Blog 111814 - The Road Poetry Explication

Word bank:
flowstone, granitic, without cease, great stone room, black and ancient lake, rimstone pool, eyes dead white and sightless, eggs of spiders, crouching, pale and naked and translucent, alabaster bones, shadow, pulsed, dull glass bell, low moan, lurched away, soundlessly, dark

        A beast of fear is at home in isolation, darkness, and silence. The narrator talks about a gave with flowstone walls that houses a granitic beast. The cave is dark and there in no sound. This beast is grotesque and animalistic. The imagery of the cave depicts a large, cold stone chamber. There is a "black and ancient lake", and the beast is lying on the far shore. The beast is pale and translucent, which is scary. It "crouches", showing that it is like an animal. It has no intelligence, hence "eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders". It is a pure creature. The beast is alive though, with a heart that pulses in a "dull glass bell". This depicts that the beast has no emotions. And it's "alabaster bones" show how scary it is. It has a "low moan" and it "lurches" silently in to the dark. These words and their imagery show how creature-like and brutal the beast is and how isolated it is. The cave and the beast fit each other.

Blog 111414 - Persepolis Freewriting

Part I: What happened in Persepolis?

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is about Marji's childhood growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane and all the other girls had to go to all-girls school and wear a veil. There are protests in Iran to overthrow the Shah. The Shah is a dictator who was very violent and cruel and spent the country's money on himself like it was his own. The Shah was put there by Great Britain because Britain wanted oil from Iran. Britain took down the Shah's father who was a good ruler. 

Part II: What did you think and feel about Persepolis?

I do like the graphic novel. I think it is good and interesting and insightful. But don't like communism at all, and Marji is communist. I think the drawing are not very detailed, but that is okay, it is just the style. I like the drawings pretty good. I like what the story is about and I think it is interesting. I don't know if this graphic novel totally engrosses me though, like Night did. 

Wearing the veil, Iran/Tehran, family, school, and Islam are things in Marjane's surroundings that affected Marjane's beliefs, thoughts, and moral values.