Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi captures life in Iran during the 1980’s through a child's eyes. Marjane Satrapi grew up during a time when both the Islamic Revolution and the Iran/Iraq War took place. Personal experiences are expressed through themes including revolution, imperialism, nationalism, religion and loss of innocence and affect Marjane personally as she grows up.
When a revolution takes place, it brings with it riots and demonstrations among the citizens. This image shows riots throughout the streets of Iran, lead by the citizens. Although they are not a result of a revolution, it represents similar actions to those that took place during the Islamic Revolution. As a young child, Marjane was exposed to demonstrations against the Iranian leader, the Shah. Being 10 years old, she did not fully understand the purpose of these actions, but wanted to take part in them like her parents. This theme of revolution affected Marjane personally because her family, who were against the Shah, got involved in the actions, and taught her differently that
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As a young girl, the power she saw in the revolution lead her to want to be powerful, as portrayed in this picture. She longed to be related to a hero, a person she believed went to jail, was tortured, and made it out. She did not understand everything she heard, and took it into the wrong context. By the time Marjane was a teenager, the war between Iran and Iraq had exposed her to immense death, destruction and violence. She was old enough to better understand such actions, and they negatively affected her actions. Marjane made fun of school rituals, skipped class, and got expelled for hitting the principal. She saw her mother as a dictator and rebelled against her my smoking a cigarette. This theme gradually changes Marjane’s personality, and by the end of the book all her fear was
In the graphic novel, Persepolis, the main character, Marjane, faces many coming of age moments. Each one of these change her in a way that impacts her view on the world around her as her and her family strive for a better life amongst a war that hinders their ability to follow their beliefs. Marjane learns to forgive, experiences pain and suffering, and changes her opinions on God and her own views on religion forever. Marjane’s life has been filled with hard times, but also glorious moments as well.
Persepolis is a coming of age story written by Marjane Satrapi in 20001. Depicting a young girl growing up during the religious revolts in Iran. Throughout the story the main character loses her innocence. The author uses the appeals of genre, ethos, pathos, and logos, historical context, and illustration to depict the loss of innocence in the main character.
In Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s childhood experiences allow her to demonstrate the cultural changes that occurred in post-revolutionary Iran, as well as those perpetrated by western culture. In Persepolis, western culture plays a major role in the author’s attempt to dispel the
In summary, Persepolis was about Marjane’s family life throughout the Revolution and the hardships they faced like most people in Iran. The Revolution of Iran took place in 1978 to 1979, the people of Iran wanted to overthrow the Shah and they demonstrated their discontent through protests, yet the government had the upper hand and would not allow any sign of rebellion. However, life after the Revolution was much worse, laws were stricter and there was more destruction because the war. In spite of that, Marjane’s family participated in demonstrations and openly spoke about their political views and this influenced Marjane’s life. The scenes in the graphic novel Persepolis not only tell the story of a young girl growing up, but they also help
Marjane's parents allow her to attend a rally demonstrating against the new regime. Marjane is for the war because, as she explains, the Arabs had forced their religion and culture on the Persians 1400 years earlier. One of Marjane's friends has a father who is a part of the bombing but he is killed during the raid. A bombing on the border town of Abadan sends Marjane's friend Mali and her family to stay with them. One of Marjane's friends is given a key and Marjane's mother tries to tell the boy that this is nothing but nonsense that the schools are telling the children, but the boy seems oblivious. Marjane's cousin Shahab returns home from the front lines and tells Marjane about the horrible things that they do to children there. Marjane's aunt becomes scared, hands her child to Marjane, and runs off. On their way home, Marjane's family is stopped by the Guardians of the Revolution. Marjane and her grandmother run up to their apartment to dump out all the wine in the house. At home, Marjane's mother is upset that she skipped class and Marjane goes down to her basement where she smokes a cigarette that she had stolen from her
A major venue for identity formation is an individual’s homeland or nation. At the outset of the novel, Marji’s identity is ascribed to her because of her nationality and ethnicity. Being in an Islamic country, Marji adheres to her Islamic values and traditions. At an early age of six, the formation of her identity leans towards her Islamic religious values and traditions. Marji is convinced that she “was the prophet” (p. 6). Her words that she “was [a] prophet” (p. 6) demonstrates that Marji’s imagination and intelligence conceive thoughts that are very pertinent to her religious beliefs. At this early age, Marji’s relationship with religious thoughts and values are clearly defined. However, Marji’s thoughts and beliefs are not pinned to a static foundation. In her book A Reader’s Guide to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2010), Heather Lee Schroeder writes “Satrapi lived through the civil and political unrest during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Before the revolution, she attended a western style French school” (p. 41), which was a non-religious and westernized school. Marji is very well acquainted with the western or modern values, of freedom, liberty, ...
