Persepolis - very briefly

If you read the book, and just need to revise, skip to themes and symbols.

Full title: Persepolis

Published: early 2000s

Genre: a memoir in graphic novel form

Setting: Vienna, Austria and Tehran, Iran

Point of view: first-person narration, since a grown-up Marjane Satrapi reflects on her past.

Plot summary

Book 1

Persepolis opens right after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which results in the downfall of the American-backed dictator known as the Shah of Iran and led to the rise of the religious hardliners who establish the oppressive Islamic Republic. Marjane Satrapi describes how she attended a French coeducational and non-religious school, but this is outlawed because the Islamic Republic distrusts and rallies against all Western influences. Further, the regime forces all women and girls to wear veils. Marjane’s parents, however, are modern and secular in outlook; though they supported the Revolution again the Shah, who was a despotic ruler, they are alarmed and dismayed at the fundamentalist turn of the new Islamic Republic. Forced to grow up quickly, Marjane begins to learn about the history of Iran and the many invaders and rulers it has had over its centuries-long history. Her grandfather was a Persian Prince who was often imprisoned and tortured under the rules of the Shah. She also begins to understand that different social classes exist, which is one root of much tension and suffering in the country.

After the Revolution ends and the Shah is ousted, many political prisoners are released from prison, including Siamak and Mohsen, both Revolutionaries who have been in prison for years. They speak of the tortures they experienced and the deaths they witnessed. Perceiving these two men as heroes, Marjane remains disappointed that her father is not a hero and that no one in her family is one. However, she is enthralled when she meets her uncle Anoosh, who fled Iran to the USSR so that he would not be arrested for his activities against the Shah. However, when he returned to Iran, his disguise was not good enough to keep him out of jail, and he experienced much degradation there. Marjane considers him a hero, and he hands her a bread swan he made while in prison. Unfortunately, with the new radicalization of the country under the hardline government, the former political prisoners that were released become targets again, and Mohsen gets assassinated. However, Siamak manages to sneak out of the country. Anoosh gets arrested, and Marjane can see him just once before his execution. This is the point at which Marjane rejects God.

Many of Marjane’s family and friends leave the country, but the Satrapis decide to stay in Iran for economic reasons. Soon after, Marjane’s mother gets harassed by men for not wearing her veil, and Marjane and her family go out on their last demonstration against the veil, which turns highly violent. Soon after that, the Iraq-Iran War breaks out. This is a moment of great nationalism for Marjane, as she desperately wants Iran to defeat its enemy. Still, as the war goes on, she begins to realize the cost of war, heroism, and so-called martyrdom – something the government regime valorizes – when her friend Paradisse’s father, a fighter pilot, dies while bombing Baghdad. The new war brings many refugees from southern Iran up north to Tehran, and many young boys are enlisted into the army. They are given plastic keys painted gold to symbolise the easy entry one enjoys into paradise after dying for the nation. Marjane and her family see this as a despicable lie, mainly because it is only told to poor people.

During the War, the country’s policing of its people becomes more stringent, and the Satrapis' forbidden wine supply — as people still hold parties as an attempt at normalcy — nearly gets found out. When Marjane’s parents sneak in Western items for Marjane — like posters and sneakers — after their trip to Turkey, two members of the women’s branch of the Guardians of the Revolution nearly arrest Marjane. The Iraqis now use ballistic missiles against Tehran, which are very destructive, and one day the Satrapis' Jewish neighbours’ home gets destroyed. However, Marjane initially thought that her own house was hit. Nevertheless, Marjane is traumatized when she sees the severed arm of her dead friend Neda beneath the rubble of her house. Marjane, always rebellious, becomes even more so. She becomes bold, bold enough to slap her principal at school, and she is promptly expelled. Even in her new school, she speaks her opinions, and Marjane’s family thinks it best (and safest) that Marjane continue her education in a country that will afford her more freedom. Tearfully, Marjane leaves her family and travels to a new life in Vienna, Austria.

Book 2

Marjane is 14 when she arrives in Vienna, thrilled that she escaped the Iran-Iraq War and the religious fundamentalism of her home country, Iran. She expects to live with a family friend named Zozo and attend school at the local French school. But after 11 days together, Zozo drops Marjane off at a Catholic boarding house. This living situation is okay with Marjane because it makes her feel independent and more like an adult. But when Marjane meets her roommate, Lucia, the girls realize they have a problem: Marjane doesn’t speak German, while Lucia doesn’t speak French or Persian.

