Narration in Up the Yangtze and Persepolis

In both Up the Yangtze and Persepolis, a larger issue is addressed by means of focusing on the story of an individual and the people around them. In Up the Yangtze, the narration follows one girl from a poor family in China who gets a job on a tourist boat because her parents cannot afford to send her to school. With the job, she can help support her family, have more to eat, and earn money that she could eventually use to go to school. The movie also follows an older teenage boy from a richer family, who is trying to make more money than his own parents do. While much of the film focuses on the two teenagers and their personal stories, it also shows the effects of the dam that was being built, and how many people would have to move due to their previous homes being submerged in the rising water. The film uses the personal stories of the teenagers to illustrate a larger message to the viewer about the lives of people in China. Persepolis does something similar to this as well; the story is told through the perspective of Marji, a young girl who lives through a cultural revolution in Iran, as well as the resulting social changes, and a war with Iraq. The story focuses mostly on her own experiences, her family, and her family's friends, it provides an insight into the changes that happened in the entire country during the time, in a way that those that are not knowledgeable on the subject can understand, due to it being told through the eyes of a child experiencing it firsthand. Both of the narratives explain a large social event that occurred in a country by giving the audience the perspective of an individual experiencing it, and in both of the narratives the individual is relatively young. Although the issues being addressed are different, take place in different cultures, and affect different groups of people based on different criteria, they use the same technique to address said issues, and both narratives receive the advantages and disadvantages of said technique. While it gives the audience a detailed picture of one perspective, seeing the larger picture can sometimes be difficult. However, this may actually aid the presentation of social issues, because social issues often are viewed from the perspective of a single person, because they have to spend so much time making sure that they can get through the change that they may not see the larger picture themselves.