Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

“People say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Truth is, you knew what you had, you just never thought you’d lose it – Anonymous” (Quotes). Marjane Satrapi was born to a wealthy family and had parents who adored her. She seemed to have everything, and even as the war raged on, her family still managed to have something more than the next family. In spite of their good fortune, the war was taking a toll on the family and it was decided that Marjane would be sent to Austria. Thus leaving everything Marjane loved behind, leaving her to fend in the darkness of the unknown. In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Marjane starts off as a rebel, though naïve at the same time, to an attentive but scared girl in order to show how the war has triggered Marjane's reality to crash down, clarifying the world around her.

Persepolis focuses on major themes like Feminism, Freedom, Religion, War, and Culture. Although this book is about Marjane Satrapi a young girl who lived her childhood in Iran from the 1980’s which was during the Iran revolution, where at a young age she’s already opened up to a warfare environment. This book can be interpreted differently based on the reader’s location, history background with Iran, and the differences in government. In this essay we would be comparing the readers from Iran vs. America.

At least once in your life, you will encounter someone with a different opinion than you. You will hit a wall with ideas. Someone will voice their opinion against what you believe, and it will hurt. Everyone can remember an experience where they felt this, and everyone knows how it feels when your opinion is rejected.

The book, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, was written by Marjane Satrapi; it is the story of her life in Iran from birth to fourteen years old. The perspective of Marjane, in her novel, affects the overall presentation of revolution, religion, and social classes. Consequently, with no background knowledge, we only have her perspective which affects our own opinion about the events of the book.

A revolution changes and influences the society. Despite the outcome being positive or negative, it should lead the people in a different direction. With Persepolis, Author Marjane Satrapi defines the Islamic revolution as transformative. Growing up in a developing country can cause your personal beliefs to shift and change in a short amount of time. Her difficulty to stand at one point when all opinions mattered can be seen throughout the book.

In the comic novel, Persepolis, the reader read about the Islamic Revolution from the perspective of a child. The Islamic Revolution took place during 1979, which brought sudden change to the people of Iran; the bilingual schools, girls boys were separated, and girls were required to wear veils. The revolution brought various changes, but it also brought violence between the authorities and the Iranian people. The author, Marjane Satrapi grew up during the era of the Islamic Revolution. As she grew up she wanted to become a prophet, so that she could bring change to the world.

“And then suddenly in 1980, we found ourselves veiled and separated from our friends” (Satrapi 4). Marjane Satrapi wrote about Iran in her childhood years and it made Iran seem like a dangerous place. Marjane gave a negative connotation of Iran in the book Persepolis but it illustrates accurately how life in Iran was like from 1979-1983 as she experienced revolution, a new Islamic regime, and danger. Persepolis starts out in a revolutionary time period where the citizens of Iran are tired of the Shah and strongly wish to overthrow him. The photo demonstrates this because in the photo, Iranians are tearing down a statue of the Shah due to their dislike of him.

Marjane Satrapi’s memoir Persepolis talks about Marjane’s childhood living in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980’s. Satrapi characterizes Iran as a country that has existed through tyranny, where the government manipulates its citizens using religion to get them to comply with governmental standards. They convinced the younger generation into believing that covering their heads, and dying for Iran would make their lives more purposeful. She uses this characterization of Iran to illustrate the struggles of those living in the country and to prove that not everyone is well off in that they have everything that they could ever wish for. Through the use of symbolism, Satrapi explains her struggles while living in Iran, and uses these

Inquiry One Jeffrey Page Most of the time when people have freedoms they don’t notice or appreciate these freedoms until they are taken away from them. In the society and culture that has been created in most countries today it is very easy to take certain freedoms for granted: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, being allowed to wear what you want and many more. This is strongly portrayed throughout the text Persepolis By Marjane Strapi. She shows this by explaining all the rights and freedoms she wanted and wished she had, by telling of her parents knowing and understanding what it was like to have these freedoms and many other things. A specific time in which this theme was very apparent was when Marji was dancing in her room listening to music singing “WERE THE KIDS IN ANERICAN WHOAO!”.

The book Persepolis is a graphic Novel on Marjane Satrapi life during the Iranian revolution. Satrapi gives her story as a young girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution. She gives the situation that women had during this time, and one theme that is portrayed by the memoir is the effects of revolution on gender norms. The state of women and gender norms in Iran was substantially altered during the revolution. Revolution we can say is the dominant theme of the memoir and Satrapi describes this theme by expressing how it affected women and their norms through unfair culture norms, tortures and pressure imposed on women.

In the book Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, she tells a story about her life during the Iranian Revolution. Without family Marjane would have never been able to cope with the war and everything going on around her. He family during the beginning of the book would tell her little white lies so she would feel better and they were the people she would go to when she was upset or confused about anything. She was not the only one though because in the book her friend Laly on page 48 talks about her family said her dad was on a “Trip” but really was in prison. It is the lies that the family tells to make sure that the children stay innocent.

Persepolis is a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, this graphic novel was based on the eyes of a Ten year old that experiences all types of emotions before and after the Islamic revolution, the oppression from the leaders. This novel gives us a brief on the history of Iran and their leaders, to the Embassy being taken over, via how they weren’t allowed to party. They also experience prohibition just like the United States in the 1920-1933 and like many countries they didn’t have any freedom. In the novel we saw a great deal of fear of failure, hardship and prejudice in the country of Iran. This is where we see Marjane’s morals and values had to be compromised her parents supported her and still let her have a childhood, but Marjane would get in trouble after she was rebelling against the “cultural revolution”.

Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis is an expressive memoir of her growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, the fall of the Shah’s regime and the Iran-Iraq War. The dictionary definition of a memoir is, the description of one’s personal life and experiences, and most writers use the conventional text format to write theirs but Satrapi has contributed to a whole new way of writing memoirs that may last for many generations to come. Unlike conventional memoirs, she uses the black-and-white comic book form to find her identity through politics and her personal experiences in Iran and it has become effective and relevant in today’s society because she is a normal person that has had to live through extreme circumstances. She gives you insight into her own mind with pictures instead of you trying to make sense of just words. In the novel, Marjane, Marji for short, is living in Tehran, the capital of Iran, during the late 70’s and early 80’s. She is smart and outspoken for her age and for a long time she was very religious which is a bit skeptical due to her parents being Marxists. Persepolis illustrates a memorable story of Marji’s life in Iran.

Persepolis is a coming of age story for Marji living in the middle of the Iranian war and adapting to the changes to both her culture and her personal life. Inequality between genders is heavily discussed within the story, as well as the struggles between the fundamentalist ideas and customs compared to the less extreme morals of some families: it is shown through the simplistic, but effective images by Satrapi.

Persepolis is a graphic novel written by Marji Satrapi that encompasses within it the journey of Iran through different rulers, and conditions. Through the presentations, it became evident that the positive opportunities that the Iranians have experienced were the cause of the revolution and the reason it has failed.