School is a challenge. Marjane hasn’t spoken French in a few years, so students tease her for her rusty language skills or ignore her. Eventually, an older girl named Julie takes an interest in Marjane and introduces her to her friends Momo, Thierry, and Olivier. Momo is obsessed with death and war, so Marjane is an intriguing addition to their friend group. When Christmas vacation rolls around, none of Marjane’s friends cares that she doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Fortunately, Lucia invites Marjane to join her and her family in the Tyrol. Lucia’s parents make Marjane feel welcome and loved. However, Marjane isn’t thrilled when weeks later, she learns that there will be yet another vacation. Momo insists that Marjane should learn to enjoy a vacation and take the opportunity to educate herself. Though Marjane thinks Momo is a jerk, she knows she needs to learn more to fit in in Europe. She spends the entire vacation reading. Near the end, though, the Mother Superior catches Marjane eating pasta out of a pot and comments that Iranians don’t have manners. When Marjane calls all nuns true whores in return, the Mother Superior kicks Marjane out.

Marjane moves in with Julie and Julie’s mother, Armelle. Julie explains sex to Marjane and is rude to her mother, which are behaviours Marjane finds shocking — in Iran, parents are considered sacred, while sex is taboo. When Armelle leaves on a work trip, Julie throws a party. Marjane doesn’t enjoy the party and is shocked when she hears Julie and her latest partner having sex. After this, Marjane tries to impress her friends by pretending to smoke joints, but she feels she’s betraying her culture and values.

Marjane then moves to a communal house inhabited by eight young gay men. Around this time, she also undergoes puberty at a shocking speed. When Mom comes for a visit, she doesn’t even recognize Marjane because she’s grown so much. And to Marjane’s surprise, Mom’s hair is grey. They spend their visit walking and talking, and Mom helps Marjane rent an apartment from an ugly woman named Frau Doctor Heller. Marjane realizes that her parents have no idea how difficult life is for her in Vienna.

Living with Frau Doctor Heller is a challenge — for one thing, she doesn’t think it’s a problem that her dog poops in Marjane’s bed. By this time, Marjane’s friends have all moved away. Fortunately, she has an older boyfriend named Enrique. He’s a real anarchist and invites her to a party at a commune. Marjane is excited until she discovers that the anarchists play games like hide-and-seek. She decides to lose her virginity that night, but nothing happens between her and Enrique. In the morning, Enrique tells Marjane a secret: he’s gay.

Following the breakup, Marjane spends more time with her friend Ingrid and the anarchists at the commune. To cope with her loneliness, she starts doing more drugs and throws herself into finding someone to have sex with her. Just as she’s ready to give up, Marjane meets Markus. Things are rocky from the start. Markus’s mother is racist and refuses to allow Markus and Marjane to spend time together in her home. Meanwhile, Frau Doctor Heller accuses Marjane of prostitution. Marjane and Markus spend a lot of time smoking in Markus’s car. When Markus asks Marjane to purchase drugs for him, she complies — and becomes her school’s drug dealer. The following school year is challenging for Marjane. Though she stops selling drugs, she takes more and barely passes her final exams. She’s disappointed and knows her parents would be, too.

On her 18th birthday, Marjane discovers Markus in bed with another woman. Later that morning, when Frau Doctor Heller accuses Marjane of stealing, Marjane walks out and spends the next two months on the streets. It’s winter, so Marjane develops bronchitis and is hospitalised. She decides it’s silly that she almost let love kill her when she survived war and revolution in Iran. After the doctor gives her a clean bill of health, Marjane arranges with her parents for her to come home, as long as they promise not to ask about what happened.

Mom and Dad don’t recognize Marjane when she finds them at the airport. On her first day back in Tehran, Marjane walks the streets and is disturbed — now, the streets are named for martyrs. That evening, Dad explains what happened in the war's final weeks: after Iranian militants tried to overthrow the Iranian regime, the government executed thousands of imprisoned intellectuals. This makes Marjane feel like what happened to her in Vienna was inconsequential. She vows never to talk about her “Viennese misadventures.” Grudgingly, Marjane agrees to see family members and friends. Her grandmother is the only family member she wants to see. After most of Marjane’s friends turn out to be shallow, Marjane seeks out Kia, one of her best childhood friends. He served in the war and is now disabled, but he’s as funny as ever. After Kia leaves Iran to seek medical treatment in the United States, Marjane’s depression worsens. She wants to tell everyone what happened in Vienna so they’ll pity her, but she stays silent. Eventually, Mom forces Marjane to join her friends on a skiing trip. Her friends make her depression even worse when they learn she’s had sex with more than one man. They ask if she’s any different from a whore. Thus, Marjane returns home more depressed than ever. When antidepressants and counselling fail to help, she attempts suicide. When she survives, Marji decides it’s a sign that she’s supposed to live. Marjane remakes herself into a coiffed, sophisticated woman.

