Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

Marji’s educated and “avant-garde” parents join to demonstrate against the Shah, supporting Marxist causes of classless societies and believing that this is a way to achieve a kind of government that will bring out the best in people. During this time, Marji starts to overhear their conversations about the harsh realities of violence and death in her world. Subsequently, she realizes how oblivious she had been and starts to read books to teach herself the truth. As Marji becomes cognizant of class struggles, “[she] finally understood why [she] felt ashamed to sit in [her] father’s Cadillac” (33.6). The recognition of “the reason for [her] shame and for the revolution [being] the same: the difference between social classes” (33.7) distresses her and drives her to protest. As her interest gravitates more towards these new ideas, she starts to view Marx as a god figure but much bigger, and eventually loses attention to God and her “prophetic destiny” (10.2). From this point on, God starts to slowly fade away. Though Marji is still naive and relies on God as a source of comfort occasionally, this signals that she is growing while discovering her country’s political and social concepts as she begins to become more determined with her actions against her

Marji has to deal with things earlier than others the same age as her in different countries. As a child, Marji is exposed to the brunt of events going on in her country, especially

Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is a vivid coming-of-age graphic memoir that chronicles the author’s varied experiences growing up during and after the nineteen seventy-nine Islamic revolution in Iran. In her introduction to Persepolis, Marjane explains her reasons for writing the novel, claiming that Iran was not only a country of “fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism” (Satrapi, introduction) and she hoped that by sharing her personal stories of Iran she would humanize the country to her western audience and highlight the people’s struggles for freedom. In her desire to achieve this Satrapi focuses on the female characters of her graphic novel and addresses the issues of gender equality through the use of veils as symbols, allusions to western

Marji finds the many fundamentalist rituals forced upon her at school such as torture sessions very stupid and makes fun of them, even to her teachers. “After a little while, no one took the torture sessions seriously anymore… ‘The martyrs! The martyrs! Kill me!’ ‘Satrapi! What are you doing on the ground?’ ‘I’m suffering can’t you see?’” (97). Although Marji protests against the restrictive ethics and the Shah’s rule, subconsciously she is really protesting against the elders, both in the government and in her house. While she rebels against both in different way, they almost represent the same thing to her. “As for me, I sealed my act of rebellion against my mother’s dictatorship by smoking the cigarette I’d stolen from my uncle two weeks earlier. It was awful but this was not the moment to give in. With this first cigarette, I kissed childhood goodbye. Now I was a grown-up.” (117). Because of the Iranian revolution, Marji feels a need to grow up and experience things that are way beyond her level of understanding. She forces herself to mature in order to deal with everything in the adult world.

Marji’s parents insist on securing their daughter’s life, freedom, and education. Both of her parents had insisted on making sure that Marji could live the way she wants to, despite the obvious dangers something that she was very glad for (311). Satrapi writes, “For an Iranian mother, my mom was very permissive. I only knew two or three other girls who could go out alone at thirteen” (131). They also

People often overlook how much of an impact the world around them has, be it good or bad. In Persepolis, the story of a young girl growing up in the middle of the Iranian revolution, pedantic cultural norms and strict rules cause the heroine Marji to grow out of adolescence far too soon. Her culture is being dictated and changed by an extremely controlling government that ultimately changes Marji’s life. Some parts of Marji’s culture that truly sped up her maturing process are Customs and Traditions, Government, and Religion.

The first thing that helped to aid Marjane’s change, was the death of her favorite uncle Anoosh. He was an avid student of Marxism-Leninism which made him a wanted man in Iran. Anoosh was later located and sent to jail. When he was released he went to visit Marjane’s parents. Marjane instantly loved him due to the fact that he went to prison and was what she called a “hero.” Soon after the release of political prisoners, like Anoosh, one by one they

It is not unusual for a teenager to go through a phase of rebellion. As teens get older, they are continually trying to discover themselves, so often times they lash out and become disobedient. When teens start breaking rules and regulations is when they put themselves and their families in danger. In the autobiography, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, the author Marjane Satrapi writes about her childhood and growing up in Iran during the war. The new leader is enforcing numerous outrageous rules, including banning some games, music, and alcohol. Breaking the rules is hard to resist for the feisty teen, however her actions have effects on her entire family. Marjane’s acts of rebellion against different authorities, including her family and the government, have varying levels of enormity and repercussions.

