Chicken With Plums

Gabrielle Stewart

10/20/2017

Blog Post 1

Chicken With Plums 

    Who would have ever thought that a graphic novel about someone wanting to die over an instrument could be so interesting? Well, Marjane Satrapi did just that in her graphic novel called Chicken with Plums. Satrapi is a graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children’s book author. She was born in Iran to a middle class family. Her family was all very politically active and most of her books are about that point in her life. This particular novel about a man who gives up his life for music. Once his instrument gets permanently damaged, he decides that life isn’t worth living anymore. Not just for that reason, but for many. So I guess you could say he wanted to die for something he truly cared about, both his instrument and his family. As the book continues it tells the reader about the next eight days of his life after he makes this decision. The main character expresses his reasons for wanting to die through his experiences. These experiences are during his childhood, with his family, and things he describes that will occur in the future. During these experiences we can see his reactions as well as his thoughts can lead us to believe he wants to die for more reasons than just his instrument being broken.

   

    You first see Nasser Ali Khan and his wife's relationship on page ten. Here, you see an argument between the two about what they are going to do with their child when he makes his trip to get a new tar. We realize on this page that his wife is actually the reason for him needing a new tar, she is the one who broke it.  On page ten you can see their conversation in multiple panels. The first panel sounds like a regular conversation, but then quickly turns into an argument in the second panel. I found interesting how their child was in between them in many of the panels. The son seems almost not phased by them fighting which shows that it probably happens often in their house. It seems to be just a small argument until on the bottom of the page they call each other names. He says, “Bitch!” and she says, “Bastard!” That is where it draws the line and you can truly see how Khan is very unhappy. His wife is as well. This page as well as pages like twenty-four and forty-two show his relationship with his wife. From these pages, we can see that their relationship isn’t healthy and neither of them are happy. In many panels they call each other names and tell each other they hate one another. His wife is a huge part of his life, clearly, but as shown he doesn’t enjoy his time with her. This shows one reason his life isn’t worth living anymore.

    His relationship between himself and his children are also shown. Those too don’t seem to be that strong either. On page twenty-four there is an interaction between Khan and his daughter that clearly shows their relationship. His daughter comes into the room in the first panel and wants to know what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t tell her, but thinks in his head “I just want to die”. She simply wants to play with her father, but he shows no interest in it at all. He blames it on “being tired”, but we can see that isn’t the case. On page fifty-one, it shows an interaction between his children and he is sitting and watching them. During this interaction he looks quite disappointed with his children’s choices, which was his son farting on him. He says, “I’m going to die and my son farts in my face...what a waste!” His one sentence right there shows his disappointment without even looking at his expressions. Then there was a side note that clearly states that he doesn’t like his son. His reasons are because his wife decided to have another child on her own and he had nothing in common with him. Most parents don’t say those things about their children and if they think it, they don’t admit it. This shows that his relationship with at least one of his children, if not both, is very weak.

    As well as encounters with his family when his kids were young, there is also flash forwards as well. On pages fifty-four through fifty-six it shows a flash forward to when his daughter is seventeen. They think his daughter has appendicitis because her stomach is in pain. They soon realize once they bring her to the emergency room that she is pregnant. None of them realized that had happened and they are all in complete shock. After these panels he again thinks, “I am dying and nobody cares”. With that panel he says “It was difficult to make out an 8-pound fetus in 400 pounds of meat.” Again, parents don’t normally think or say these things about their children. The readers probably wonder why he says all of these things about his family in the present and in the future, but I believe it is because he knows he is going to die. He thinks that no one cares that he is going to die, so he just says them. He is right, because his wife doesn’t care about his love for music. We saw this when she first broke his tar.

    Family is a big part of people's lives. In Kahn’s case, family isn’t. He is always fighting with his family and disappointed in them. Every time something happens with them, he always says, “I am dying and nobody cares.” This shows that he believes that no one cares he is about to die. For the most part he used music to get away from these things, which is why his tar was so important to him. So when this instrument was broken, he was also. Not only does this book show his love for music and his tar, but it shows his lack of family support.