Marjane Satrapi’s Challenging of Stereotypes in Persepolis

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 claim she employs both personal and familial examples of dissent felt towards the emerging reactionary regime. Satrapi successfully challenges the stereotypes, but limits as to the extent to which she succeeds in doing so could be brought up. A limit one might place on the historical accuracy of her writing is that it cannot truly be taken as historically accurate as a first-person narrative from a child’s perspective, which although persuasive, is biased.

In the exposition Satrapi elucidates as to the significance of her family in Iranian history. She does so when she writes of a conversation she had with her father, in which he states, “The emperor that was overthrown was [her] [great] grandpa” (Satrapi 22). Given the political upheaval in Iran in 1979 one might make the assumption that a scorned ex-royal family might embrace any form of opposition to the regime that removed them from power. However, Satrapi’s family shows nothing but dissent and malaise towards the new regime. By proving one ...

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...ran is much more than a country of extremists and fanatics. Satrapi seeks to extend the beliefs of her family onto the majority of the Iranian population by citing examples like large riots against the veiling of women and other conservative reforms of the new regime as evidence of a nationally unified feeling of dissent. Satrapi never attempts to defend her government and it is unlikely that she has any interest in doing so, although, she does wish for the western world to see the separation between the beliefs and actions of a government and those of its subjects. In conclusion, Satrapi manages to successfully challenge the assumptions of many people outside of Iran that the people of Iran are just as theologically conservative and politically reactionary as their government.

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. Paris, France: Pantheon Books, 2003. Print.