Freedom In Marjane Satrapi's The Complete Persepolis

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People have tried to attain freedom for at least as long as there is a historical record. It is and always has been something everyone wants, throughout history and today. There are many parts to freedom, although generally it means being able to do whatever one wants, whenever one wants, within reason. In her graphic memoir, The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi explores her own personal freedom and that of her family through the enforced veil covering women’s hair in Iran, opposed to dressing however she wanted in Europe. Satrapi’s telling of the history of Iran is somewhat skewed. As explained by Esmaeil Zeiny in his essay, before it became compulsory to wear the veil in public, it was illegal to wear the veil; in the middle was some time …show more content…

Back in Iran, she had to wear the veil again. At college, she spoke out against an even more oppressive veil her school wanted to force upon its female students. She ended up designing one that would work for everyone. Even while wearing the veil, Marji and other women would resist the law by letting a few strands of hair show or wearing makeup or nail polish. As Emma Tarlo discusses in her essay, no matter how many laws the government put up, nothing could stop the people from being themselves, veil or not. Still, with this sense of confinement, many Iranian women detested the law, wishing they could have some freedom in what they wanted to wear. Freedom of dress, as Arezou Zalipour discusses in her essay, is both the freedom to wear or not to wear the veil. Despite this, Satrapi focused on how restrictive forced veiling was for herself and many of the women she knew in Iran. In her book, Satrapi explores ideas of freedom and confinement, specifically through the veil she is forced to wear while in her home country; despite this, she and her people found ways to resist this regime, even if some of them had originally supported such a

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