The Escapist

I wriggle in my bed while being painfully aware that I won’t be getting even an hour of sleep. 3:56 AM. The darkness outside is mingled with the silence inside and the punitive stillness amplifies the intensity of my dejected feelings. It’s my third consecutive day without a single milligram of Buprenorphine running through my bloodstream. During the last few years, Bupe helped make my life more liveable, though certainly not worth living, acting as a pharmaceutical substitute for heroin, succeeding methadone in many countries around the Western world. After almost 4 years of use, the“miracle drug” that would allegedly bring revolution in the field of heroin addiction treatment became my trusted companion. However, my new “friend” proved to be a highly demanding one as the urgency to score Suboxone (brand name of Buprenorphine in Greece) is as rigorous as that to score smack. What mostly helped me when it came to Suboxone was the fact that each 8mg tablet contained an additional small amount of naloxone that rendered heroin use a lost cause. Simply put, even if you used skag, you would feel little or no effect at all.                                               –                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 It wasn’t my choice to cease my daily suboxone habit. Free will had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was forced on me by my own father. The betrayal stung more than anything and his voice still dilates and contracts inside my head in an endless refrain; It’s for your own good sonny. This time we will do it right. Let me help you. Please don’t hate me. I’m not the enemy.” His short spiel was outrageous per se, however, the conclusive prodding not to hate him further expanded the boundaries of ludicrousness. He invaded my privacy and stole my stash, consisting of 4 8mg Suboxone tabs, a respectably sized bud of premium pot, and some stray benzodiazepines, and then locked me in my room. I became a prisoner in my own house.                                                                                                                              –                                                                                                                                                                             What made me even more livid was the fact that my dad’s callous act was both unprecedented and so out of character for him. Usually, it was my mother who advocated in favor of such kind of radical “solutions” that would supposedly make my problems fly away more easily as she fervently proclaimed so many times in the past. But him? It was inconceivable. Even though, in general terms, he was always kind of distant and avoided in-depth discussions and confessions with his two sons, he was a man who had limits in his behavior. By that, I mean that he knew to respect other people’s space and freedom, always opting for discreet and tactful interventions even when things went seriously pear-shaped. Interfering was not a trait that characterized him, that was what one of the things that I’ve learned about him since I was a little kid.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Of course, none of the above thoughts made my predicament feel even a tad less excruciating. Contrary to the common belief, Buprenorphine withdrawal is several times harder than that of heroin. It’s a long road as the reverberations instigated by abstaining last for more than a full month. Plus, the intensity of the effects made the torment that laid ahead of me seem something analogous to Jesus’s sufferings. At least He had a plan while my suffering seemed to defy reason, mainly because it wasn’t my conscious decision. The thought burned my innards with fever-like fire.

                                                                                                                                  –                                                                                                                                                                                   I occupy a minimal space behind a double-locked door and my only luxury is the tiny WC in the adjacent room that will undoubtedly prove to be a life savior when diarrheas kicked in, a few days later. Oh, and I also have access to the balcony that stands several feet above the ground, its height leaving no room for thoughts of escape. I shut my eyes tight as if that would help me get a bit of rest but to no avail. Another white night.                                                                                                                             ——————————————————————————————————————————–                     Day 6. I’ve become a good friend with the toilet bowl. Either shitting foul-smelling water or throwing up vile excrement, sometimes the one after the other. It’s even harder than I expected, and that’s strange given that I was braced for a hellish ride. Neither of my parents made their presence known after day 1. Nobody talks to me. Nothing breaks the complete radio silence. My chance of survival seems to be hanging from my ability to find things, and I mean anything, to focus on, to forget myself even for a while. Much more than the physical sickness, opiate withdrawal is a cruel mind game in which the opponent is omnipotent and relentless, never allowing moments of respite for the afflicted. I try to watch TV series, crime fiction mainly, on Netflix and similar streaming platforms but nothing can hold my attention for more than 7-8 minutes. Then, the all-too-familiar veil of darkness falls and covers my mind and soul, leaving me feeling cold and alone.                               ———————————————————————————————————————

