Poem vs. Persepolis

I chose to compare the poem "On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam", by Hayden Carruth, and the book Persepolis. These two pieces of literature can be very closely compared. The fact that both pieces talk about War is the first way they are a like, but it goes much deeper than that. Both pieces bring about this feeling of numbness to to war and death. Death becomes "the norm" because it happens so often. In the poem the author mentions not only the Vietnam War, but a few other wars as well. His attitude gives the reader a sense that he is used to War. He grew up around war and was even in a war, and being surrounded by so much death and violence, war simply becomes an extremely normal thing. Like in the poem, the same goes for Persepolis. The story takes place during the Iranian Revolution, where the violence is horrendous. Prisoners being tortured, people being killed, yet instead of being saddened and shocked by what is going on (like they were in the start of the war), the characters in this book soon become numb to what is going on around them. It is not that they don't honor and respect those that die for them to stand up for what they believe, because this is not the case at all. They honor these people completely, but no longer does people being killed upset them, as much as it once did, because it is what they are used to. They hear of people being tortured and killed everyday, which is no longer out of the ordinary, but in fact quite ordinary. War simply a way of life. This conflict of war, in both pieces, forges an identity of numbness. Characters are simply no longer being effected on a  daily basis by the death and violence around them. Instead, this is a way of life they have accepted and become accustomed to.