Extra Credit Post

For my extra credit post I read Aimee Bender's story "Death Watch." The story was about men who had two weeks to live but then some found out the doctor was wrong and they were perfectly fine. To me this was not a typical Aimee Bender story we were use to reading. It did not have the fantasy world characteristics, but instead had all real life scenarios with problems that could all be true and realistic. It's scenario took place in real time with real characters.

When given the timeline for life we see how the bad news can be effected by different personality traits and their behavior. The story was primarily based on a person that was suicidal and decided to go to Europe and meet a Greek woman to fall in love before he died. Instead of receiving the news that he would be fine he ignored it and went on living his fantasy life for what he thought would only be a couple weeks. Instead of dying in two weeks as he thought he lived for 3 years before trying to uncover an answer. After his love from Europe followed him to America and then he began to believe he was immortal. Although the story did not seem science fiction or fantasy driven it carried the morals just like the rest of Bender's stories. This one seemed to teach us not to take life for granted and to live live to the fullest. This suicidal man did that and this news turned his life around because by thinking he was going to die seemed to actually save him.

Scott Swan
Extra Credit Post

Persepolis

After reading The Complete Persepolis, I got a new outlook about Iran, Islam and the entire Middle East. I actually enjoyed reading this book because it was easy to understand what Satrapi was trying to show the reader by also drawing pictures throughout the book. I feel like her parents made the right decision sending her to Austria to live with other family even though she was so young because Iran was so dangerous at the time that she could have easily died from the war. Whereas in Austria she is much safer even though she isn't really part of her culture anymore. Either way it was a tough decision made by her parents and they picked the one that they felt was most beneficial to Satrapi. By living in Austria she was able to live the rest of her life and tell other people about everything that happened in Iran. If she would have stayed in Iran, that would have been one more person at a protest, but that's not going to make much of a difference. By living safely in another country she was able to speak her voice through writing this book.

Extra Credit Post

For the extra credit post I read Aimee Bender's short story "I Will Pick Out Your Ribs (From My Teeth)". I chose this story because I feel that it represents the helplessness and hopelessness that seem to play a large role in multiple things that we have read this year from other Aimee Bender stories to Jhumpa Lahari. The story is about a boyfriend who is forver going to the hospital with his girlfriend because she takes pills and overdoses. It goes through his afternoon coming home and his conversation with his girlfriend and his thoughts about her, their life, and his life. The end of the story does leave the reader feeling like the man had no choice but to continue the relationship because he clearly cares for her but at the same time is sick of her behavior. He does the right thing in taking her to the hospital and hiding her pills but is afraid to take the next step and get rid of them altogether.

Complete Persepolis

Overall I feel that the story was very well written (and drawn) and that it was a good idea by Marjane Satrapi to present her story in a graphic novel format. By creating a story with pictures explaining the words she was able to reach teenagers as well as adults and keep both interested throughout the work. Although not everyone will be able to relate, by having her story out there and available she is showing that not all Iranians are the way that American culture has been lead to believe and that she feels that the actions that are shown coming from her country are more or less just because the people are being repressed by a government who doesn't seem to place it's people first. I thought that the marriage scene in the story was incredibly important. It really shows how different Iranian culture is from American or French culture. Marji and Reza are a couple, but not married and everywhere they go they find that it is difficult for them to do anything together without being married. So Reza asks Marji to marry him and although Marji goes around and around about it she accepts. My question is though, although she loves him, does she just accept for the convenience? It seems like she does, her father already knows that the marriage will fall apart, but he feels that it is important for Marji to realize that herself. Love can be blinding so it makes sense that Marji felt that it would work between them, but if her father could see it, then all Marji would have had to do was take a step back and she would have seen it too. All in all it was a good book, I feel that it had equal parts of happy and sad, but didn't leave the reader feeling depressed at the end.