First off, Marjane was born during a time of war for her country, the Islamic Revolution. She was born into an upper middle class family. Both of her parents opposed Shah and constantly protested on a daily basis. Shah happened to be the last Qajar emperor of the country Iran. Many of Marjane’s family were known as communists and often jailed, held as a prisoner, or executed for their political beliefs and thoughts. The protests against Shah continuously grow and his rule becomes impossible! Shah eventually resigns to leave the country of Iran to join the oil industry in the United States. When shah steps down, most of the political prisoners are releases. Marjane discovers that her uncle who is also her hero helped declare independence from Shah. Her family grew courage and were enthusiastic about the overthrow of Shah. These events were often traumatizing to her and which is ultimately what led her to rebel against

The Iran-Iraq war changes Marjane’s family dynamics in a dramatic manner. This causes her family to begin rely on each other in a ways that are previously unobservable in the text. As the daily comforts of their wealthy lifestyle disappear and are replaced with perpetual terror, one begins to see Marjane’s family bonding on an entirely new level. Early in the war, Marjane’s family begins spending more time as a unit. This can be seen in the increase in frames ,in the text, depicting her family conversing in rooms around the house. Her family begins to spend large amount of

Marji is a very intellectual, sophisticated girl because she knows all about politics, family values and reads a lot of books. Maturity forces people to face adulthood and stand up for themselves in difficult situations and shows they were raised properly for the life they will live.

In The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the genre choice of the graphic novel vividly portrays the life-experience that Satrapi herself gone through as a youth growing up in Iran back in the 1980s. Satrapi utilizes a unique drawing style to emphasize the influence that the Islamic Republic has brought to her. The recurring images of teachers implanting Islamic values in children throughout Marjane’s education in Iran are emotional, which implicitly reflect on the destruction of childhood is caused by a totalitarian regime. For instance, the teachers force the girls to wear veils on page1 and tells the parents that “either [girls] obey the law, or [they are] expelled” (Satrapi, 98) later on. Also, the background of these oppressive

Over the following four years, Marji learned of how her grandparents were left poor because of the Shah, the leader of the Iranian government. Shah was well known for robing men and women of everything they had worked for and leaving them with nothing. Nevertheless, Marji was schooled on the different levels of society in Iran, which left her to consider her family as rich because her Dad drove a Cadillac. Despite being a child, Marji accused her dad of being anti-social towards a class that could not read and write. To clarify Marji helped out a friend with the writing of some love letters. Mehi was the family maid that could not read or write. Mehi fell in love with the boy

One of the more deep philosophical ideas that popped into my head while reading this story was the moral study behind Marji’s thoughts and what it stood to her. Persepolis presents storytelling in both literature and visual arts, the graphics drive a certain complexity to the story and give us a bigger character study to process. This is the state of mind an adult Marji wants to show to contrast her childhood stances with the stances the reader is thinking. Some small elements like the color, art style and character design put persepolis together to be Satrapi’s story.

Taking place in the late 1970’s, Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” exemplifies a profound illustration of the county of Iran, including aspects of its people and political structure. Unlike a conventional composed novel, the story of Persepolis is expressed through both textual and visual representation; otherwise known as a graphic novel. Through the experiences of the ten-year old character Marjane, the reader is exposed to historical events, movements, crises, and motives that occurred within Iran. Furthermore, the novel has gained much praise in its portrayal of emotions that occurred through the people of Iran. Although there has been tremendous support of the account of Marjane, there have been a few critics of the novel, attacking its overall literary value. For instance, New York’s Ithaca College student paper called The Ithacan, slammed the role Persepolis had on the literary society. In fact, they went as far to say that the novel “...is worth broaching but its literary value, in terms of building vocabulary and furthering comprehension, falls short.” An absurd statement, to say the least. Not only is Persepolis of literary value, it is a glimpse into the past. It allows the reader to understand the various conflicts that the people of Iran were facing. Through the account of Marjane, the audience is exposed to elements of Iranian history, gender roles, religion, and political fluctuation.