Persepolis begins when the main character, Marji, is just six years old and both the Islamic Revolution and the cultural revolution are just beginning. During this period of radical change, Marji and her female schoolmates “found (themselves) being veiled and separated from (their) friends” when gender suddenly segregated their school (Satrapi 4). Throughout the novel, we see instances where Marji is trying to figure out her identity as an Iranian girl who has a passion for rebelling against a regime that is holding her back from becoming the individual she desires. For example, later in the revolution, Marji must illegally buy western music off the street which shows how little say and freedom they have when it comes to their culture (Satrapi). Because their new government opposed westernization, much of their material culture was taken away from them.
The reader becomes more involved, and that is something that draws attention to the book. I believe that as a writer it is Satrapi 's goal to attract an audience, it 's her purpose to share her story with as many people as she can, and by writing her story as a graphic autobiography, she makes it much more attractive for the reader because the reader has a sort of completion to the information he receives, the illustrations give a complete vision of what 's read, and thus the reader is much more engaged in the life story. Satrapi 's autobiography Persepolis has a social and political angle. It describes the life of the author, an opinioned young girl, in revolutionary Iran of 1979. Through a graphic autobiography she is able to convey that complex political and social situation in Iran.
Both these novels show the constant struggles that people have had to go through to survive. In Persepolis the people of Iran began to protest the Shah by demonstrating. Eventually the Shah fought back by ordering the police to burn down the Rex Cinema, where there were 400 people. “The doors had been locked from the outside a few minutes before the fire and they forbade people to rescue those locked inside, and then they attacked them.” (page 14).
Importance of religion in Iran and its society is a crucial point in this graphic novel, Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood. It was mentioned in the novel how the society was corrupted when the Shah took charge. When the Shah took over, this lead to the many rebellions and demonstrations Iran had in order to keep the peoples freedom. The significance of women and how they were treated was also affected when everything changed during the 1980’s. Women are treated not only like trophy wives but they also did not have any sort of freedom for themselves.
Throughout Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi clearly links her identity struggles and oppression to her suicide attempts and ongoing depression. As Satrapi slowly starts to fall into this depression, many facets of her life are changed in horrific ways. Her relationship with her grandmother quickly goes down the drain, and her friends hated who she was becoming. Along with her friends, her therapist even begins to be a cause of her diminishing self-confidence.
Everything can be viewed from two perspectives; A fist fight, a murder, bullying, just to name a few situations. This is still the case with Iran and it’s people. Iran and its neighboring countries are often portrayed negatively as terrorist, or failed nations. This is not always the truth, however, and one can learn that through Marjane’s coming of age story, Persepolis. The personal nature of the story is told through Marjane’s loss of innocence, her opinions on religion, and her observation of the prominent gender roles.
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie and wondered if what is seen/read was accurate, well in this case, the book Persepolis make readers ask just that. Persepolis, the title of the book was the Greek name of the Persian city of Parsa. But in the Marjane Satrapi’s book, the story is set in Tehran, Iran. But in Tehran, Iran, Islam is the main religion which leads to some problems. In the book Persepolis, the depiction of religion, social classes, and gender roles give a negative representation of Iranian culture and/or Islam.
The True Story of Persepolis Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir about her childhood up to her young adult era during the Iranian revolution. The purpose of this graphic memoir is to show the audiences the life of a young Iranian girl in the mist of the Iranian revolution in Iran. The main character Marji encounters numerous life events and hardships through out the book, which shape her the person she is today. As we read the book we can question why the Satrapi decides to write this graphic memoir to tell her life story. The research on an interview with Marjane Satrapi will help answer some questions of why she wrote this graphic memoir.
Religion has been the cause of different outbreaks such as ‘The Crusades’ and several terrorist attacks which date not very far away from today and more relevant to this topic the Iranian Revolution, but how can this “collection of beliefs” be the reason for someone to change their way of thinking, especially in such a religious country like Iran. The story of Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi tells us the story of her life in Iran before and after the revolution showing us the different ‘personalities’ she goes through, from innocent girl to a disaffected teenager. In this story Satrapi exploits different themes such as the heterogeneity in regions with Iran and the rest of the world, warfare and politics but one that stands out and is presented through the whole book is religion. Religion is portrayed as an excuse to start a conflict and it shows the personal development of characters, in this case the protagonist Marji.
SHUBH MITTAL IBDP XII B D-BLOCK Paper 2 Essay Context: Historical, Political, Economic, Cultural, or Social can have an influence on the way literary works are written or received. Discuss with reference to two literary works that you have studied. Writer’s use of context acts as a driving force enabling and shaping literature.
Persepolis, published completely in October of 2007, is a graphic memoir which encompasses the childhood and adolescence of Marjane Satrapi in Iran during and following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and her teenage years spent in Austria. Satrapi uses her life experiences from living in these two contrasting societies, as portrayed in the graphic memoir, to break the many stereotypes that those reading from a Western perspective may or may not have by showing them women’s roles, Iranian culture, youth culture, and the everyday action of the average citizen of Iran. Throughout the entire book, we see Satrapi constantly rebelling against the rules put in place by the Islamic regime, starting out when she was only ten. We see Satrapi and many of the other girls are using the veil to jump rope with, use as a monster mask, and basically everything but its intended purpose (3 / 5).
The title of the literary work, Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood describes itself within the title Marjane Satrapi wrote. The word Persepolis is understood as the ancient city of Persia. Persia is now known as Iran, the country where Marjane Satrapi had a piece of her childhood and the place where her parents and family members had lived all their life. In addition, Marjane Satrapi’s parents demonstrated how the Iranian government also robbed them of their personal freedom. Marjane Satrapi’s father expressed his views on how the Iranian government and civilians thought that certain people thought they had more value than other individuals within their communities.
Have you ever wondered why girls and women in the Middle East are obliged to cover their heads wearing a black veil? Have you ever wondered why the Shah of Iran was executed? You can find the answers to these questions in the book entitled Persepolis. A nine-year-old, rebellious Marjane lives in Iran in the 1980s during the Islamic Revolution when the new Islamic governmental law forced all young girls to wear a veil and to move to female schools. Her parents and extended family fought against the new Islamic regime, but after four years, fearing for their daughter’s safety they sent her to Austria alone.
The graphic novel, Persepolis that is written by Satrapi depicts the coming of age story of Marjane and her experiences during and after the Iranian war. Through Marjane’s experiences, the character frequently encounters the hardship and conflict of growing up. However, these hardships are major factors that shape Marjane as a character and establish the context of the novel. Within this novel, Satrapi uses graphic novel conventions and literary devices to convey the conflict of Marjane; with herself, with man (in the form of her teachers), and with the society that is revealed in Persepolis.
The role of politics in Marjane Satrapi 's life is a critical one, as seen in her graphic novel Persepolis, which narrates her experiences as a young girl raised by revolutionaries during turbulent times in Iran. Particularly, Satrapi uses juxtaposition between her parents and children to highlight the hypocrisy and myopia of the upper class revolutionaries when it comes to the interpretation and implementation of their political ideology. Satrapi builds the foundation of her criticism through the superficial comprehension her child self exhibits regarding her parents '—and, by extension, upper class communists '—ideals, then warns about the dangers that such lack of understanding presents through child soldiers who are fed ideologies and then sent to war. However, while pointing out the shortcomings of the movement, Satrapi 's use of children as the vessels for comparison entails that there is room for the communist community to develop, like Marji does as she matures from child to teen, and encourage equality through the removal of social barriers created through binaristic thinking to truly promote communist ideals. The first point of juxtaposition is Marji herself, particularly her initial myopic thinking as a child.