Day 10. More or less, the same in terms of symptoms. On the noteworthy side, my traitor of a father deigned to address me yesterday. It was noon and I was lying in bed, not because I was tired but mostly because I couldn’t do anything else. He first called my name two times and when I didn’t reply, he softly knocked on the door as if not to intrude. What a barefaced hypocrite. He first takes away my freedom and dignity and then pretends to be civilized. Anyway, I moved closer to the door to minimize the distance between us. I wanted to shout and be heard: “Get away you spineless son of a bitch. You were always a coward, but it seems that aging took away what was left of your wee balls. You pray that I die in here before we meet in person. You better watch your step from now on” As I ended my short tirade, I thought I heard him sobbing behind the door. For an instant, everything faded into the background, and I was transported back in time: strolling with Dad in a flashy European capital city, eating in fancy restaurants, and loving each other unconditionally. But the moment didn’t last long. It never does. I kept on: “DON’T PLAY THE VICTIM, YOU HEAR ME? I’M THE VICTIM HERE.” He didn’t utter a single word and I heard his loud steps retreating towards the kitchen. ——————————————————————————————————————-                                                                                                                                          

Day 13. The downward spiral is in full swing. Things are getting worse day by day instead of the opposite. There are moments that I feel like losing my mind for real. My thoughts are meandering around like kites floating in the murky sky and my mind moves in endless circles. A primordial angst has nested in my heart, a voracious beast claiming more and more room to occupy. For a moment, I thought that I heard someone hovering outside my room’s shut door, but I can’t tell for sure. It could be my mother. She has been keeping silent for nearly two weeks, a new record for her. She was always the most

talkative compared to my dad, always proclaiming her fragility and neediness, a textbook case of what is known in academic circles as martyr complex. Growing up in such an environment, it’s no wonder I quickly started searching for happiness in all the wrong alleys. Ideally, I would like my father to be able to express his inner sentiments, something closer to my mother’s temperament, and vice versa. I would prefer her to be less dramatic and more sensible. My laptop is on 24/7, mostly playing movie soundtracks and chill/dub music mixes as I can’t for the life of me concentrate hard enough to watch something even remotely coherent. Sweat is gushing from every pore of my body and the acrid stench makes the stuffy atmosphere in my room even more appalling. ———————————————————————————————————————

Day 21. Some of the physical symptoms begin to ease off but the confusion lives on. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder back in 2013 after experiencing alternating stretches of depression and hypomania. So, apart from my long-standing career in various chemical substances, I’ve also been on triple medication for my condition for more than a decade. I resolved to make a little experiment: I upped my dose of Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic drug with sedating effects, hoping that it would help me relax a bit and make time pass a bit faster. No luck. The tension within my head is almost palpable; something ravenous inside craves to get out. The thought crosses my mind for the first time even for just a nanosecond, but it does. What if I jumped off the balcony? Was it so sure that I would break a leg or something worse even? But it’s not necessary to be so serious. Even a sprained ankle would mean that I wouldn’t be able to take a single step. I get out there to re-check the distance separating me from the pavement. Too high. I quickly forget it and struggle to move on with my new daily “routine”.                                                           ——————————————————————————————————————-

Day 23. My father comes at my door early in the morning during one of the rare times that I managed to doze off for a few minutes. I wake up in irritation and go straight to the door, ready to launch another jeremiad against him. He takes his time before uttering: “Dim, how are you? I hope that you’re finally starting to feel better. Did the diarrhea stop? What about your spirit?” My spirit… What a load of crap. How did he imagine I was feeling? In top shape and vigorous? The sickness is eating me from the inside, I wanted to yell. Almost despite myself, I adopt a more neutral tone, however brimming with sarcasm: “Great dad, great. I’m thinking of taking up writing again, now that I feel so spiritually virile. Don’t listen to those who say that suboxone withdrawal is a bitch. They are a bunch of morons. Ok now? Are we good?” He sighs loudly and I sense that he is searching for the right words to say: “Listen, sonny, you may think that what I did is atrocious and perhaps you are right, but I can think of no other way to save you. Understand? Save you. You are my son and I’m willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to see you standing on your own feet. You can’t hold that against me.” I suddenly feel so tired. I don’t answer him and head back to my bed.                                           ———————————————————————————————————————

