Some governments use Islam to take full control of their people and use it as a reason for their actions. Not only do some Islamic governments misuse their power, but women are a minority in Islamic societies. The autobiography and pictographic novel, Persepolis, describes the change from the Shah’s regime to the Islamic fundamentalist regime and its oppressive and abusive rule. During the fundamentalist regime the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s is portrayed from Marjane Satrapi’s experiences during the time in which she lived in Iran. In contrast to the fundamentalist government, Mohammed, the founder of Islam, opposed oppressive governments and believed that women should have a higher social status. The Islam depicted in Persepolis differs to Mohammed’s original vision of Islam by giving women a worse social status and having a government that abuses its power.
During the Islamic Regime in Persepolis, women were oppressed and viewed as a minority. After the fundamentalist regime takes over and the war against Iraq commences, Marji and her parents protest the regime. The top right picture on page 76 shows Marji’s mother with a bold, half black and half white face, holding her fist high and saying, “She should start learning to defend her rights as a woman right now!” (Satrapi 76). Marji’s mother shows that women are not being treated equally as men and feel oppressed by showing that she wants to defend her rights. While Marji looks happy and is handing out brochures
How does religion affect people’s everyday lives when living under Islamic rule? In Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, she discusses living in Iran after the Shah’s exile and when the new Islamic regime is implemented. Religion, primarily Islam, plays a significant role in the novel, and not only affects how people perform their religious acts, but also how they behave publicly. Religion has forced changes upon characters in the book and has made their interactions with each other mostly centered around their beliefs. Throughout the book, there is ample evidence of how religion has defined characters. Specific evidence is depicted through Satrapi’s growing rebellion, Marji, and her family feeling pressured to lie to the police and people around them, and citizens beginning to give up on religion and everything they believed in prior to the revolution.
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 Persepolis introduces the Islamic veil as an attempt by the Iranian government to control women. Islamic radicals promised safety and security for those who abided by their rules. Rebels who refused to wear the headscarf were threatened with beating, rape or death. These modern women who fought against religious oppression met the minimal requirements of the government rules to safely live in the hostile environment. Through being forced to wear the veil, the control of the Islamic government drives its people to a rebellion.
The graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a political and personal account of a young girl’s growth to maturity. The novel serves as an autobiography of the author’s childhood in Tehren, Iran. It describes what it was like to grow up during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the end of the Shah’s regime, and the war with Iraq. One of the most prominent themes in the novel is the clash between modernity and fundamentalism. The reader can observe this conflict through Iran's internal oppositions, the Satrapi’s modernity, and Marji’s western soci-political beliefs. This aspect of the novel is important because it shows the ideological diversity within Iran and the consequences faced by those in the opposition.
In the book, “The Complete Persepolis” written by Marjane Satrapi every woman had a prescribed role. The role of Marji’s maid was to show that social class differences do exist and to show what happens within these social class differences. Marji’s mother’s role was to support Marji and make sure that she was well off, while her grandmother’s role was also to support her and give her words of wisdom. Her school teachers’ role was to make sure that the female children, attending the school, wore their veils, while the guardians of the revolution’s role were to arrest females that were improperly veiled. The younger Marji’s role was to show us how the Iranian Revolution/ the mandatory wearing of the veil affected
Religion is a subject that affects everyone in many ways. As we have learned in this class, religion is a very controversial word and has numerous definitions, but one thing that’s known is that whatever the religion a person may practice, it will affect their daily lives in some way or another. A person’s religion makes up a huge part of their culture and influences many of their decisions. Persepolis is a film that speaks volumes about how the Islam religion and oppressive government in Iran affected children and adults during the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Throughout the movie, the main character, Marjane Satrapi (also known as Marji), has a difficult time understanding why things were the way they were in society when she was growing up during the Shah’s dictatorship and the Islamic Revolution (Scott, nytimes.com). Marjane’s rebellious, heroic, and outspoken attitude got her into trouble plenty of times, but it was because of her character that she was able to view the problems in society and other parts of the world like no other. There were plenty of symbols and themes in the movie that related to Muslim traditions from what they wore and how they acted to the different experiences they encountered. Closely analyzing the film Persepolis, the audience may see the many ways in which the Islamic religion not only influences the lives of its
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir that reveals the life of a woman growing up in pre and post Iran, as well as her experiences in Western countries. In this book, Marjane utilizes historical events that affect her life during her upbringing in Iran. These include the oppression of the Shah, as well as the rise and effects of the regime. These events’ integration into the story showcase how they affect Marjane and the other citizens of her country. Additionally, these events are important for the context and understanding that they grant readers unfamiliar with the text.
