Persepolis Research Paper

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.

In her graphic autobiography Persepolis, Majane Satrapi uses words and artwork to convey a kaleidoscope of emotion: despair shifts to hope, fear changes into contentment, and sadness and joy overlap. In the panel on page 77, she reflects that even when someone is in the middle of her greatest days of turmoil, there are still good, shining moments that must be treasured, since those experiences may never come along again in a lifetime. Both before and after this panel, Satrapi provides descriptions of war, but this particular panel focuses on her family vacation. This is significant because this captures one of those shining, perfect moments before Satrapi’s family returns to their home and a war that has just broken out between their country and Iraq.

Throughout the Iranian Revolution, many events and changes took place that largely affected the views of Iranians by other nations. The graphic novel, The Complete Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi (Satrapi, 2003), conveys many of these events and changes through the eyes of a child growing up in the 1980s in Iran. Satrapi’s main purpose for this book is to describe how the Iranian government was corrupt, causing foreign nations to have a tainted view of all Iranian citizens. The Complete Persepolis does so by presenting major events and changes in a manner that is directed towards audiences that are willing to have an open mind about ethnicity and false stereotypes, and an audience that is young and can relate to the “coming of age” aspect of this novel. By exhibiting a credible first hand account of how Satrapi and many others were affected by the events that took place during the Iranian Revolution, The Complete Persepolis can effectively persuade a reader to eliminate the “Islamic extremist” stereotype that the corrupt Islamic Republic gave all Iranian citizens.

Samuel P. Huntington once said, “In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.” Two contrasting beliefs have a tendency to cause conflicts. When groups of people have opposing views, dangerous confrontations will occur to see which view is dominant. The Islamic Revolution was blood ridden, violent, and incessant; the conservative sect of the population, which viewed religion as the proper and only reasonable way for society to operate, and the more liberal side of the population, which had far more westernized views clashed with each other. In Marjane’s Strapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, the

Persepolis is a book about new experiences written using styles and pictures that most people are not accustomed to. I believe this book being structurally similar to a graphic novel helps convey the emotions that words cannot always express. The images from this book have been the most compelling part of the novel. The author, as we learned during the last couple of chapters in Persepolis 2, is an artist. Therefore, the pictures in the book are Marjane Satrapi’s best way of communication with the reader. The actual writing is exceptional, but most of the writing are quotes from people or the thoughts of Satrapi. It is reasonable to suggest that the words compliment the images and are not entirely necessary. Several frames in Persepolis 2

Amazing, intriguing, and unimaginable are just a few words to describe how I felt about Persepolis while I read this true life story of Marjane Satrapi. This book has helped me to see all the life struggles, good times, and adversities that Marji faced between the ages of nine to thirteen. The Islamic Revolution had such a daunting effect in the Middle East, especially in the county of Iran where Marji and her family resided.

The great god Zeus granted his bother Hades, god of the underworld, his daughter Persephone for marriage. But the king of gods doesn’t feel the need to tell Persephone or her mother, Demeter, goddess of agriculture, of his final decision.

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.

Do you know a demigod named Perseus. He has 7 kids 6 sons and 1 daughter. My wife is Andromeda. My father is Zeus the lightning god and my mom is Danae the mortal.

Clothing helps define people. What people wear can help express their characteristics. When a government takes away people's right to express themselves by requiring them to wear fundamentalist clothing, like in the graphic novel, Persepolis, it forces people into conformity and tears away individuality as a standard in people's mind. Once civilians are forced to wear specific clothing, the government can force citizens to do anything because people will often assimilate to society’s standards, thinking that it is the right thing to do. Satrapi’s depiction of clothing in the graphic novel, Persepolis, helps portray the victimization of Iranian citizens.

Young children always read picture books. Because their reading skills are not developed yet, they need a picture to help them understand what is going on in the story. As children grow older, books have fewer pictures in them, and they eventually contain none. But why? Because older readers are “too old” to read a picture book?

By allowing the reader to form their own perspective it “makes the reader reconsider the assumptions…[of the] so-called other” by giving the reader the freedom to perceive the events of the revolution as they wish and not reconsider the way that they once understood the people of the east to be (Darda 34). Satrapi is using her experience and graphic novels to show what her experience as a child was, she does not claim at any point to be telling the entire story of the revolution she is merely introducing a new perspective which up until that point had not been seen in the western countries.

Good morning fellow UNESCO leaders. Terrorist organizations are rallying forces and destroying ancient sites that offend/ Challenge their religion. Do we want ancient sites to share the same fate that the 2 Buddha’s had faced in Afghanistan. The valuable site that we must protect and preserve is Persepolis.

Satrapi’s determined intensions and passionate personality helped her survive during the years of revolution well and relatively safely. While in the story, her parents are both very political active people, which influence her in many ways. She is then becoming interest in justice and also build her to be the person that can well survive through the turmoil of Iran in the 1980s. Even in nowadays, some countries are also suffering through cruel warfare just like Iran, and some people are struggling about their life, and trying to find a way out. Having a determined goal and be passionate can help them away from the struggles to find a route leading to the future which could be nice and peaceful.

Throughout the graphical novel it can be seen that Satrapi places the main text and ideas above the image, along with small speech bubbles to represent dialogue between individuals in the images. She may have done so for the purpose of ensuring that the main ideas and text are clear to read. The speech bubbles in the images can be considered to be the supporting bits of detail that enrich the overall understanding of the topic. The images also lack color, the main colour scheme only being black and white. This can signify something to do with the ideas of the story, such as the idea of those for and against the veil, therefore Satrapi may be using the two colours to contrast personalities, situations, or views. For instance, we can see that in certain situations such as the image involving the Islamic Revolution, the image depiction contains more black in the image which may support the thought of the revolution being bad in Satrapi’s opinion. It should however be noted that this is not always the case. In some situations, the images may contain black and white to outline or contrast things such as objects, furniture, people, and buildings.