In Class Persepolis vs Poetrty

With a current war going on in the middle east that the United States is actively fighting in we as Americans have to deal with many people that we know going over to Iraq and fighting for a cause. Whether or not we believe in this cause does no need to be justified. Yet we all are experiencing the same thing by having someone we care about go to war.

I personally was not involved in the war, until i began seeing a boy who was in the ROTC at Purdue when I attended. For the two years I was there we dated, though it was not a war I personally believed in and though I am not going to ever sign up to fight it he had, and it was something I had to learn to love. Though we are no longer together and he infuriates me, he is still going to have to go over and fight and I care about his safety regardless.

We are all associated to the war one way or another but how does this tie into the stories we've been reading and the poetry we've been discussing. Well in Persepolis we see a families struggle to fight in a battle that no one wants to be a part of they are fighting for a cause against the revolution. Marjane had a grandfather who was constantly imprisoned for his involvement and the mother and father protested. Marjane's father consistently put himself in danger photographing the horrific events in which occurred in her young life. Though her family knew it was dangerous and they shouldn't be fighting the cause they knew it was the right thing to do because no one should have to suffer.

Persepolis closely ties into the poetry we were reading, Yehuda Amarachi who wrote Memorial Day for the War Dead wrote "in all three languages hebrew, arabic, and death." This shows that there is a consistency around the world. Whether you were fighting a civil war, a world war or a war on terrorism. Death is the same no matter where you go, people will always die for their country and die for what the believe in. In a sense its an act of selflessness to put yourself directly in the line of danger for the common well being of others, whether people recognize this or not. It seems as if people take for granted the beauty of having the choice to fight in a war. But all people are effected by the things that are going on. And all people lose people they love.

We not only battle in actual wars but at times we as people are at war with ourselves. We fight against addiction, we fight against "the man", we fight against cancer. But most of all we consistently fight for our lives, and for some its easy, or a game. But for others life is precious, and its valuable and sacred. We take for granted all that is given to us each day, not intentionally but we are at war with ourselves most days, just to get by.