For your blog post, address the following questions:
1. First, let's think locally (within your text). How do the characters in your book grapple with the insider/outsider dynamic? Where and when are they insiders? What about outsiders? Is this dynamic explicit within the first half of the book or is it something that you, as the reader, finds implicit? Do you have to analyze the text to find this dynamic? Be specific. Use passages from the text and page numbers to support your discussion.
2. Now, let's think globally (outside of your text). Have you ever felt like an outsider? Where and when? Are there communities where you feel like you're an insider? Explain.
Your post must be a minimum of 300 words. When you are finished, you must read and comment on at least one of your classmates' posts about this question.
I think for Marjane in Persepolis, she is both an insider and an outsider. She's an insider when she is younger and lives in Iran with her family. This is in the beginning of the book. She had a core group of friends. She was able to stand up for herself. People cared about her. As soon as she moved away from her home, things started to change. She went from an insider to an outsider. She was alone in a different country with only herself. No one to care about her. No one to stand up to and nothing to fight for. She was an outsider in an insider’s world. She tried fitting in by doing things that made her seem normal in that society. In the chapter "the vegetable", she tries to cut her hair just to fit in with a group of friends. They all say "Have you seen how beautiful she is now?"(190), but in actually that wasn't her. The transformation between insider(first at the beginning of the book) to outsider (which happens towards the middle of the book). We will have to see by the end of the book will she be an insider or an outsider where ever she ends up.
ReplyDeleteOf course in the town where I come from I feel most comfortable. Even in the surrounding areas and in the city of Chicago in general I feel like an "insider" because I have lived here my whole life. There have been times when I have felt like an outsider though. When I visited New York for the first time with my parents, I felt like a complete "outsider" New York is so much different then Chicago in ways that I felt like an alien. Standing and looking up at the tall buildings and seeing things like the MTV studio were mesmerizing to me. On the other side a cab was honking at me. Sometimes even when you feel like you’re an "outsider" you’re really an "insider".
A place where I feel like an outsider is when I’m around negativity what I mean by negativity is being around individuals that are up to no good and who are rebellious that kind of surrounding makes me feel as if I’m an outsider because I rather not surround myself with groups or people that aren’t really motivated to do anything with their lives. A place where I do feel like an insider is when I’m around people that want something out of life and who are motivated to get more and do more I strongly believe that that you surround yourself around has a very big impact on your life.
ReplyDeleteIn True Notebooks the character are dealing with the emotional dilemmas that keeps some of them from opening up and understanding their situation a little deeper. Most of them have overcome their emotional dilemmas by participating in the writing class Mark is teaching. Most of the characters deal with the outsider feeling of not been accept by their families, communities, and others that were there to be friends. The characters deals with the insider world of been a criminal and been associated with a gang that most people in society aren’t. They are insiders when in prison along with other inmates that is either trying to learn more about themselves or trying to establish if they want to stay where they are as a criminal and person. They are outsiders when everyone outside of the cell looks at them for what they done and not who they was or who they are as a human being. They are outsiders when the society and people case them away and don’t look at them the same way like before. They are outsiders when the inmates of different race and gangs look at each other different because of what they were told is bad about the other gangs and races. You don’t have to analyze the text to really notice the difference of the inside and outside differences. I felt like an outsider in elementary school when going up around a lot of pretty and well known girls it made me feel like I wasn’t the same and they case me away and treated me like I didn’t exist. Most of the time I was treated like that because of the attention I got from the boys most of the pretty girls liked but it didn’t bother me at all.
ReplyDeleteMarjane has the outsider dynamic. She was the only girl in class that cared about the war. She was always into school. The other girls cared about materialistic things. When Marjane left for Austria she was still the outsider. She was in a new country. She doesn't know anyone. It was throughout the whole book where Marjane is different from everyone else.
ReplyDeleteIn True Notebooks, it was at the very beginning of the novel where I felt that Mark felt like an outsider. Before actually being inside the prison and experiencing the livelihoods of the inmates, Mark felt as if he did not and would not fit in with their culture. He would write down lists and reasons as to why he was scared to go to the prison as well as reasons why it was dangerous or he just did not want to go. On page twenty-five is a passage where Mark states his reasoning on why he should not go through with his decision of visiting the juvenile hall and interacting with the inmates. An individual becoming connected to him, looking at him as a personal counselor, all being dangerous, and him being uncomfortable around teenagers were all his personal thoughts on why visiting the prison would not be suitable for him. But it was towards the middle and end of the book that Mark started to become much more comfortable and connected with the inmates on a different level. At this point I could tell Mark was becoming an insider on a different level. Not from just physically being inside the juvenile hall but from also developing relationships with his students and learning to know more about them and how they got there. The inmates expressed that they don’t trust anyone and that no on is really in their lives to look out for them. At several points in the novel, towards the middle and end, the inmates express that they trust Mark and feel that he is one who looks out for them. I have people in my life who I know look out for me, who “belong” to certain groups, but even still I feel like an outsider. In my past I had a friend who hung out with a group of people who were very serious. The girls did have fun but their idea of fun was not like mine at all. I tried hanging out with them a couple times but failed to feel welcome. However, when I was with my friend the whole time, in that group I felt like an insider just because I was in her presence. Other than that it was clear that I was an outsider to that group. To me, depending on where you are, who you’re around and what their interests are, you can definitely be on the border of an outsider or insider.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning many of the boys had the attitude that they were just nobodies and that no one cared about them. When they got deeper into the writing class they all became insiders. They were all in that class for the same reason. Every single one of them had feelings to get out. They wanted to prove that they were capable of more than just committing a crime. I feel that they are outsiders when they are not in the writing class. The boys in the writing class all have a beautiful gift of writing. They do not get involved with the violence that happens within the jail. Now that I am entering college I somewhat feel like an outsider. I am not used to dancing at a different studio, different friends, and a different home. I am very used to my community and the dance studio that I have grown up in. I know once school starts and I am in the swing of things I will become an insider to Chicago.
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