Vaeyn writes:

I find it interesting that the assigned section covers Marjane’s identity crisis. I don’t know if it what was by design or coincidence but it was nice either way.
The first chapter of the section for the week was The Vegetable. I like how it started off with a very detailed look into the awkwardness of growing into an adult. The self consciousness of how you know they are staring at your foot that is bigger than the other one, or that random mole or blemish. It is an interesting look into the personal fable of all teenagers.
The more Marjane tries to fit in the more she ends up becoming the person everyone else wanted her to be. She cuts her hair to look more punk, and smokes joints because her friends do. There is even a point that she lies about heritage at a bar to just fit in.
She goes back and forth between moments of experimentation and returning to herself. After she gives up the punk look she goes through a brief period of returning to herself, but then she starts dating. It is no longer about pleasing everyone, but instead pleasing that one person. Marjane even goes as far as becoming a drug dealer for Jean Paul.
Finally when she returns home she finds out how far her life in Europe has taken her from what she was. In one scene her girl friends ask her about sex and when Marjane tells them she has had sex with multiple men they call her a whore. She goes from one extreme a sexual revaluation to the repressed ways of the fundamentalists. At this point I think it is when Marjane realizes that her attempts to be accepted in Europe made it so she no longer fit in at home.
I think it is sad to what lengths people will go to fit in. Peer pressure is a powerful thing, even more so when a person is in an experimental stage of their life. In trying to find where she would fit in during her years in Europe, Marjane loses sight of everything she was. The thing I found profound about this section is that this is where the influences of Marjane’s past mix with her present desire to be accepted, and are boiled down in the crucible of her adolescence to leave behind what will solidify into the person she becomes. It is a very personal journey and one she is lucky to survive despite her suicide attempt.
Also just to add about Marjane’s suicide attempt, I wonder if it was something did wholly on her own or was it because of a compounding effect of the drugs. Anti-depressants have a history of provoking suicidal thoughts, even more so for anyone still going through adolescences because of the constant fluctuation of hormones.

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I wanted to continue on Marjane’s struggle for identity.  There were a couple instances in the graphic novel where I felt Marjane’s complex can be waived on multiple levels. Firstly, she’s a teenager so an amount of her struggle can be brushed off cause of her age. Then there is pg 79 where she is completely in tears over Marcus, but the last panel she wonders three things: with a wavering face, “where is my mother to stroke my hair?” with a reminiscint face, “where is my grandma to tell me there will be tons of other boys?” and finally, with a strong face, “where is my father to punish this boy?” These three questions reveal a lot about Marjane’s identity crisis.  Basically, she’s alone and has no idea how to act. She is imagining what her family would tell her/do for her in this situation, if only they were there. But no one is there and they can’t act on it. Marjane is left with a void, but she knows what should fill it. This creates a tension inside Marjane.

Another peer-pressure/fitting in pressure that I recognized in Marjane’s life is on page 120. She gets rid of her obsessive hair on her body, and face. She throws out clothes and has new ones made – an emphasis on her bare, hairless legs in a pair of strappy heels. Then her hair gets cut and permed. There’s brief little panel where she is shopping, and she’s all covered again. And then the next panel, she starts with makeup, emphasis on her lips. I think she has trouble fitting in under unusual circumstances here because she is used to being covered, having no need to get rid of her hair (for who can see it?) but yet, at the same time, she is getting her hair done, wearing makeup, upkeeping with hair, going shopping…these are two different cultures smashing into one person.

So, in summary, I agree that teenagers will do a lot to try to fit in. There’s a lot of peer pressure. But for Marjane, I feel she has these natural basics, but the complexities of her case justify her obsessive ‘what is my identity?’ She has no family to guide her, yet she knows what they would do if they were around. That has to be very frustrating, to know what to expect, what would help, and then…it’s just not there. Also, she is used to going out in public in fundamentalist dress, andd now she’s experimenting cosmetically with everything. She’s probably having trouble defining her comfort level on what she wants to look like.