Living conditions in 'In search of America' and 'Persepolis'

Although, these are two very different stories, they both illustrate very poor living conditions. In In Search of America the narrator takes a trip around America with a man named Peder and visits different groups of people such as the population of the south who are mostly farmers and cotton growers. However, the families seldom make money and have to find a way to put food on the table for their kids. For example the narrator explains that there were "no beds, no second mattress for the children, no table, no dresser, no chairs..." (pg 287) and so on. Additionally, when referring to the mexicans in the beet industry he informs the reader that "they lived in the fields, in shacks, sometimes in wagons to be pulled right to the edge of work as not to waste time" (pg 295). Therefore it is evident, most of the families he visited lived in poverty and had to work long hours to get very little pay.

It is the same case in Persepolis, even though this story is completely different, the notion of poverty arises several times throughout the novel. The grandmother is one of the key characters that was forced to live in poverty when the Shah took everything from her and her husband. She says "oh, yes. so poor that we had only bread to eat. I was so ashamed that I pretended to cook so that the neighbors wouldn't notice anything" (pg 26) and even the narrator Marjane says that "our maid did not eat with us" and "my father had a cadillac" therefore showing that her family also lived with low sums of money.

Both of these stories have very different backgrounds, In search of America takes place all throughout america and depicts different case studies whereas Persepolis takes place in Iran and portrays Iranian culture and its political situation. However, both of these literature works illustrate a lower social class that lives for the most part in poverty and has to work hard for a living.