pg.2) While educating himself, his mentality felt free event though he was physically in prison. This quote is powerful because he says that the feeling of wanting to learn more freed him from his past and gave him a new life. He adds that the reason why he fell in love with reading is because it taught him something everyday. The more he kept reading, the more he continued to developed his mind: “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” (pg.6) It only after being able to read, that he knew what was his purpose of being alive.
At the end of his story, Malcom X got interested into the general history of black race in America, mostly their human and civil rights. He fought for equal opportunities and quality life for Black Americans. He explained that the American Black man was the world’s most shameful case of minority oppressions. Malcolm X studied documents about how the United Nations proposed to insure the human rights of the oppressed minorities of the world and asked himself: “How is the black man going to get “civl right” before first he wins his human rights?” (pg. 6) He means that if the black American black man start thinking about his human rights first and then about himself, he will later see that he has a case for the Union Nations.
The last author who went through personal and social change is Amy Tan who is an Asian American writer who discussed her relationship with her mother. She grew up with her Chinese spoke “broke” or “fractured” English that is difficult to understand. She talked about her difference between her mother’s broken English and Standard English. She added how people can be rude and take advantage of her mother for not speaking clear English. She felt ashamed of her mother’s English. In school, Amy wasn’t good at writing because of her mother’s English had an effect on developing English language skills. Teachers have tried to turn her down for becoming a writer and make her do something else but she decides to be rebellious and confront all her challenges.
Amy Tan understands that a lot of people aren’t aware of what her mother is trying to say when she speaks the language, although sometimes people do grasp a little bit from it: “Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It’s my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imaginary. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world.” (pg.1) Amy Tan explains that she grew up with her mother speaking in that specific way so to her it sounds totally normal.
Throughout her entire life living with her mom opened her mind wider because she realized that her education may be affected by her mother’s English: “I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well. Sociologist and linguists probably will tell you that a person’s developing language skills are more influenced by peers. But I do think that the language spline in the family, especially in immigrant families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of the child. And I believe that it affected why result son achievement tests, I.Q. tests , and SAT.” (pg.2) She thinks that the way children are taught at a young age with any first language, they will later grow up learning and using it.
Between the three of my favorite authors, Amy Tan’s story is the probably the closest it can get to my personal experience and relationship with my mother. The fact that she grew up with a mother that speak fluently Chinese and “broken” or “fractured” English is very similar to my personal life and experience. In my case, Non-standard English not only is my second language after French but it is also my mother’s. My mother learned English way later than I did which is why she has a thick French accent to it. The way she speaks ins’t wrong, its the way it sounds that people may not understand. In my mind, all the words are understandable but others may not and take it personally.
Just like Amy Tan’s personal life and experience, it was and still is a challenge to have a family member who doesn’t speak uses the language in their daily life. In her story Amy talks about being ashamed of her mother’s English with a thick Chinese accent. Explaining to other that he mother had a “broken” or “fractured” English made her feel uncomfortable. I have been through that same moment, so I understand completely what she felt. For example, when there was a parent/student-teacher conference or a meeting with the principal of the school, I made sure to tell them in advance that my mother’s first language isn’t English so that there isn’t a misunderstanding. Although its always recognizable after she says her first sentence.
Later in her story, Amy Tan points out when she was fifth-teen she would call people on the phone to pretend she was her mother. I imagined Amy on the phone translating everything from Chinese to English while her mother would be standing right next to her. Surprisingly that didn’t happened to me, actually I never spoke for mother on the phone but it would have been an interesting experience. I probably would of learnt some things she probably wouldn’t want me to hear. In general, I know that she is dependent and smart enough to take care of her calls.
After thinking for a while, Amy Tan is kind of like my lost sister. We would get along very well since we both have a very similar personal life experiences with mothers. Im sure that if we met one day, the subject of our conversion would be about our mother. I felt that her story was written specifically toward people like myself who understand and will adapt to the struggles.
Marjane in The Complete Persepolis was the most inspiring because her book became very successful. Being able to remember her whole entire life and drawing it, is in my opinion exceptional. I thought maybe I could do it but maybe not as good as Marjane did. I can imagine the hard times and moments she had probably before, during and after making the book. Maybe she thought to herself that it was useless to keep making her book but somewhere in her mind, there was something that kept her going. I honestly respect her for what she went through and If I had the chance to meet her, I would take that chance.
Reading the books and articles changed my academic reading and writing by learning and understanding more about the what and how the author writes the way they do. All their stories were very inspiring and learned from them individually. They inspired me to accept the way I write and read but also accept the fact that my academic reading and writing are different from other people.
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