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The Theme Of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

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It is often said that literature is a voice for the oppressed. Marjane Satrapi proves this point in her graphic novel / memoir Persepolis, in which she shows how children, secularists, nationalists and even Muslims were marginalized, excluded and silenced in Iran during the Islamic revolution in the 1980s. Her work serves as a voice for those who were oppressed.
From the first page of the graphic novel the author explores the theme of growing up under oppression. She introduces herself and the troubles of the Islamic revolution through the symbol of the veil. The first frame of the first page presents a portrait of
Marjane Satrapi wearing the veil, looking expressionless and without identity. The caption reads, ‘This is me when I was ten years …show more content…

In one frame Marjane helps her mother pour alcohol down the toilet, as the police threaten to search their apartment (p.110). In another frame, Marjane’s mother puts tape on the windows, as a safeguard against the Iraqi bombings, and black curtains over the windows, to prevent the neighbours from seeing their parties (p.105). She tells this story of her parents living in fear through very stark, black and white drawings, which show the contrast between the evil theocratic regime and her good secular parents. This contrast culminates in the final page of the novel, when her parents send her to Austria to protect the life of their only child from the horrors of war and the dangers of the Islamic regime. In one frame a bearded guard is searching through her suitcase at the airport. In the next frame her mother faints from sorrow as she says goodbye to her daughter (p.153).
This scene shows the sacrifices that the elite secularists had to make at the hands of fundamental Muslims.
As one reads this graphic novel, one understands how so many people in Iran,

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