One of these incidents occurs when Marjane is in art school. When the students were told that they needed to wear longer headscarves, Satrapi immediately responded that “as a student of art…I need to move freely to be able to draw.” She further questions “why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two-inches less of my head scarf?” here Marjane questions the restrictiveness of the veil and comments on the injustice in Muslim society and the gender inequality. The veil represent the repressions and the gender injustices in Iran. By revolting against the veil Marjane is able to protest the repressions. On hearing Marjanes complaint, the school administrators asked Satrapi to design her own veil. Marjane accepts this offer while still in the confines of the veil. Marjane designs the veil to suit the needs of the students and
Marjane Satrapi, in Persepolis writes about a memoir of a little girl growing in Iran. She refers to a secular pre-revolutionary time through contrast, the oppressive characteristics of the fundamentalist government upon women in specifics. In comparison, her work is very similar to Margaret Atwood’s, A Handmaid’s Tale, in which the central character, Offred, reflects upon her former life’s freedom, cherishing her former name and in doing so, emphasizes the isolated and enslaved live that she must now endure. Although Both Margaret Atwood and Marjane Satrapi show how a totalitarian state oppresses women in different ways by
In Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, Satrapi states that her goal in writing the book was to dispel many of the hasty generalizations made by the western world about Iran, a principal sentiment being that the country is little more than a nation founded by fundamentalists and home to terrorists and extremists. To combat the misconception, Satrapi enlists the assistance examples of barriers and dissent towards the new conservative regime in Iran from her adolescence. By employing events from her childhood in Iran Satrapi rattles the foundation of the myths and false beliefs assumed by the occident. Satrapi writes that the initial waves of conservative fundamentalism in Iran were met with unified national dissent. To support this
Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, makes important strides toward altering how Western audiences perceive Iranian women. Satrapi endeavors to display the intersection of the lives of some Westerners with her life as an Iranian, who spent some time in the West. Satrapi, dissatisfied with representations she saw of Iranian women in France, decided to challenge them. In her words, “From the time I came to France in 1994, I was always telling stories about life in Iran to my friends. We’d see pieces about Iran on television, but they didn’t represent my experience at all. I had to keep saying, ‘No, it’s not like that there.’ I’ve been justifying why it isn’t negative to be an Iranian for almost twenty years. How strange when it isn’t
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.
The world stereotypes different types of culture, but real identity can be only defined by a person who has experienced the specific way of life. In Persepolis The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi, the author creates a graphic memoir representing her childhood growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Satrapi evokes perfectly regarding her childhood, her reaction towards the Islamic Revolution. She is rebellious to the Islamic revolution’s new regulations and enforcement and decides to take a secular approach to defend her rights. In Persepolis, the narrator illustrates the opposition against the Islamic Revolution and Shah’s reign and as well as her pursuit in a secular culture. Her opposition and desire allow the readers to reconsider on past stereotypes about the Middle Eastern culture.
One of the most controversial topics concerning Muslim women’s rights is the idea of the veil. It is believed by some Muslims that the veil is an Islamic obligation that all Muslim women must adhere to. But nowadays, the veil can have different meanings that are not necessarily religious. In her article “Reinventing the Veil,” Leila Ahmed addresses some of the different meanings that the veil can have. Marjane Satrapi explores one of those meanings in her animated autobiography Persepolis (2008). In Persepolis, Marjane tells the story of her rebellion against the Iranian Islamist regime that takes over Iran, oppresses women, and forces them to wear the veil. What was interesting to me was seeing Marjane wear the veil without being oppressed, although she does not believe in it, and is being forced to wear it. In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi escapes being a subject to the Iranian Islamist ideology by establishing her individual identity through transforming the veil from a means of oppression into a means of feminist rebellion.
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.