Onausa Srijantho 6421652859 (809) 01373101

How The Breadwinner and Persepolis portray issues through

stories.
Parvana and Marjane are more alike than you think. Both films have the protagonist as a young girl,
who faces political turmoil, whose family is opposite to the majority family. Although these similarities, the
two protagonists have different ways of holding on to their minds. And both of these methods help the
audience see the portrayal of political issues through their perspective. This essay will discuss how Parvana's
storytelling method and Marjane's Imagination method play an important role in portraying the way political
issues impact on an individual's life.
The storytelling in the breadwinner is about the boy who promised to the village that he will bring
back the seeds, which later in the film, Parvana named him Sulayman, after her brother who died by picking
up the bomb that he misunderstood as a toy. In the storytelling, it started with people living happily, and
soon the jaguars came crashing down the party and stole the seed. This implied to people who came to the
city and took their life, their right, or even their freedom. Other people in the village are sad and cry. They
tolerate their unfair faith. But not Parvana nor Sulayman. They decided not to stand all of these sadness and
find a way to achieve their goals and to survive. Parvana changed to a boy, Aatish and started her adventure
along with Sulayman’s story. The jaguars are like bad people in the city. They oppress people, especially
women and kids, and the elephant king is like fear, a power that keeps people in the cage, so no one
wouldn’t oppose them. In a very close to ending, The third thing that Sulayman need to use to overcome
the elephant king is soothing, Sulayman told his own story, how Parvana’s brother died, he went to pick a toy
up but it wasn’t a toy but a bomb and then he died, He’s a victim of a war, of adult conflict.
The storytelling in The Breadwinner is semi-parallel with the film. It portrays how war affects people.
From free life to oppressed life by the government. But the movie didn’t show us a happy ending but an
open ending because all of those chaos and wars haven’t ended yet and are still happening in middle east
countries.
Different from The Breadwinner, Persepolis uses the Imagination method and not often like the
breadwinner’s storytelling. The god in Marjane's head, who always is the opposite to Marjane. He only
showed up in the story several times, the first time was when her neighbor kid, Ramine, whose father had
killed so many people. Ramine himself is a innocent kid, but Marjane decided to told her friend to torture
Ramine because of what his father did. In the film, it shows adults talking and kids listening to them and
 Onausa Srijantho 6421652859 (809) 01373101

inherit all of cruelty and normalize it. Luckily, the mother still stopped her but didn't tell Marjane the reason
why she shouldn’t do that. So while she was sitting on the chair upsettingly, God showed up and told her
why. God help her to be more kind. It’s like the religion is fine and peaceful itself but people who take
advantage from it would use the religion to be a tool to keep people in the cage. God only shows kindness in
the film but people, human show cruelty to each other. And the second time is when she uses pills during
her depression therapy. She used pills the psychiatrist said but it almost killed her due to overdose, and then,
when God showed up. He told her to live out her life and that the struggle must go on, which means every
life has struggles, it’s normal because when talking about life, we must talk about surviving. The last
imagination from the movie that I notice is when she was dating Marcus, he was pretty and beautiful for her.
Everything they did together was full of happiness and fearlessness but soon the truth came out when
Marcus cheated on her. He was ugly and talentless person to her. When you are in love, you are blinded by
love and when you are out of love, the truth will enlighten you.
Persepolis uses the imagination method to show us that even if it's a God or not, things in over head
are our caution and awareness deeply inside. It’s up to us to stop and listen to it or not.
In conclusion, Both Imagination and storytelling portrays issues through the films since it can’t be
spoken directly. All of these methods are still up to the audience's interpretation. What we believe in is what
we hold on our mind to. And I think both of the films speak great about the truth of oppression of women
and kids.