Not long after, Marjane meets her future husband, Reza, at a friend’s party. They’re both painters — and Reza served in the Iran-Iraq War. Despite their many differences, they complement each other. They quickly begin planning a future together. Though Reza wants to leave Iran, the couple decides to attend art school in Iran instead. They study hard for their entrance exams, and both get in. Once they receive their admissions decisions, their future together seems secure. This sense of security leads Marjane and Reza to start picking on each other. Because Reza doesn’t think Marjane wears enough makeup, Marjane makes herself up heavily for one of their dates. But as she waits for Reza, she sees the Guardians of the Revolution coming — and knows they’ll arrest her for wearing makeup. She accuses a strange man of yelling obscene things at her to save herself. When she tells Reza about it, he thinks this is hilarious. Later, when Marjane tells her grandmother, her grandmother calls Marjane a “selfish bitch.”

At school, Marjane befriends several female classmates. Several weeks into the school year, all university students gather for a lecture on “moral and religious conduct.” The speaker insists that women must dress conservatively to honour the martyrs, but Marjane pushes back — the university seems obsessed with policing women’s clothing, not ensuring its students’ morality. Fortunately, a religious school administrator allows Marjane to design uniforms for the female art students that follow the dress code and give art students more freedom to move around. This project helps Marjane make up with her grandmother. Meanwhile, the administration and the Guardians of the Revolution constantly police women and arrest them for silly things like wearing socks, laughing loudly, or running. Marjane knows this is by design — women concerned about the dress code are too preoccupied to think about their education or the political situation. Around this time, Marjane makes friends with her more liberal classmates and begins throwing parties. The Guardians of the Revolution regularly break these up, but it doesn’t worry Marjane much until one friend dies during a raid.

By Marjane’s second year of college, Marjane and Reza decide to marry. Marjane talks her decision over with Dad, who she learns later knew that Marjane and Reza would go on to get divorced. The wedding is a huge, lavish affair. Marjane immediately regrets getting married — but it’s too late. It only takes a month before Marjane and Reza are at each other’s throats. They set up separate bedrooms and never go out together. Around the same time, Marjane’s friends and parents acquire satellite dishes that allow them to watch Western television. Marjane spends most of her time watching TV on her parent’s couch until her Dad suggests that Marjane is wasting her life. Marjane sees that Dad is right. She makes new friends and reapplies herself to her education.

One of Marjane and Reza’s advisors assigns them a joint final thesis. They spend seven months designing a theme park inspired by Iranian mythology and don’t fight. Though their thesis earns full marks, Tehran’s deputy mayor refuses to let Marjane and Reza take the project past the design stage — the government only cares about religious symbols, not Iranian mythology. After this failure, Marjane begins to think seriously about getting a divorce. One friend tells Marjane to stay married unless Reza is abusive, while Marjane’s grandmother (who’s been divorced herself) insists that divorce is a good thing.

Around this time, Marjane gets a job as an illustrator for a magazine. Like most colleagues, she’s enraged when the government arrests one coworker for a supposedly offensive cartoon. She thinks of her coworker as a hero. But when Marjane visits him and sees how he talks over his wife, she realizes she can’t simply live in Iran anymore. Marjane divorces Reza and applies to an art college in France. She spends her final months in Iran with her parents and grandmother, who support her move. Though leaving Iran gives Marjane her freedom, that freedom comes at a cost—Marjane only sees her grandmother once more before her grandmother’s death.

Characters

Marji

Marjane is a strong-willed, sometimes confused protagonist who we follow from childhood to burgeoning adulthood. The confusion stems from her valiant attempts to understand the embattled and restrictive world that she lives in post-Revolution Iran and her attempts to maintain her dignity, independence, and individuality among often senseless torture, suffering, and death. The main threats to her sense of self and growth are the new regime’s restrictive measures, most notably the imposition that all women must wear the veil, which disallows in public the kind of modern outlook and expression that Marjane would prefer. As a child, she must contend with being thrust into the consequences of the adult world without being fully able or allowed — even by her mother and father, who try to protect her — to understand the shadowy mechanisms that dictate the oftentimes sorrowful fates of her friends and members of her family. She reacts to the forces around her by denying, lashing out against, emulating, supporting, or resigning herself to them.

