HUMAN 1C Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Iran Air, Marjane Satrapi, Persian Letters

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21 Aug 2018
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Department
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Angeni Muralidhar Spring 2018
How can one be Persian?
- Question appears in Charles Secondat Baron de Montesquieu’s epistolary novel Persian
Letters
- Epistolary novel: a novel in letter form
- Very popular genre in the 18th century
- Makes it have more connection to the reader cause they feel like the novel is
speaking to them in a form of letter
- “Sometimes I would spend an hour in company without anyone looking at me, or giving
me the opportunity to open my mouth. But, it someone happened to tell the company that
I was Persian, I would immediately hear a buzz around me: ‘Oh! Oh! Is he Persian? What
a most extraordinary thing! How can one be Persian?’”
- What is it about being Persian?
- Assumption is that you are a different kind of human being
- Looking at that as if there is an essence to it
- They critique French customs and views -- it is a way for Montesquieu to criticize French
culture
- “We are set-- stuck, really-- somewhere between Scheherazade's fame One Thousand and
One Nights and the bearded terrorist with his manic wife disguised as a crow. By way of
flattery, we are told that we are Persians and that Persia was a great empire. Otherwise we
are Iranians. The Persians are in Montesquieu's writings, in Delacroix's paintings, and
they smoke opium with Victor Hugo. As for the Iranians, they take Americans hostage,
they detonate bombs, and they’re pissed at the West. They were discovered after the 1979
revolution.”
- She is trying to humanize Iran
- Scheherazade -- King who finds his wife cheating with another man and begins to distrust
all women
- He marries young virgins and once the marriage is consummated, he has them
killed
- This one girl tells him stories every night but never finishes it, and he is so
invested that he does not kill her in order to hear the rest of the story
- She does not go out to tell us how great Iran is, does not sugar coat it, but shows the truth
behind everything that happens
- On November 4, 1979 a group of radical students stormed the US EMbassy in Tehran
and took 52 diplomats and Embassy Staff hostage and held them for 444 days
- Part of Iranian history that they have not been able to overcome
- Director acknowledges this by showing how Iranians are different from Persians and their
perceptions to people in the West
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Document Summary

Question appears in charles secondat baron de montesquieu"s epistolary novel persian. Epistolary novel: a novel in letter form. Very popular genre in the 18th century. Makes it have more connection to the reader cause they feel like the novel is speaking to them in a form of letter. Sometimes i would spend an hour in company without anyone looking at me, or giving me the opportunity to open my mouth. But, it someone happened to tell the company that. I was persian, i would immediately hear a buzz around me: oh! Assumption is that you are a different kind of human being. Looking at that as if there is an essence to it. They critique french customs and views -- it is a way for montesquieu to criticize french culture. We are set-- stuck, really-- somewhere between scheherazade"s fame one thousand and. One nights and the bearded terrorist with his manic wife disguised as a crow.

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