narrative, truth, morals

for some reason when, when we are children, we are programmed to think that an autobiography has to be boring. we assume that it is told as a "chronicle"(as White depicts it) rather than a "history" (containing the word "story" for a reason) and is mostly a list of facts and events. it seems, however, that people take their story and make it more readable, more literary. why document your story though if it isn't even exactly your story, how it happened? i presume that the autobiographer picks a theme and chooses out the important parts that support the concept they are trying to portray through their narrative. Satrapi certainly had to do this to make her story specifically about the effect of the war on her coming-of-age. besides that, she probably said things that didn't happen. this makes me think of the "the things they carried." in that novel, tim o' brien talks about how sometimes when telling a story, one must exaggerate to share an honest feeling. essentially, in order to make the reader feel what the narrator was feeling, the narrator must change or amplify the actual events because reading them cannot simulate experiencing them. the desire that White talks about, the intrinsic desire to tell one's story, is rooted in the need to make others feel what you were feeling.

was there a moral in "persepolis?" i got the feeling that starapi was trying to stay away from inserting a specific lesson into the story. this is one things that sort of opposes what white things a narrative is. i suppose there are a few things that the reader could take as morals. the closest i can think of is the idea of a "rebel with a cause." it is your prerogative to rebel against a dictator (especially a dicktator) or unjust ruler. however, there were also scenes of misguided rebellion, and the initial rebellion lead to lifestyle even more unhappy and dangerous for the families of iran. so the question of whether the rebellions was successful or not is never answered in the book. i feel that satrapi wanted to leave a lot of metaphorical doors open for the readers to explore after reading her story.