Marjane is proud of her Iranian identity, but she’s also very liberal and independent, sometimes making her feel like an outsider in Tehran. This is why she attends high school in Vienna; her parents feared for her safety in Iran. In Vienna, though, Marjane is shocked to find out that her new friends are all sexually active and do drugs. Although Marjane initially pretends to smoke joints just to fit in, she eventually becomes a heavy drug user. Drug abuse helps Marjane ignore how unhappy she is and the fact that she knows her parents wouldn’t be proud of her. She has several boyfriends in Vienna and has sex with Markus, her last and most serious European boyfriend. But when Marjane realizes that Markus is cheating on her, Marjane gives up on life. After a period of homelessness and bronchitis, Marjane returns to Tehran. She expects to feel at home there, but instead, Marjane feels even more out of place than she did in Vienna. When she learns about what her parents experienced throughout the recently concluded Iran-Iraq War, Marjane is overcome with guilt and vows not to speak about what happened to her in Vienna since it feels insignificant by comparison. However, Marjane becomes depressed and attempts suicide. When she fails, she decides she’s supposed to live and reinvents herself entirely. Her future husband, Reza, falls in love with this version of Marjane, that wears makeup and fancy clothes and seems European. To Marjane, Reza represents a connection to the Iran-Iraq War since he’s a veteran. Though Marjane feels compelled to marry Reza two years after they meet, she regrets it immediately. They ultimately divorce when Marjane decides she can’t live in Iran anymore. Throughout the graphic novel, Marjane is rebellious and unafraid to stand up for herself. But she also cares deeply about pleasing her parents. Leaving Iran is the only way she can combine her Iranian upbringing with her Western sensibilities. She describes her departure at the novel's end as finally achieving freedom.

Marji's father

Marjane and her father are very close. Like Marjane’s mother, Dad went to great lengths throughout Marjane’s childhood to raise her to be independent, critical, and self-sufficient. However, despite his belief that Marjane should be able to make her own decisions and her own mistakes, Marjane knows that her parents would be disappointed by her choices in Vienna. In this sense, Marjane’s parents remain one of her most important influences, even if they’re not with her in person — she constantly thinks about what they’d say or think of her. Readers first meet Dad in person when Marjane returns home to Tehran. Dad seems to have no issue accepting that his daughter is no longer a child. He’s willing to answer all her questions about the Iran-Iraq War and his experience of it, and he expects her to be able to handle the truth and think critically about it. And like his wife, Dad respects Marjane’s request that he not ask about her time in Vienna — though this has major consequences, as Marjane’s self-imposed silence causes her to struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts (and even attempt suicide) without anyone knowing. Throughout the novel, Dad remains unwaveringly supportive of his daughter. Even when she announces that she’s going to marry Reza, Dad hides the fact that he doesn’t think this is a good idea. Later, he even reveals to Marjane that he knew Marjane and Reza would eventually divorce. But instead of questioning Marjane, he shows his support by helping write the terms of her marriage so that she has power and agency and can get a divorce if that’s what she wants. Later, as Marjane’s marriage begins to fail, Dad encourages Marjane to throw herself into education and learning about Iran’s history. When Marjane finally announces her impending divorce, Dad is thrilled. He makes Marjane promise to go to Europe and not come back—he believes that Marjane is too independent to live successfully and happily in Iran.

Marji's mother

Marjane’s mother is a kind, sensible, and liberal Iranian woman. She raised Marjane to think for herself and be independent, which leads her and her husband (Marjane’s father) to send Marjane to school in Vienna. While Marjane is in Vienna, Mom and Marjane’s father don’t grasp what Marjane is going through. Mom believes Marjane is distinguishing herself in school and doing what is expected. However, during Mom’s one visit to Vienna to see Marjane, she suspects that Marjane is in worse shape than Marjane lets on. At this point, Mom begins to treat Marjane like an adult by smoking cigarettes with her. Both of Marjane’s parents mostly respect Marjane’s autonomy and privacy. Thus, when Marjane unexpectedly asks to come home, they agree not to ask about what happened to her in Vienna that made her want to leave. However, this does have its downsides: it means that Mom has no idea that Marjane is seriously depressed and even suicidal, and so Marjane’s parents don’t seem to question why Marjane turned herself around so quickly when she began to act and look better. Throughout the novel, Mom is unwaveringly supportive of Marjane and her goals. The only place she ever pushes back is when Marjane announces her engagement with Reza. In Mom’s opinion, 21 is too young to get married, though she also recognizes that she doesn’t have the kind of relationship with Marjane that would allow her to stop the marriage from happening. Later, Mom is thrilled when Marjane and Reza divorce and Marjane moves back to Europe.

