Persepolis Essay

The main character in the book Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, is a product of both
the Iranian culture in which she was born and raised and the Western culture where she
spent part of her adolescence and early adulthood. The clash in ideals that this dichotomy
will inevitably lead to is in a clash within Marjane herself. The difficulty of fitting in is a
universal theme throughout the book and it is at times exaggerated by her rebelliousness
and her desire to speak her mind and challenge what she believes to be an oppressive,
unjust regime in Iran. She must eventually reconcile with her hostility or her behavior
and impulse control or she must leave Iran; to live in a Western country, would be to live
where she could be free to do and believe as she pleased without the same level of fear of
imprisonment and execution.
Even though the Iranian authorities did everything they could to prevent
protesting or revolutionary ideals among the populace, Marjane was raised by parents
with revolutionary sympathies. They deliberately chose to educate their daughter about
the struggles of people and their governments at home and abroad. At the beginning of
the book, she relates a story from her youth about her mothers fear for her own safety
after a journalist publishes of a picture of her at a demonstration: Even one magazine
in Iran. My mother was really scared--(pg. 5). Her mother had good reason to fear, the
authorities represented a real threat to them.
When her favorite uncle Anoosh is jailed as a Russian spy and executed, the
conflict that she observes in her family against the government marks her and produces a
deep resentment for the authorities. Such feelings can be dangerous in a place like Iran
and if a person chooses to speak their minds, they may draw unwanted attention or even
become viewed as a threat. Even subtle behaviors can be interpreted as a threat: I even
remember spending an entire day at the committee because of a pair of red socks--(Pg.
302).
Despite the attempt to shut out all obscene materials by the Fundamentalist
government both in schools and the common market, the popular entertainment generated
by the American Hollywood machine still crept into Marjanes life through the black
market. All the attempts of the government to deter young people from Western Popular
Culture only made it more appealing to many. Even as a youth in Iran, the influences of
the West and the education she gets at home make it difficult for her not to draw attention
to herself and eventually leads to incidents at school, with the protagonist challenging the
facts and authority of the teachers and administrators: How dare you lie to us like
that?--(Pg. 144).
When her parents encourage her even after she gets expelled from school, the
behavior is reinforced and becomes a pattern throughout her life, despite the opposing
pressure by the fundamentalist Islamic forces. Her parents recognize her behavior and the
unique challenges that it presented to them. As wealthy professionals, they were able and
chose to raise her with nearly all the freedoms of any western child.
Her parents sent her to a European country to go to high school during the more
hectic years of the war against Iraq both to protect her and to further encourage and
educate her. Her father tells her Considering the person you are and the education
youve received, we thought that it would be better if you left Iran--(Pg. 147). This
decision is the result of both their fear for her safety and their desire to raise an educated
and modern woman, despite the very traditionalist attitudes that prevailed in Iran during

that time.
In Austria she is free to act how she pleases without the same threat against her
well being as in Iran. There, she simultaneously experiences independence and struggles
to find her place as well. She continuing to learn through her peers, school, and
independent reading and she continues to challenge authority figures, like the nuns at the
boardinghouse she is expelled from: Its true what they say about you too, you were all
prostitutes before becoming nuns!, she shouts(Pg. 177). After living in Europe for many
years and experiencing the freedoms there, it is especially difficult for her to adjust to life
back in Iran, where the atmosphere is so much more oppressive.
The difficulty of fitting into a place that she did not feel like she belonged to
particularly impacted Marjanes life when she had only just returned to Iran from Europe.
When she goes on a ski trip with her girlfriends from her younger years in school in Iran,
the difference in perspective is so large that she does not even realize that the girls might
not think well of her when they learn she has had sex with more than one man until it is
too late. She is deeply embarrassed by the way her so-called friends respond to the
information: Whats the difference between you and a whore?, they ask(Pg. 270). Her
ability to see beyond the oppressive atmosphere in Iran to the larger forces that are at
work further isolates her from people who believe or follow the governments mandates.
The duality present in women who are getting perms and wearing makeup, while
simultaneously believing and supporting the sexual oppression of women that she
observes in some of her Iranian peers comes as a shock to her. After her horrible
experience on the skiing trip and a bout of suicidal depression, she decides to
revolutionize and reinvigorate her life and her personality. It is because of her
perseverance through this difficult time that she is able to find new self-confidence as
well as more supportive and likeminded peers.
Through her new friends she is invited to parties where she meets Reza, who will
later become her first husband. She goes to college and spends several years living with
her parents in Iran, and giving life there her best shot. In spite of all of her honest and
sincere efforts, she still cannot avoid who she is, nor can she avoid the desire to speak her
mind. Eventually she comes to terms with the incompatibility of her personality and the
oppressive atmosphere of her homeland: Not having been able to build anything in my
own country, I prepared to leave it once again--(Pg. 339).
Persepolis is a memoir of one womans childhood in a very unstable period of
Iranian history, when many different complex forces were constantly changing the state
of affairs there. The socialist ideals which marked her parents generation were passed
along to her, and they also cultivated in her a hefty dose of sass, or conviction. She was
educated far beyond the ordinary schooling that was provided by the state, and she read a
good deal even as a youth which put her ahead of the curve. A smart girl in
fundamentalist Iran can be in great danger very quickly, as Marjane and her family
observe in the story of the girl Niloufar. Determined to spare their daughter this awful
fate, Marjanes parents see no alternative but to encourage their daughter to live
elsewhere because they refuse to consider forcing the abatement of her rebellious
behavior as the authorities would likely decree. This refusal by her parents to obey the
authorities is the seed of Marjanes own rebelliousness. Had she been without the
encouragement she received from them all along, she may not have made it to the end of
the story.