Persepolis Identity Essay

Adolescence is an age where children began to find themselves or, in some cases, lose themselves, an idea clearly developed by Satrapi in her graphic novel “Persepolis”. Satrapi explores the challenges and difficulties experienced by a sheltered and naive girl during the tumultuous and uncertain years of the Iranian revolution and attempts to solve the oppression she witnesses by the Islamicist government. This is important to the whole text as it identifies the religious conservatism and Islamisation of the state causes distress and confusion in Marjane who consequently had to redefine herself, given that her freedom and personal liberties were denied them in schools, public places, and even her own home.

Everyone has gone through a phase in which they felt different from everybody, in which they felt detached from the general public. In Persepolis, a young girl named Marji living in the harsh environments of war and religious conflict struggles to distinguish herself from the homogenous and automaton population. The book explores areas in Marji’s childhood as well as part of her teenage years and presents events that ultimately influence and shape Marji’s character. The book also has a variety of main ideas, which the author brings to life through dialogue and illustrations. Marjane Satrapi shows the reader Marji’s rebellious nature throughout Persepolis and her desire to break apart from the general body and be one for herself. As a result,

The Complete Persepolis, an autobiographical novel by Marjane Satrapi, tells the tale of Marjane’s childhood in Iran. In this story, Marjane (Marji) is brought up by communistic parents. Evidence of this Marxist upbringing is displayed several times throughout the book, like early on in the story when young Marji exclaims that “it was funny to see how much Marx and God looked like each other” (13). The audience can analyze Persepolis through a Marxist lens to see how particular ideas, specifically the ideology of consumerism, oppress Marjane, her family, and Iranian civilians overall. The main principle behind Marxism is that

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.

Marjane’s friendships are few and far between, after the wake of the revolution. In the beginning of the novel, Marjane’s best friend is God and how she mainly identifies herself. This is significant to understanding the depth of Marjane’s thoughts as a child. She is very different from the rest of the kids. This is evident when Marjane’s says when she wants to be a prophet and her classmates say they want to be doctors, or teachers. Growing up in Iran makes it hard for Marjane to express herself and really identify herself. This affects her friendships with children her age. Marjane is very sympathetic for a child her age, and she deeply understands what her country and family has been suffering through. She sat in a bathtub for hours trying to understand how her grandfather felt. Other children her age were not doing things like this. She often talks to God as mentioned before and this is when Marjane can express herself. She cannot do that with other children so she leans on God and identifies with him. As Marjane grows she meets her uncle who be¬comes the light of her life and her new best friend. He tells her stories about his struggles and Marjane begins to identify herself in his stories. In this quote her Marjane is talking to other children her age, she says “ There are lots of heroes in my family, my grandpa was in prison, my uncle Anoosh too: For nine

The conflict in Persepolis is shown through the changes that are caused between families, women and children when fundamentalist Islamic state takes over Iran. The story progresses though the main character, Marjane’s point of view and experience.

Marjane Satrapi’s memoir Persepolis is considered a “coming of age” story based on her experiences growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. This graphic novel explores the life she lead in Tehran which encompassed the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. Undergoing life with such a chaotic environment, it took Satrapi courage to act and live as her “authentic self” and explore what it meant to her to be authentic. Similar to Aristotle, May and Medinas Persepolis examines the concept of courage, through the view of innocence; through Satrapi’s childhood.

“Although I sometimes enjoy writing from an adult's perspective, I feel dedicated to the coming of age story - that part of a young person's life where he must make a decision that will change his life forever. I still remember what it is like to be twelve years old.” This quote by Kimberly Willis Holt mirrors the main idea of the novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi as Marjane, the main character of the novel, has to make decisions that change her life forever. While Marjane’s world rapidly changes around her, she has to decide whether she should conform to the ideas of the revolution in Iran or whether she should stay true to herself and develop as a woman. Ultimately, Marjane chooses to follow her beliefs, which allows her to mature and move

On pages 3 and 4, Marjane gives us the years for, when the revolution began, when children were required to wear a veil and her date of birth. The dates, enable the reader to get a sense the time period and the historical background of Iran. Timelines are imperative to understanding her life story. Next, Satrapi demonstrates pathos through illustrations and the speech bubbles. The emotions of the characters can be shown through their facial expressions and actions they take.

The novel “Persepolis” shows many life changes during the Islamic Revolution told through the eyes of a young girl. “Persepolis” was based on Satrapi’s childhood experience in Iran. Throughout the span of the 1970’s to the early 1980’s, Satrapi experiences many changes in her life, not only with the government, or her education, but also with herself. Although she witnessed many violent acts right in front of her eyes, these experiences helped Marji (Satrapi) grow as a young child.

In the novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis) by Marjane Satrapi, this work takes place in Iran during the Islamic revolution (from Marjane’s childhood to her early adult years). When reading Persepolis, the audience can make inferences on how different life is here compared to Iran during the war for example the clothing, schools, place of religion, career goals, and the way kids view their heroes. (Jaffe Culture). In the work Satrapi frequently adds in details in the beginning explaining the changes occurring once the Islamic revolution started and her thoughts on the changes for instance the veil. Satrapi mentions that she didn’t understand the reasoning for wearing the veil or why they had to wear it to school, she also mentions that many of her friends also disliked it (Persepolis P7). Another change that Satrapi addressed was when Bilingual schools had been shut down due to the belief that they were a Symbol of capitalism (Persepolis P8).

In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi explores the realities of her native land. She begins the story as a intelligent young pre-teen with a promising future. As she grows older she sees how cold the world is outside of her homeland as she lives through a near self-destructing phase of her life. She is capable of catching herself in this free fall with the help and guidance of her family a little while after returning home. In the story, her country continuously is fighting from freedom all the while she’s searching for her own identity. Throughout the book there are various things going on that can alter an individual’s point of view in search of their identity. To understand

What if there was another side to the story of the Iranian Revolution than what the American government and media has portrayed over the prior decades. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was the overthrow of the American backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi by the conservative Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers. Student movements and Islamic leftists supported the overthrow of the Shah who was perceived to be a puppet of the American government and pushed unsuccessful liberal economic reforms. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was passed on December 3, 1979 and Khomeini became the Supreme Leader. Khomeini gained mass support for his anti-western ideas and returned Iran back to Islamic fundamentalist roots.

Unlike Udayan, Marjane holds her belief in her western idea. She does not conform to Islamic Revolutionists’ ideal and then escapes from her country. Udayan dies following his goal, but Marjane lives even though she holds the western ideals to be free. She is a citizen of Iran who supports Iran government before the Islamic revolution. She also enjoys the freedom that Iran had after the tyrannical king was overthrown. She embraces freedom for the short time and continues to practice during the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Readers can analyze her rebellious nature. She practices her western ideas while the Islamic revolutionists banned all western practices. For example, she listens to western-cultured music. Also, she asks her parents to buy western music posters which were illegal. Her family promoted Marjane’s freedom by celebrating in parties. They

Persepolis is an autobiography by Marjane Satrapi that pushes the reader to visualize Marjane’s life from childhood to growing and becoming an adult. This story takes place in Iran and it’s during the Islamic Revolution. The name Persepolis itself comes from the capital of an ancient Persian empire. The most prominent motifs for this novel is smoking, and the major reason for it is repetition, Marji spontaneously changes her lifestyle, habits, and attitude after she begins smoking, and that holds hands with another major motif which is coming of age. This writing will prove to you how Marji’s start of smoking and coming of age will bring changes to her lifestyle, attitude, and habits.