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Persepolis Conflict Essay

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Changing oneself to fit societal expectations is a shift many teenagers have to stop themselves from making. In the semi-auto biographical graphic novel Persepolis, the author Marjane Satrapi uses symbolism and conflict to represent the central idea that sacrificing one’s identity to appease the people around them is not always a personally beneficial change. Throughout the story the main character Marji faces many instances where she feels she needs to adhere to either peers or society’s wants and expectations of her. Whether that’d be in Iran from the oppressive religious government during the Iranian Revolution of the early 1980s or during her adolescent years spent in Europe among her starkly different friends. Above all, Persepolis is …show more content…

Internal conflict can be found throughout the book, but is especially prominent in The Croissant. For example, after Marji’s teacher asks her how she is, she responds in her head with “What do you want me to say, sir? That I’m the vegetable that I refused to become.” (226) The sacrifice that Marji made to fit in with the crowd in Vienna and with Markus has come back to cause her significant personal damage. She feels an immense amount of self-loathing, evidently from the way that she has now fully flung herself into drugs which she did not want to do and now she feels as though she has failed herself. Furthermore, Marji is not the only one seemingly disappointed in herself, she feels that Markus has become disgusted with her as well. Marji’s feeling becomes clear when she says “This decadent side, which had so pleased him at first, ended up profoundly annoying him.”(226). Marji feels as though Markus has started to find her drug habits uncompelling even though she was the main instigator for her newfound drug use. So, now not even Marji feels disgusted with herself but the person who really made her feel like she had to do and sell drugs in the first place feels embarrassed of her. Marji’s entire drug progression proves the central idea through showcasing how abandoning one’s own moral standing to appeal to the greater society or peers can cause pain. For Marji her pain manifested in self-hatred and many mental health problems to

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