Day 26. I wake up in the middle of the night and I go out to the balcony as if I’m in a trance. I look down once again. I don’t know why or how but this time the altitude feels less intimidating. Perhaps it is possible to make the bold move. Am I going insane? The question churns in my mind but does little to eradicate the compulsive thought. I go back into the room and sit in front of my ailing laptop’s screen. I strive to figure out the right keywords to put into the search engine in order to learn something valuable, something helpful that would provide me with the mandatory courage to act on my idea. Alas, zero. I lay down in my bed and close my eyes.                              ———————————————————————————————————————                                                                                                                Day 29. Today is the day. I only managed to get one and a half hours of poor sleep and when I saw my dilated eye holes in the mirror after another bout of vomit, I was shocked. There is no hope, period. I flirt with the open balcony door for a long while and then I start taking baby steps to the rail. When I finally reach it, I look down for the last time. It is now or never. Luckily, I had some money hidden for a time of need and if I could jump and walk away-relatively- unscathed, I would be able to go downtown to score some Suboxone. As I’m striving to calm my nerves, I hear my father’s voice coming from somewhere afar: “Dim, please have patience. Only a few days are left. Soon all that nightmare will look foreign to you.” I hear his words but don’t register them. I’m ready. I take a last deep breath. I’m ready.                                                                                                                                                     ——————————————————————————————————————–                  –                                                                 THE END

Dimitris Passas is a freelance writer from Athens, Greece, and the editor of the online magazine Tap the Line (www.tapthelinemag.com), in which he reviews books, movies, and TV series while also featuring articles, news, and Q+As with authors and artists. His academic background includes bachelor studies in sociology and a master’s degree in philosophy. His work can also be found in ITW’s legendary magazine The Big Thrill and various online platforms such as DMovies, PopMatters, Off-Chance, Loud and Clear Reviews and others. His latest book reviews have been accepted for publication in esteemed literary and film journals like World Literature Today, American Book Review, Alphaville, Bright Lights Film Journal and Compulsive Reader. Dimitris’s short and flash fiction, as well as his CNF pieces, can be found in various literary magazines such as Litro Online, Maudlin House, 34th Parallel, Memoir Land (“First Person Singular” series), Litbreak, and several others.

Quotidian

No, I said.

I would not

Like that.

I held

still. The offer

on the table

stalled. He walked. 

I stayed

apart. He started

thought and speech.

I heard. One word.

Born on the Cusp of July

Is it officially monsoon yet

Are we about to be hush wet

Showering constantly repeatedly

Pre- and post-walk the east

Valley husky with loaded clouds 

And hail and winds and gloom 

Confirming gravity all very

Garlicy and fraught

In Cherrapunjee, India, rainfall

Lasted 86 consecutive days imagine

Arizona like that no broom sturdy enough to 

Push away the ruins lodged

Between repeat signs on the

Page

Hush Puppies

Hush puppies on the soles

of the feet of David Ignatow

at the podium one foot atop the other.

Warm young safe shoes. Hush 

puppies belonging to David Ignatow

He spoke in plain tones that rose 

in the carpeted auditorium

where students would go to hear

poetry slide into the tonal registers

of daily life. Hush puppies below the soft cuffs

of the trousers of David Ignatow

a gentle plow through speech allowed

its reach from his matter of fact

voice that cared. A flock of early voices

honored him flapped their wings locating their

span.

The Jugular Is Blotched

Within-ness tends to thin. From afar

Someone ekes out an expletive 

Ripe as shame. Justice, meanwhile

Scampers out the back by way of

The loose screen door rattling proof 

Of departure, in haste and how

Left behind one probably is.

Punch lists Judy as his

Executrix, meanwhile the bottler

Keeps things going and flowing. 

Included in a firm punch list 

A scattergram quotidian enough 

Not to bother with a pinata plump and

Strikable 

Cognitive Dissonance 2

I say I’m busy

I’m always busy

Being busy but

I am doing something 

Defining I’m always 

Listening to myself 

Learn it’s just that

In your view

I’m not busy at all

Because I’m not 

Going anywhere 

With you

Sheila E. Murphy’s most recent book is Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Awards: Gertrude Stein Poetry Award for Letters to Unfinished J and the Hay(na)ku prize for Reporting Live From You Know Where (Meritage Books, 2018). 

Sheila Murphy – Wikipedia

Artistic analysis of the story "Yanga" written by O'tkir Hashimov.

Abstract: the article provides information about the life and work of O'tkir Hashimov and analyzes his story "Yanga". Analytical approach to the characters and situations in it.