Marji's grandmother

Marjane’s grandmother is an essential guiding force in Marjane’s life. Though she doesn’t appear in the graphic novel while Marjane lives in Vienna, Marjane often sees her grandmother once she returns to Tehran. Like Marjane’s parents, Marjane’s grandmother is very liberal. She’s sharp with a cutting sense of humour and dotes on her granddaughter. However, Marjane’s grandmother also holds tightly to her values. She firmly believes in integrity and honour, so when Marjane makes choices that call her integrity into question, Marjane’s grandmother is deeply disappointed. Her frank and uncensored scolding makes an impression on Marjane and encourages her to make better future choices. She’s also pivotal in helping Marjane navigate her failing marriage with Reza. Marjane’s grandmother got a divorce 50 years ago when divorce was very uncommon in Iran. She’s, therefore, able to make the case that divorce isn’t the end of the world and is a good thing, a viewpoint that goes against what Marjane’s friends think. Marjane’s grandmother passes away two years after Marjane leaves for Europe. In Marjane’s estimation, the price of her freedom was giving up proximity to her grandmother in the final years of her grandmother’s life.

God

As a child, Marjane finds much comfort in God, who becomes a friend and a source of support. However, as the world around Marjane becomes uglier and uglier, and as she comes to understand that much of this ugliness results from the hardline religious leaders who now run the Islamic Republic, she begins to move away emotionally from God. After seeing Anoosh in jail, she finally banishes him and knows he will soon be executed.

Anoosh

Marjane’s Uncle fled to the USSR after Fereydoon was caught and executed for opposing the Shah. He returns to Iran to see his family but, though disguised, gets imprisoned. He becomes a role model for Marjane, who considers him a hero. However, after the revolutionaries took full power, they again arrested Anoosh (just because he was antiShah does not mean his views accord with the new regime’s). He gets sent to prison again and executed, but not before Marjane gets to speak to him again in jail, and he gives her a second bread swan.

Taher

Marjane’s Uncle dies from his fourth heart attack after being frightened by an exploded grenade. Before he dies, knowing of his ill health, Marjane’s family tries to get him a fake passport through Khosro, but Khosro flees from the regime, and a real, government-issued passport arrives only on the same day as Taher’s burial.

Reza

Reza is Marjane’s first boyfriend in Tehran and her eventual husband. As a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Reza can make Marjane feel connected to the war in a way no one and nothing else is. Being somehow connected to the war is so important to Marjane that she overlooks all the other ways that she and Reza are incompatible. Though Reza is as liberal as Marjane in many ways, he also dreams of having a traditional family with children and has a close relationship with his parents. He’s neat and introverted, greatly contrasting Marjane’s messiness and extroversion. For his part, Reza falls in love with a version of Marjane that Marjane suggests isn’t her — when they meet, Marjane has reinvented herself to be more sophisticated. Reza doesn’t appreciate the real Marjane, who isn’t as interested in fashionable clothes and makeup as a sullen smoker. Like Marjane, Reza refuses to see that their relationship isn’t going to work out. He asks Marjane to marry him so they can rent an apartment together, which they can’t do if they’re not married. Their marriage is convenient; they don’t get married because they know they want to spend the rest of their lives together. As a husband, Reza becomes cruel and mean. He consistently picks on Marjane, though they pretend to love each other in public. The best time in their marriage is when they work together on their final thesis. But when Tehran’s local government turns down their designs for a theme park based on Iranian mythology, Marjane realizes she no longer loves Reza. This is a shock for Reza, who wants to work harder on their marriage. Marjane doesn’t share what happens to Reza after they divorce, but it’s implied that he stays in Tehran while Marjane travels to France.

