Gabrielle Stewart
10/20/2017
Blog Post 1
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 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.
Gabrielle Stewart
Blog Post #2
12/4/2017
Suicide has always been a big topic in American culture, recently it has become more popular. This is because suicide rates are rapidly increasing. Chicken with Plums written by Marjane Satrapi is about a man who contemplates many methods of suicide, but decides to just die slowly in his bed. His breaking point is when his wife breaks his instrument because he hadn’t been caring for their children. He reflects on his life during the few last days of his life. This is what the author of the graphic novel walks us through. Chicken with Plums shows readers that suicide is a topic that is being dealt with all over the world, not just in America. The author shows this through the story about her family member and their struggles as they contemplate suicide.
Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi is a lot like Boxers, the book we read recently for class. They are like one another because Boxers is about an event that happened in China and the comic shows a lot of chinese language in the background. The whole story is in English, but the readers can see where the characters are all from and which ones speak fluent Chinese. This is easy to tell because the author made it that way. In class, students were wondering why is this written in English? Why did the author want to tell us about this event? These same questions were coming into my head as I read the book I chose, Chicken with Plums. Khan, the main character in the graphic novel was a musician and very sad after his instrument broke. Again, while I was reading that book I was wondering why we were being told about it. Why did the author want us to know about it? Why was it written in English? What was the importance of the story? The author herself could answer those questions clearly, but the only way I could find out was from gathering information in the text.
In the text you could not tell the characters race because all of the pictures were black and white. This made it hard to see those details that we could clearly see in Boxers. I only knew that the characters were from Tehran because of prior research that I had done. This was easily shown in both Boxers and Saints because the photos were in color and characters race was easily identifiable. We see that in both texts, even though the events happen in other areas of the world that it affects many people. I personally don’t think that the black and white photos took away from Chicken with Plums because those details were not necessary. I only think it was good to know to see that the author was showing us that this happens everywhere.
We as readers only see that Khan is upset about his instrument, but the author shows us flashbacks for a reason. That is so show us that there were other things that lead Khan to want to die, but the instrument getting broken was the last straw. He felt as though that was the last piece of him, so when that was gone it was time for him to be gone as well.
After reading Boxers and Saints it helped me read into Chicken with Plums and how it relates to us in the United States. I can confidently say that although this book took place in Tehran, suicide happens everywhere. Satrapi is trying to get that point across to us. When I first read the book I thought it was just telling us about the last few days of his life, but now I see more. More of my questions are being answered by the text.
We see many of Khans interactions with family members and friends who care a lot about him. As you read the graphic novel it shows how Khan often looks at the hard times in his life. He thinks that because of those times it is his time to die. I believe the author wanted us to read about her family member who wanted to commit suicide because of things that were going on in his life. I think the biggest thing she wanted the reader to take away from the story is that even if the victim doesn’t clearly see it, people do care and want to help. In this graphic novel, on page 13 we see that someone went to get Kahn a new tar. I saw this as a very nice gesture, but then Khan hears the price and he is shocked. We also see this on page 66 when someone is praying for him. They wanted him to get better, but he didn’t always see that. We see throughout the graphic novel that Nasser Ali Kahn had many people who cared about him and loved him, but he kept looking past it.
This book is connecting with history in a way we don’t always see. It is showing us that some of the same things happen now that happened years ago. Although a lot has changed, many things are still the same. This book is very hard to look at as a history text because I fell as though it is more about other things. In other texts we read throughout the semester we could tell they were clearly about certain events in history. This text was very hard to pinpoint that one thing. I felt as though this text was more about family, friends and the sadness of suicide. Relating it to history was hard especially since it was written within the last 15 years.
Overall this book was very engaging and pulled the reader in. Even though the history was hard to see there were many other great aspects of the story. You never knew what he is going to tell you about next and you keep wanting to know more about Kahn and why he wants to die so bad. Is it really because of his tar or is it because of other things as well? As I stated above, it’s more than just his tar. He thinks no one cares about him and this is a reason to not live anymore.
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