Key words: new, story writer, mother, magazine, translation

O'tkir Hoshimov, a well-known writer, storyteller, publicist and playwright, was born in the Dombirabad district of Tashkent at the beginning of the Second World War (1941). He had a difficult childhood and had to study and work during school. He continues his studies at the part-time department of the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University. In addition, he worked in such newspapers as "Temiryolchi", "Tashkent Haqikat" and "Kyzil Uzbekistan". 

During his career, he worked as a department head in the newspaper "Tashkent Aqshomi", deputy editor-in-chief at the publishing house named after Gafur Ghulam, and editor-in-chief of the "Sharq ytyzni" magazine. He also worked as a deputy of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the chairman of the Press and Information Committee. The writer began his work in journalism and entered the creative world in 1962 with his first book "Steel Rider".  In particular, his works such as "Love", "A Farmer's Day", "The Last Victim of War", "Uzbek Work" made a significant contribution to the development of Uzbek storytelling.            

He began his prose work by writing stories, his first story "Tort Maktub" was published in 1963. Later, he begins to write short stories, a genre larger than the story. The stories "Desert Air", "What Do People Say", "The Wind Blows" were released. The story that brought great fame to the writer is "Listen to your heart". received the Republic Youth Award for this work. In the course of highlighting the evils in the social life of the society, the period of stagnation, he fully reflected the important spiritual and moral issues of the time in the novel "There is light, there is shadow". In the novel "Between Two Doors", the author skillfully embodies the historical fate of his people, covering a period of almost forty years and a series of complicated and complex destinies. And this novel brings the author the Republican State Prize named after Hamza.

His articles such as "The White Book of the Heart", "Those Who Break the Sacred Oath", "What Will We Say to the Generations", "Where is the Logic?", "The Secret of the State" are among the achievements of Uzbek journalism in recent years.

As a dramatist, he influenced the development of modern literature. His dramas and comedies "Hazon's Spring", "Happy Weddings", "Medicine of Conscience", "Human Loyalty", "Repression" took a worthy place on the stages of the Republican theaters. The book "Inscriptions on the edge of the notebook" (2001) left a certain mark on social and spiritual life.

 As a translator, O'tkir Hashimov translated the works of O. Bergholtz, S. Sveig, Mustay Karim, V. Shukshin into Uzbek. His best works have been translated into Russian and other languages. The total number of published works of the writer is more than fifty, and their total circulation is more than two million. Oh. Hoshimov was awarded the honorary title of "People's Writer of Uzbekistan" in 1991 for his creative work. He was awarded with the orders "Labour Fame" (1996), "For Great Services" (2001). He died on May 24, 2013 in Tashkent.

Let's pay attention to the writer's story "Yanga". This story mentions people like Yanga, Akmal, Clara, Lola, Akmal's brother and mother. The story begins with the scene where the bride comes to the house of the Akmal Khans and Akmal Khan comes home from work to meet the bride.   When he wakes up, he hears a familiar voice and this person opens the door. This character was new to him. After meeting with Akmal Khan, he leaves the house. Then he asks his wife Clara what the new one is for. Then his wife rudely says that maybe she came to get money. Then he quarreled with his wife. Akmal Khan is in love with his wife Clara and started a family, they have a little girl named Lola. Clara had never quarreled with her husband. But today they argue with Akmal Khan. 

The reason was that he didn't give it to the new one when he had money. At that time, Akmal Khan's brother's affairs were not going well. He thinks that he wanted to get clothes for his nieces because winter is coming. When he receives the money, his wife says, "Don't touch the money, I will buy a coat for our daughter with that money." But he takes the money and goes to his brother's yard. Her mother was alive when she became a new bride.  He always ironed his clothes to go to school. Even after the death of his mother, this situation did not change. As always, she would put her clothes on the throne and put a little money in there, just in case she needed them. 

However, seeing that his financial situation worsened and he was unable to earn money on his own, he decided to drop out of school. Even then, the new one persuades him and helps him to study. He came to his father's house. The house is still the same, has not changed and is as tidy as ever. The young one sees him and invites him to bed. They are talking and Akmal Khan says that he just received money from work and that he didn't know about it. He gives the money and says that he will buy winter clothes for my nephews. Then the new one said, "This week was the day my mother died. We wanted to gather relatives and do maraka. "It was not enough." Then Akmal Khan will be ashamed. This concludes the story. Plots and composition are very well chosen in the story.