In the graphic autobiography Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, she presents her illustrations effectively to tell her story as a child in the pre-revolution and post-revolution in Iran. She starts the graphic autobiography by using her point of view to tell her story of the events that took place in 1980 during the starting revolution. Such as the obligatory to wear the veil, the separation of genders in schools and closing of bilingual schools. Satrapi slowly begins to illustrate what happened in the few years before the revolution when she was 6 years old. She described herself as being conflicted with how she felt about being very religious and her family being very modern and avant-garde. As a child she
Persepolis 2: The Story of Return is anchored around how Marji is affected by the social injustice that occurred during the Islamic Revolution. Growing up as “a westerner in Iran and an Iranian in the West,” (Satrapi 274) changes and molds her into the young woman she is at the end of her journey. In this second chapter of Satrapis life she moves away from the comfort of Iran and finds a life in Vienna. Marji desires to find her purpose and identity during her brief time here and faces many battles with language barriers, people and herself. Marjis past from Iran haunts her and instills the idea that she needs to make something of herself while in Austria. Finding that Austria took her down a darker path where the light was scarcer and the
“Things started to degenerate. The army shot at them. And they threw stones at the army”(18). The king sent armies to Iran to spread their religion and take over but all the people of Iran didn't like that so they fought back by throwing rocks at them so the armies shot and killed a lot of people. This helped Marji’s development because she saw her parents coming home all beat up and not wanting to do anything and this made her want to help and that takes a step into being more mature and knowing what's right and what's wrong. The government and the society misunderstand each other's cultures throughout they stay and that is why there is so much conflict because they don't take the time to understand each
When it comes to culture, different views can cause major conflicts, and these said conflicts occur in the novel Persepolis. The book is a memoir about Marjane Satrapi, also known as Marji, growing up in Iran under the Shah’s rule and the Islamic rule. Even with the many different cultures in Iran, she stuck up for what she believed in and rebelled against the things she thought were wrong. In Persepolis, Marjane’s growth is affected by various aspects of culture including religion, government, and social organization.
Even in our present time we can see how culture principles and characteristic drive can cause conflict. Within a society, an individual does not exist. If an individual does exist, then they are no longer a part of the society causing rebellion. In I and Thou, Buber explains that the self becomes either more disconnected or more unified through its relationships to others. The film Persepolis is an adaption to Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis coming-of-age graphic memoir. It involves a young Muslim girl name Marjane as she comes of age within the environment of the Iranian Revolution. The film explores the actualization of Marjane through allegory to show how she must construct her identity within a foundation of westernization, religion, and gender.
Persepolis is a book that centers on the author’s family during the Iran-Iraq war that lasted for eight years. Marjane’s experience of the war is quite innocent since she saw it from the eyes of a well protected child. She grew up with need to help and make things better for everyone without really understanding what it takes to make the world a better place. In her mind the only possible way to make a change is by becoming a prophet and using supernatural powers to make the world a better place. Marjane’s childhood is proving that children form defense mechanisms to deal with difficulties. These defense mechanisms take children to “happy” places where things are better and everyone is happy unlike in the real world.
Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi is an autobiographical graphic novel about a young girl during the Islamic revolution. This bright, juvenile girl, Mj, sharing her experience in this complicated period of time as she grasps to understand what’s happening around her. Iran has just gotten rid of the Shah, but with only a short period of joy a new unwanted leader comes into place. The Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious fundamentalist convinces the poor and uneducated people that leader is where is he meant to be and he rules with manipulation and cruelty. As for Mj and her family they can do nothing but try and still live their lives. They attend a party at her uncle’s house because without fun all the danger happening “wouldn’t be psychologically
In Marjane Satrapi’s memoire Persepolis, the chapter “Kim Wilde” suggest that people perform small acts of rebellion in order to express their desire for freedom from Iran’s oppressive regime. Marjane lives in a country whose regime seeks to ban Western cultural influence, however, Marjane continues to engage in Western clothing, music and lifestyles even though she is becoming more aware of the severe consequences that she may face upon doing so.
She believes there is always an alternate way to avoid war rather than losing innocent lives in the name of justice. Throughout the book, Marji goes through internal conflict that clouds her judgment for what is right or wrong. As it states, “It was awful. But this was not the moment to give in. With this first cigarette, I kissed my childhood, goodbye. Now I was a grown-up”(117). This portrays Marji’s loss of innocence as she goes through internal conflict with herself whether to smoke the cigarette because she knows smoking the cigarette is fatal for your health and it can kill you slowly if u smoked enough of it. However, the reason behind taking this action wasn't to write her own death sentence. She wanted to put thought going against her mom would put her in the same position as the rest of Iran rebelling against the Islamic regime.