Liberate or Heartbreak

Moving can be both liberating and heartbreaking. You are offered a completely clean slate and a chance to to ally remake yourself with knew people, but you are also taken away from everything you know; your house, your friends, and your town. Moving countries is more than twice as hard.

When my father was considering college in his late teen years, he decided that instead of staying in Greece to be educated, he would go with his older brother to New York City. It was a completely new world. Although he had taken english language classes in high school, speaking it with real life people was a completely different ball game. He struggled to speak to people at his school, and became friends with other Greek immigrants, being that he felt the most comfortable with them. It took him a couple years before he branched out and became more involved in the American people/lifestyle.

My father's story sounds a lot like Amir and Baba's. They moved to American to get away from their deteriorating life in Afghanistan, and to get a fresh start somewhere where they were safe and free. Although my father didn't come to escape his country, both my dad and Baba struggled with the differences in culture, and opted to stay around people he was use to. They both made friends with others from their home country. Baba found his place in the Afghan flea market, and wasn't interested in learning better English or making American friends. He missed his country and his old life dearly.

For Amir, American was a place where he could be free of oppression, but also of his past and memories. He could remake himself, and he took the chance and was more involved in American life than his father. He went and graduated from high school, and learned a great deal more English than his father.

Moving is tough, and it is said that it takes people four years to truly adjust to their new home. It is hard to put yourself out there to people you have never met before, but once you learn what it takes, you feel more and more comfortable as time goes on.

Trauma for Acceptance

All of Amir's childhood, he feels as though he is responsible for the death of his mother, and that his father hates him for it. Although Amir's father loves him, he doesn't show it in the ways that a normal father does. He isn't loving, gentle or proud, and because of this, Amir made it his life goal to shine in his father's eyes, and the way he plans to accomplish this is by winning the kite flying tournament. 

Amir looks to his only friend Hassan to help him win over his father. He and Hassan grew up together, and although Hassan is a servant, they love each other on a deeper level, as if they were brothers. But the friendship isn't equal; Hassan is devoted to Amir, he loves him unconditionally and would do anything for him, and while Amir also loves Hassan, he has no problem messing with him and using hime when he needs to. And in the task of making his father proud by winning the contest, Amir needed to use Hassan. The won the contest, and Hassan went to run down the kite, but he is stopped and harassed by Assef. Amir ran after Hassan, looking for the loser's kite that he thought as the key to his father's heart, to see Hassan be harassed and raped. Instead of stepping in and standing to Assef and defending his best friend, he runs. In his selfishness he was scared of being hurt by Assef, and when he found Hassan a bit after, he looked to see if he had the kite first. 

Children have trouble dealing with things that are horrible and disturbing, maybe so much though that they don't really understand what is happening. Amir felt that way, and instead of revealing how he had failed Hassan, he kept quiet, and didn't tell anyone. He had been in danger, and like most kids, he responded to the danger by running, protecting himself over anything else. He had witnessed sexual abuse, and his experience became traumatic.

 The National Child Traumatic Stress Network explains, "The witnessing of violence, serious injury, or grotesque death can be equally traumatic. In traumatic situations, we experience immediate threat to ourselves or to others, often followed by serious injury or harm. We feel terror, helplessness, or horror because of the extreme seriousness of what is happening and the failure of any way to protect against or reverse the harmful outcome,". What Amir felt and how he reacted is common for children, and even adults. In his mind he had failed Hassan, and instead of helping him after the fact by telling and adult and getting help, he was controlled by his guilt, and also that he did not want to lose the new-found respect that his father felt for him after he had won the tournament. He was selfish, but also did not really know what to do or how to react the the trauma he had experienced. Children can react by silence, not talking about it, in the hope that it will magically never have happened. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network says, "we may try our best to avoid any situation, person, or place that reminds us of what happened, fighting hard to keep the thoughts, feelings, and images from coming back. We may even "forget" some of the worst parts of the experience, while continuing to react to reminders of those moments,". Amir actively avoids Hassan, and even suggests to his father to consider new servants. 

Amir had achieved his goal to bond with his father, but his guilt held him down, and he didn't feel deserving. "I finally had what I'd wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, I felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into, " (pg 85). All he thought about was that he witnessed Hassan being raped and hadn't done anything about it. One night he even said this fact out loud, but everyone who was around was asleep, ""I watched Hassan get raped," I said to no one…A part of me was hoping someone would wake and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it," (pg 86). 

Amir had gone great lengths to feel like his father loved him, but it came at the cost of Hassan. Amir underwent traumatic stress, and reacted common ways that a child would, be he was still cowardly. He let his best friend leave all he knew in order to stop the guilt. He took the easy way out, and never stood up for Hassan, he felt that if he did, he would lose his father's love, but instead, he made things worse for himself, and made Hassan, who underwent a whole different level of traumatic stress, feel extremely isolated, depressed and alone. Children look for acceptance, but never truly understand the cost it would take. 

Article on Child Traumatic Stress : http://www.nctsn.org/resources/audiences/parents-caregivers/understanding-child-traumatic-stress

Mami

Marjane's family is the most important thing to her, there's no way around it. In both the book and the movie, her strong bond with her parents and uncle is clear, but her relationship with her grandma is something special. Her grandma is around frequently in the book, and she shares her wisdom with Marji in a couple scenes, such as the one about the flowers in her bra, but the grandma comes to life, in more ways than one, in the movie.

In the movie, the characters are given a voice, and with that comes expression and attitude, and Marji's grandma sure has a lot of attitude. She takes over the role of advice-giver from Marji's parents and becomes a very important person in the young lady's life as she grows older and goes through different hardships. The grandma often gives advice on guys, friends, and what and what not to do. Marji clearly looks up to her grandma and genuinely cares about what she may think of her. At one point in the movie, (during the Persepolis II part), Marji lies to a police officer about a man on the street, and the man ends up arrested. She tells this story to her grandma, and gets a cold and strict response. She had been stupid and cruel and self-centered, and she would need to regain her grandma's respect. Marji later does when she stands up to speech-givers at her art school who were commenting on what the women should wear in order to respect themselves and to not distract the men. She asks why aren't the women taken into consideration when the men are told what or what not to wear. This show of courage impresses her grandma, and Marji feels confident again.

Through the movie, the audience also falls in love with the grandma, and sees how important she is to how Marji grows up. The grandma stays present in the movie up until the end. She supplies wisdom and comic relief that is much more potent when spoken and acted allowed. With the film, we get to see body language, more facial expressions, and the way that the character speaks, which allowed us to understand the story and the people better. In the book, the grandma is around the family most of the time, and supports Marji in all of her endeavors, but we never get to read her opinion; we never really get to know her. The book is more focused on characters such as Uncle Anoosh and several other way heroes, but the movie has more of a focus on the women in Marji's life, mostly her grandma.