In this story, you can see the love for mother, the love of the bride for her mother-in-law, and the respect of the bride for her brother-in-law. It is no exaggeration to say that the story is written in Uzbek spirit.

LIST OF REFERENCES:

1) 5th grade literature. Editor-in-Chief of "Sharq" publishing-printing joint-stock company. Tashkent - 2020

2) uzsmart.ru

3) z.m.wikipedia.org

4) thinking.net


Abduvahidova is the daughter of Farangiz Wahab 2nd stage student of Samarkand State University named after Sharof Rashidov.

Abdukhalilboyev is the son of Alisher Abdugani 3rd year student of Tashkent University of Information Technologies named after Muhammad Al-Khorazmi

 

1) Plot Hole


The light at the end
of the tunnel turned out to
be a gaping plot 
hole in my argument,

     so, I was forced to freestyle.


2) Psychic Warfare


I’m still convinced that
someone in their employ was
waging psychic war-
fare upon me in order
     to gain access to all my
     family’s secret recipes.  


3) Places of Residence


Is there a name for
the frequent dreaming of one’s
     former places of
     residence, specifically
     dreams of still living there-in?


4) Daffodils, Sweat Bees, Helicopters


Daffodils in an 
old salsa jar half-full of
well water, sitting 
     on an old deck table in
     the sun, while sweat bees circle               
     around like helicopters.




5) Progress, If Not Victory, So Much


A
          mile
     or two
                    of sun-cracked
           two-lane blacktop with
                            about three feet of a gravel
shoulder, sloping off to a ditch by the side of the
                    road, an old mailbox full of bullet holes,
    over-flowing with who knows how many days?
weeks? months? of mail; and there’s something 
                              about the smell of
                newly laid tarmac first thing in
        the morning that for
                             some reason
                       always
                                    makes
                                                me
                                         think
                                                   of
                                                   progress.




Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry,
six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders,
notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be 
(loosely) construed as a novel, and countless
love letters, never sent. He is currently an artist-in-
residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted 
P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an 
editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection 
of poems is “Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023).” 
He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster 
named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, 
and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the 
Gasconade River, where there are also many strange 
and wonderful woodland critters. 

To Be, Or—Oh Never Mind!

      Yes, Mr. Shakespeare,
We know your works have been
	Read,  and absorbed,
		By a robot.
That’s modern culture, ala 2023!
    Yes, you were famous once,
		  We know,
  But what’s important today
     Is the skill of the robots!
  Yes, your plays are amazing,
     But they can be imitated,
        Even improved upon
		 By robots, 
	    by non-human 
      technological entities!
	  In fact, we’ve shown
    One of our bots your letter
     Protesting their existence!
Here’s its response--in your style:
   “It’s a tale told by an idiot,
       full of sound and fury,
       signifying NOTHING!”

Feel free to contact us again!

								]

Clare Short for Clarence		
				
At sixteen I got a job at Ron’s Pizza to pay for gas, books, and records and to save for a camera. The shop was a tiny, white unremarkable cube on Coshocton Avenue, once named “The Milkhouse” in the 60s where, like everyone else, we picked up milk and ice cream after Sunday mass. As a pizzeria it was filled with ovens, coolers, bags of onions, cases of tomato sauce, and the aromas of fresh dough, cheese, and finished pizza – the best in town. 

It was there that I became acquainted with Clare, short for Clarence. Clare was a shy, amiable Hotei, a pudgy man of about thirty or forty who lived with his mother somewhere in the neighborhood. Clare was labeled mentally retarded as in 1976 the kinder intellectually disabled designation did not yet exist. The word “retarded” was used clinically, matter-of-factly but also had derogatory connotations. On the playground children often called one another “retard.” 

	Clare always wore a bright orange hunter’s cap and a blue winter coat. Only on the hottest days did the coat remain at home. He stuck with long sleeves, though, with his top button buttoned. Never shorts. Clare was proud of his Sears bicycle, a streamlined model from the 1950s he’d had since he was a boy, tricked out with white wall tires, two lights, two mirrors, and a speedometer. Every couple of weeks he repainted it, covering all the original chrome in a thick red or blue enamel. We speculated the bike was held together with paint rather than welds.

