Week Five Journal: Pre-Writing

The blog that I expanded into my first formal paper was the character analysis of Marjane. I really wanted to expand this post into a full paper because, being the main character and all, she has many deep facets to her. I also wanted to quickly point out that I really feel like she is very idealized as well. There is not much wrong that she really does, which is a bit peculiar to me. The thing I really focused on about Marjane was her evolution into a sort of rebel. She evolves from what she thought was a prophet into a revolutionary then she finally finds her niche as rebel in her own way. I felt like I could really see and feel her progression. She was really into God in her early years. At one point, she talked to God almost every night without fail. She comes up with her own tenets (which only her grandmother knows about). After she hears of the theater that is set on fire by national forces and the subsequent protest that was scheduled in response to it, she feels a great urge to go with her parents to protest such horrible injustices. Towards the end of the novel, she rebels in her own ways. She starts smoking (she’s rebelling against her parents, but she is really rebelling against her childhood), she ditches school, she talks back to her teachers, she listens to banned music, and she wears “inappropriate”clothing. It gets to the point where her parents are so worried about her safety that they send her to live in Vienna, Austria. She is only fourteen at the time. Because of this graphic novel, I was able to think and reflect on my own progression and evolution as a an individual. To kind of reflect on who I was to who I have become to who I will be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and beyond in relation to who I hope I can become. It is sometimes mind boggling taking the time out and looking back. Because we change every single day, we a lot of times fail to see that change on a “macro” level (us as a whole) and sometimes focus too much on the “micro” level (very specific characteristics). It is important to consistently reflect on your life so you can recognize patterns in your evolution and so you can see how your beliefs have developed over time. The reason this is so critical in life is because when you are able to recognize those patterns, you can change and/or break the patterns that you don’t like. You have the awareness to better adapt into who you wish to be. The importance of seeing how your beliefs have developed cannot be understated. Your beliefs today are in direct correlation to the beliefs you developed from the moment you were born.