THE SHABBAT - by Marjane Satrapi

      

   When I read this graphic novel, it immediately reminded me of a Twitter feed that I have been following recently.  It is written by a young girl and her mother who were in Syria and who have luckily gotten out of the danger zone.  However, when I first started following her there was a mix of emotions to be placed "in the middle of the fight" with them through their tweets.  The girls name is Bana Alabed and in this modern, technological age the world was able to see things as never before...and through a child's view.  Just like in this story, there is a mix of emotions.  You have a picture of war in your mind, but war is never that cut and dry.  You do not think there is any smiles during war time, but that is untrue.  On the news, we see small chunks of time.  In reality, it is never ending.  

   In the novel, we see Marji sitting in a home that seems like any normal, westernized home.  We see her relationship with her parents and we see her go shopping with her friend.  We think, "It's not that bad there."  However, then we see the results of a nearby bomb.  The destruction of their neighbors home and most likely the death of their family friends.  As I followed Bana and her tweets, I had similar feelings.  One day she would be coloring and smiling with her siblings, and the next they would be hiding in the basement due to bombing.  The one image that really hit home for me was when she was going to school and it was after there had been an attack.  She showed pictures of kids who had been killed and you could see their lunch boxes they were carrying with Dora the Explorer on them.  Some of the thoughts that ran through my mind is how many times Americans try to get out of school and here are kids dying and under attack, and school is still that important that they risk their lives to go.  Another thing is how senseless war is.  

   I was in the Army for a long time.  I kept a journal when I went to Desert Storm and in it I wrote, "Isn't war silly!?  We try to destroy the 'Enemy' and then we go out of our way to give them proper first aid."

   I think I may have gotten off on a tangent a bit, but back to the graphic novel.  I found it to be very interesting.  On this particular one I didn't have to really take a lot of notes I think because I could see the whole thing.  I thought the visual pictures made the story easy to follow and understand.  I think that I put more feeling in to it than other readers might, but I think that is from following Bana and having been in that part of the world in the past.  I have sympathy for Marji when she realizes that her neighbors have perished.  When she sees the bracelett (on the arm I am assuming), I could feel her heartbreak.  It is a lot for an adult, and for a child to have to live through such trauma is unthinkable.  I think it was powerful that the story ended in a black box and the description of the scream in her head.  I also think that is a sign of the times in 2000, before social media made nothing off limits.

Powerful!!

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane.  “The Shabbat" - 2000.  The Norton Introduction to Literature, ed. Kelly J. Mayes, Shorter 11^th ed, New York: Norton, 2013, pp. 21-28.

Twitter.  @AlabedBana