	A big kid really, Clare easily offered a wide smile and was willing to befriend anyone but was instinctively wary of everyone. I got the impression, after a few conversations, that the neighborhood boys teased or maybe abused him. When business was slow and Clare stopped in, Ron, the owner, a petty, insufferable lout who attended an obscure and highly evangelical church where people spoke in tongues, asked Clare questions to illicit humorous responses for our amusement. Ron thought Clare was always good for a laugh to pass the time. 

It was well known that Clare found body hair repulsive and regularly shaved head to toe. Occasionally Ron would say, “Hey Clare. Look,” and stroke his bear-like arm (not usually hovering over a pizza). Clare recoiled, distressed, almost nauseous in disgust. It was apparent that this was some kind of trigger for Clare. In the summer, Clare mowed a narrow strip of grass around two sides of the shop. Ron paid Clare with one can of soda. Just one. I wondered, why not two cans? How about five bucks to pay for some of Clare’s bike paint? Hell, why not a pizza with Clare’s favorite toppings? I never saw Ron offer one slice of pizza to Clare – as if his generosity would invite some kind of bad luck contagion.

	Clare had his own peculiar way of saying things, his sentences pressed tightly and cautiously through his teeth. “Heey Deeve” meant hey Dave. “Bat-trees” was batteries. “Sheeze” was gee. “Shcooze-me-sumbuddy” translated as excuse me somebody. Occasionally he announced, “Heey Deeve. Got new bat-trees for my beek (bike).” After mowing, Clare downed his single soda in one long, noisy gulp and belched loudly. Once, this customary and predictable belch occurred with a customer present. After the customer left, Ron admonished Clare saying, “When there’s somebody here, say excuse me.” Thereafter, any time he belched, no matter who was around, Clare declared, “Sheeze. Shcooze-me-sumbuddy.” For many years, Clare’s phrase was fondly mimicked by those who knew him. 
	
Following Clare’s “pardon me,” he nodded his head vigorously ten times to his left and ten times to his right. In other situations, if he was upset, there were additional nods with greater intensity. Clare exhibited several compulsive routines, but the head nodding was the most pronounced. At sixteen, I didn’t know what obsessive-compulsive disorder was (OCD was not yet used so casually and pervasively), but I recognized in Clare my own anxiety and my version of weird, inexplicable compulsions. Our rituals were a means to make sense of an uncertain world. When I got my new camera, I took Clare’s picture and he was thrilled, even hamming it up a little, nodding happily to the left and right between snaps. I still have the pictures somewhere, but I don’t need them to remember him.
	
Some ten years later, after Ron and Ron’s Pizza were long gone, after college and on the cusp of marriage, I happened upon Clare riding his bike in circles near the restrooms at Memorial Park. I imagined picnickers and soft ball girls were leery of him if they didn’t know him. I guessed Clare simply liked the flat concrete surface there. I heard that his mother died and he lived in a group home across town, an alien neighborhood with new kids and anxieties to navigate. He was much thinner, I thought gaunt, and now talked to himself in repetitious phrases. He looked weary, drawn inward. I called out to him, “Clare!” After completing three more requisite circles, he paused, looked up, recognized me, smiled, and said, “Sheeze. Heey Deeve.” And continued riding.

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Image of a light skinned young woman with a knit sweater and short blonde hair up in a bun holding a copy of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, which has black and white cartoon images of a family up against a black background and green and white text.

Critically examine Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” as a graphic novel. Or 

Discuss the significance of the veil in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Or 

How are the Islamic fundamentalists represented in the book Persepolis? What suggestions does Satrapi make about the relationship between faith and fanaticism?

Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” is the woven into the new found literary form positing the new found respectability of book length graphic novels—-accessible, vernacular and with mass popular appeal—-historicized memorabilia corresponding to mass murder, massacre, genocide, holocaust, brutality, harassment, execution and bombing amidst Iran-Iraq war. Fragmented, disembodied, and divided between frames suggestive of psychological trauma as connoted in the epiphany of “The Veil”. A visual chronicle of childhood rooted and articulated through momentous, and traumatic and historic events about the verbal and visual practice of never forgetting.

An unsmiling veiled girl sitting with her arms crossed in the center of the frame. She situates the exposition to the reader “This is me when I was 10 years old […] This was in 1980.” A hand, a bent elbow, and chest length veil separates herself from the class photography as spacings within pictorial frame purports disruption of her own characterological presence. An icon of single eye, directly engaging the reader, dangling over the book’s very first gutter, reminding readers at the outset that we are aligned with Satrapi’s penetrating vision and enabling retracing of that vision: “I give myself this duty of witnessing.” A crowd of masses throwing their fists in the air in front of a stark black background represents Islamic Revolution and then the veiling mandate of 1980. 

