Education in Persepolis - Original
Education in Persepolis is very important. Especially in the book; there are many different types of education that is goes back and forth to. There is Critical thinking, Common sense, Subject Learning, Etc. All throughout the book Marjane Satrapi is forced to critical think and she is frequently pushed away from that because her teachers and people around her do not want her exposed to that. How do all of these form of Education come into play throughout the book and who are the people involved.
There are two types of people in Persepolis, the educated, and the uneducated. Well, most of the people in persepolis are educated in the sense that they know how to read and write, but not a lot of people are educated in the critical thinking part of education. Critical thinking is super important for everyone and especially important for people in persepolis. Marjane is forced to critical think but people push her away from it frequently because they do not want her exposed to that.
This is a big part in the book because without critical thinking I don’t think Marjane would have made it as far as she has. Without critical thinking she would have been stopped in her tracks far in the beginning of the story when she didn’t wear the veil and people told her that she “should be pushed up against a wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage. And that if I didn't want that to happen, I should wear the veil.” (74)
What happens to the educated, if we are talking in the sense of critical thinking, is that they go much farther than the others who don't or who have not been taught to critical think. They can figure out their problems much easier and much more quickly than the ones who are uneducated. As for the uneducated ones they are stuck behind, in a loop and can not get out and away from their problems and the dangers around them. These dangers are more or less the people of society. These people are ruthless and want power and to be the leaders of the country.
This is important to the book because it describes the conditions and the dangers that they are living in. It talks about what the people there are going through and experiencing throughout their lives. And maybe people cannot succeed unless they come together like when they say, “For a revolution to succeed, the entire population must support it.” (17) That is saying that unless the entire country supports this revolution then it will probably not work and they will get overrun and killed.
As I have said before, there are many different types of education in Persepolis. There is education where there is specific learning of different subjects, there is learning common sense, critical thinking, and believe it or not there is a lot of Propaganda. Talking about each of these individually will cover a lot about the book. Throughout the book people especially teachers tell people information that is not necessarily true. Sometimes it is the government or people fighting the war like whenever Marjane said that everyday she say kids arriving in busses (101) and that the officers were talking about them saying “Shit, you see that?” (101) Then she described how they treated them saying “they come from the poor areas, you can tell...first they convince that the afterlife is even better than disneyland, then they put them in a trance with all their songs… It’s nuts! They hypnotize them and then just toss them into battle. absolute carnage. (101)
There is also critical thinking that has been talked a lot about previously and how it is very important to persepolis.
These types of Education are important to the story because of many reasons. The whole education of propaganda described that people at that time are trying to get as many people as they can on their side of the war and of the rebellion. They want people to think how they think and not think how the other side thinks. Critical Thinking described that sometimes you have to be smarter than the average bear and really sit down and think about some things.
As we can see education takes a big part in Persepolis. More than you think it would. It is one of the main topics in persepolis that Marjane talks about. This is also one of the most broad things to talk about because it is all throughout the book not just in a single section of the book.
