Marjane’s Interaction With Western Culture, Essay Example

Culture is an important facet of human life. It is the element that defines a people’s beliefs, perceptions and world view. Without culture, there would not exist any differences between people in the world. In the book Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, the author Marjane depicts her encounters with Western Culture, how it influenced her own perceptions of culture and others’ perception of her culture. In the novel, Marjane documents her predominantly negative encounters with Western culture, though she had few rich encounters.

Clifford Geertz defines culture as “public because meaning is”. In essence he believes that culture is a collective property of any given group that easily relate to or associate with each other. This explains the difference and difficulty in understanding another’s culture other than our own, showing the lack of familiarity with a foreign meaning. Edward Said defines cultures as a fact that spun out of a dialectic of self and other. Where the subject I is a representation of home while you or it being a representation of something foreign and that potentially poses a threat.

Marjane first gets to understand the underlying difference between her culture and Western Culture when she first travels to Vienna. Growing up, she had formulated ideologies about the Western world and its inhabitants. However, these perceptions were considerably influenced and transformed by her trip to Vienna. Some of her most memorable experiences entailed learning what western culture perceived of her own culture. One of the biggest lessons she learnt was that western culture thought very lowly of Iranian culture. Iranians were generally perceived to be uneducated and uncivilized. Some even perceived them as a stain in society as depicted in the excerpt below:

“It was an old man who said “dirty foreigner, get out!” I had heard it another time in the street. But I tried to make light of it. I thought that it was just the reaction of a nasty old man” (Satrapi 2007: 177)

In another incident, Marjane’s Iranian culture was attacked by the mother superior of the boarding home she resided in Vienna. As Marjane always preferred eating from the pot while watching the television, she developed a habit of eating out of the pot whenever she got the chance. However, on one occasion the mother superior insulted her Iranian heritage, claiming that the stereotype “Iranians are uneducated” is true.

In reaction to her encounters with Western culture, she develops a dislike for her own heritage. She attempts to denounce her Iranian nationality when confronted by a young man. She claims to be French in an attempt to cover up her true identity. However, the young man notices and highlights that she has a funny accent for a French girl. In shame and guilt, she walks away afterwards. Her dire need to develop a new identity by being associated with a culture other than Iran’s is depicted in her statement about the Iranian nationality.

“…at the time, Iran was the epitome of evil and to be Iranian was a heavy burden to bear” (195).

She experiences first-hand the divisive process of “othering” that is characteristic of Western culture. Owing to the inherent fact that western culture perpetrates its own exceptionalism, it seeks to justify its perceived superiority and domination. This is depicted when the mother superior refers to Marjane’s culture as uneducated. When the old man refers to Marjane as a dirty foreigner, it depicts the humanizing aspect of the process of othering. The old man’s perception of his racial background is that members of his own race are particularly intellectually superior.

When she encounters the young man who inquires about her nationality, she tells a lie to cover up her identity. While she did not have to tell the lie, she anticipated the negative reaction and response that she would receive from the young man. By this time, she had learnt the dehumanizing aspect of the process of othering within Western culture.

Marjane never really fits into the West owing to the segregation she experiences. As individuals from Western cultures perceived her own culture as backward and uncivilized, she often found herself feeling left-out, caught between the space where she cannot freely exercise and express her culture, yet she cannot be accepted by the other dominant culture in her country of residence, Vienna. This highlights Benedict Anderson’s definition of culture. He defined culture by the style and manner in which they are perceived. It can either be finite and limited, it can be sovereign or fraternal. This is the style in which cultures (nations) are perceived. Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of “the contact zone” is interesting. Shed defines the contact zone as the social spaces where different cultures meet.

In conclusion, her encounters with Western Culture made her self-aware and of her Iranian Heritage. Living in the Western world, she found it increasingly difficult to integrate with the people. Her hindrance was her Iranian culture. She finds that Western culture generally struggles to accept her own culture and she has to develop an alternate identity in order to get by in the Western world.