Persepolis narrates the trials and tribulations of precocious Marji and her upperclass leftist parents exasperation with the Iranian political regime; and Marji’s pricked consciousness ; holocausts, homicides and suicides of friend circle and family relations; havoc wreaked by Iraq-Iran geopolitical crises and Marji;s fierce and dangerous outspokenness eventually inspires her parents to deport her abroad at a safer sheltered asylum away from the trepidation and perturbance; her mother becomes comatose state of being as Marji departs Iran.

Satrapi’s text is framed diegetically and externally to the introductory injunctions of “never forgetting” as Uncle Anoosh, the naxalite prisoner advises her niece during executionary wish-fulfillment: “Our family memory must not be lost. Even if it isn’t easy for you, even if you don’t understand it at all.” Satrapi’s multiple autobiographical voices illustrative of the vignettes of selves——-Satrapi’s older and recollective voice registering of overarching narrative text while the younger and directly experiencing voice registering of dialogue and throughout pictorial space——the visual voice.

States of being of memory and matter of factness reinforce Satrapi’s renegotiations between versions of herself showing us the visual and discursive process of never forgetting. Satrapi unfolds the procedure of memory through spatializing form of comics, which visualizes and enmeshes overlapping of selves and their locations. Persepolis’s presentation of pictorial space is discursive. Satrapi displays the political horror of producing and marking ordinary childhood by offering what seems to the reader to be the visual disjuncture in her child’s eye rendition of trauma.

This expressionism weaves the process of memory into the book’s technique of visualization. Satrapi’s stark style is monochromatic—–there is no evident shading technique; she offers black and white. However the visual emptiness of simple, ungraded blackness in frames showcase the depthness of the condition of remembrance as pointed out by Kate Flint’s words: “maybe elicited by the deliberate empty spaces, inviting the projection of that which can be seen only in the mind’s eye to an inviting vacancy.” 

Persian miniatures, murals and friezes of public skirmishes appear as stylized and symmetrical bodies, surfeiting mere mimetic representations interlaced with the Persianness of historical avant-garde. “I was born in a country in a certain time, and I was witness to many things. I was a witness to a revolution. I was a witness to war. I was a witness to a huge emigration”——collective ethos of harrowing sense of death casts her imaginative selfhood to a culture pervaded by violence and retribution. Penultimate panel of “The Letter” suggests the Iranian landscapes and the grimly grotesque configuration of horizontally stretched out and abstractly stacked corpses/ mass dead bodies. “We had demons demonstrated on that very day we shouldn’t have: on Black Friday. That day there was so many killed in one neighbourhoods that a rumour spread that Israeli soldiers were responsible for the slaughter.” 

“The Cigarette” in “The Persepolis” demonstrates three-tiers of imbrications of the historical routine [execution] and the personal routine [sneaking cigar] depicting blindfolded prisoners about to be executed against a wall, directly above and below frames in which we view Marji in that prosaic, timeless rite of initiation: smoking her first cigar. This retrospective mode of narratorial address to the audience from within the pictorial space of the frame and the body politic of tender hearted Marjai is unusual in the text; blurring of voices and register here works with the blurrings of the historical and the everyday registers that is also part of the narrative suggestion of the page.

Ethical, verbal and visual practice of not forgetting is not merely about exposing and challenging the virulent machinations of historicization but is more specifically about examining and bearing witness to the intertwining of the everyday and the historical. Its polemical resonance lies in the fact that visually virtuosic is required to represent the political trauma that plagues Marji’s childhood. Persepolis is thus the reimagination and reconstruction that retraces the literal growing child body in space, reinscribing that body to generate a framework in which versions of selfsome stripped of agency, in which some are possessed by it——-in productive conversation. Persepolis’ feminist graphic narrative harnesses visibility politics magnified by the lenses of visual ethics aesthetics showcasing the censured and censored through representation and resymbolization. 

McCloud pointed out that segmented pictorial illustrations in the form of comic book or graphic novel transforms the temporal relationships into the spatial matrix. Pictorial framing can be related to ideological framing——-the filtering of information, of news, of times, of identities, of nationalities and gender——through templates and through structures of feelings that produce predetermined judgements of values narrativized translations of experience. “We the kids in America” become the epitome of the youth generation’s voice as an ideological frame narrative symbolic of Western cultural imperialism intruding as a lurking anthem in the Marjane Satrapi frame-within-frame fantasy of Western counter cultural identity in the image of Kim Wilde.

Satrapi’s bricolage and appropriation, borrowing, mixture of heterogeneous culture resonates both state societal interpellation as pedagogical and civil societal interpellation as performativity that both function as frames and mirrors of self. Both constructs of fictions of the self. Marjane Satrapi’s grandmother advices the granddaughter: “But there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance […] Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself”, while the latter embracing folding cuddling of the former. “I smelled my grandmother’s bosom. It smelled good. I cannot forget that smell” resonates Proustian motif with the advice bestowed upon by the family matriarch about the jerks she is destined to meet throughout her life.

Lacanian terms of prelinguistic and extralinguistic formation of subjectivity—-the contrast in Persepolis is not only between a prelinguistic visual reflection of the self and an adult linguistic reflection, but the non visual bodily and sensory reflection of the self in the matriarch other and the visual and the exilic reflection of the self outside home and nation. The mirrored frames of the panels function in Persepolis as subjective fragmentation, unstability and uncertainty. Satrapi’s exodus life is as diasporic selfhood re establishes the cultural icon of hijab as the symbolic icon of familiarity of national and familial belonging casting off claustrophobic marginalization: “so much for my individual and social liberties […] I need so badly to go home.” 

Marjane Satrapi’s contrasting frame of panels demarcating bachelorette virginity and consummated maidenhood by her reflections of brightly smiling long hair, makeup and short wear with trimmed laces, and sitting in front of a window overlooking a garden of birds; and Marjane’s reflection of a girl smoking cigar, wearing black pants and shirts, sitting in front of a dark night. Adulthood and independent agency reciprocate her mother’s amity with the tenderly hugging in the event and divorce of the daughter with the fiance Reza. Iran’s borders/cultures/geopolitics were clandestinely breached by the import of Westernization though the imposition of hegemonic tradition and culture such as Nike Shoes and Michael Jackson Badge smuggled by Satrapi’s parents from Turkey. Shallow consumerism by emulation of Western fashion overthrown to indictment that ultimately enforced diasporic exodus. Marjane’s expedition in pursuance of cassettes entails her knowledgeable and feisty dealings with the male black marketeers. Verily the confession of her affirmative tone justifies her duality of personae looming with the void of claustrophobia and xenophobia : “I was nothing. I was a Westerner in the Iran and an Iranian in the West. I had no identity.” 

Patricia Storace critiques the transcendental transformation and brings to light the transmogrified narrative technique to the effect of transvaluation that uses style “which offers a benevolent, trustworthy world, like a fresco in a nursery and the matter of fact breaks our hearts with it, creating confrontation between what is drawn as adorable with the world that does not require its claims to protection, hope or love.” Satrapi is intuitive, inquisitive and precocious and her quest for identity causes a self questioning of gender, class and social status as cultural markers——self-reflection as the narrator of her illustrated past greatly contributes to the value of her memoir. “In a cartoon world she [Marjane Satrapi] creates, the photographs function less as illustrations than as records of actions, a kind of visual journalism. On the other hand, dialogues and descriptions are changing unpredictably in visual style and placement on the page within its balloons, advancing frame by frame like the verbal equivalent of a movie. Each element would be quite useless without the other; like a pair of dancing partners, Satrapi’s text and images comment on each other, enhance each other, challenges, questions and reveal each other.” 

Further Reading 

Hilary Chute’s The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis’, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Spring-Summer 2008, Vol. 36, No. 1 /2, Witness (Spring-Summer 2008), pp. 92-110, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York

Babak Elahi’s [Rochester Institute of Technology] Frames and Mirrors in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, symmboke, 2007, Vol. 15, No. 1 / 2, Cinema Without Borders, 2007, pp. 312-325, University of Nebraska Press. 

Ann Miller’s [University of Leicester] Marjane Satrapi’s: Eluding the Frames, L’Esprit Createur, Spring 2011, Volume 51, No. 1, Watch This Space: Women’s Conceptualizations of Space in Contemporary French Film and Visual Art [Spring 2011], pp. 38-52.