Markus

Marjane describes Markus as “the first great love of [her] life.” He’s a charming blonde boy about a year older than she is. They meet in Vienna when Marjane is 16, and Marjane sees no point in going out of her way to impress boys. But Markus insists he’s blown away by her calm, uncaring attitude and rebelliousness. Though their relationship is intense, they soon begin experiencing problems when Markus’s mother expresses racist, anti-immigrant sentiments about Marjane. But as this happens, Marjane notices that Markus doesn’t stand up to his mother. He also knowingly puts Marjane in potentially dangerous situations, such as when he sends her to purchase drugs from a notorious cafe. Eventually, as Markus begins to study theatre, the couple grows further apart. Markus ignores the political turmoil around him and insists that he protests by writing his play, an attitude that Marjane considers privileged, misguided, and naive. They break up when Marjane finds Markus in bed with another woman, and they never see each other again. In retrospect, Marjane understands that she expected too much from Markus—she expected a 19-year-old boy to be able to be everything to her, from a parental figure to a friend to a lover.

Themes

Religion, repression and Modernity

Persepolis explores the intersection of religion and modernity and the impact of religious repression on the religious feeling and practices of those who must endure it. At the story's beginning, when Iran is ruled by the Westernized, American-backed dictator Shah, Marjane defines herself as “deeply religious” even though she and her family consider themselves “very modern and avantgarde.” Her religion at the start seems like a type of freedom. Religion, Islam and Zoroastrianism, and its many stories and traditions allow Marjane an escape not only into fancy and imagined glory — she sees herself as the last prophet — but also into ideas of social equality, aid for the weak, and the end of suffering. In pre-1979 Iran, Marjane does not see religion and modernity as incompatible: in her self-written holy book, she adds a commandment that “everybody should have a car.” Indeed, God, who comes into the book as his character, provides Marjane with much comfort, companionship, and meaning.

But the Revolution, which many Iranians supported because they wanted freedom from the decadent, violently oppressive, and foreign-backed Shah, ended up bringing to power a regime of conservative religious hard-liners who saw modern Western-style culture as incompatible with Islam. This new government — the Islamic Republic of Iran — soon passed laws that rigorously regulated all behaviour on strictly religious grounds and outlawed the consumption of or interaction with anything seen as Western, such as American music or clothing. Much of the graphic novel depicts how the Satrapi family, devoted as it is to Western ideas and practices, must hide these affinities behind closed doors (smuggling in, making, or buying Western luxuries like wine and posters of rock bands) while outwardly professing their devotion to the religious values defined by the rulers of the nation so as not to suffer terrible consequences that could range from beatings to torture to execution.

Further, Persepolis shows how, while Iran ostensibly became more religious under the Islamic Republic, the government’s attempts to force their religious practices onto the populace caused Marjane and others to lose their religions. After the execution of Anoosh at the hands of the Revolutionaries, Marjane yells at God to leave her, and he disappears as a character from the graphic novel. Under the new regime, she can no longer explore and think about religion on her terms, and instead, religion gets co-opted for nationalistic and political reasons. For instance, Mrs Nasrine, the family maid, shows Marjane and Marjane’s Motherthe plastic key painted gold given to her son by his teachers. The key, given to the poorer boys of Iran, represents their guaranteed entry to heaven if they are to die as soldiers in the Iraq-Iran War. Religion, here, becomes a tool used by the government not only to justify but make schoolboys want to go to a war that is almost certain death for them. Seeing such a usurpation of religion, Mrs Nasrine expresses that though she has been “faithful to the religion” all her life, she’s not sure she can “believe in anything anymore.” Further, Persepolis depicts the hypocrisy of many of the representatives of the Islamic Republic, who declare their religious allegiance to the laws but also take bribes or overstate their devotion for the chance at extra money or promotion. The state-sanctioned religion makes shows of religion valuable for career advancement but does not inspire true religious values in many of even its most powerful adherents. Ultimately, the graphic novel portrays the repressive religion imposed by the Islamic Republic as standing at odds with the heartfelt religious feeling and beliefs experienced by an individual.

Nationalis, heroism and martydom

When the Revolution comes, Marjane, like her family, rejoices. After decades under the despotic American-backed Shah, she and her family believe this moment will ensure that the Iranian people can finally decide who will lead their country and how. Put another way, Marjane is an Iranian patriot and a nationalist in the sense that she believes profoundly in the value and need for an independent Iran ruled by Iranians. Marjane’s love for her country and belief that it should be free is so great that she feels the urge to fight for it and glorifies those who fight for it — particularly those who die in the name of the cause: martyrs. Marjane, just a child now, thinks of heroism in romantic terms and sees martyrdom especially as highly positive and desirable. Marjane hopes her family members will be heroes, and she is disappointed that her father is not a hero. She is ecstatic when it turns out that Anoosh, her uncle, has had to flee to the USSR to protect himself from Shah’s government against which he was fighting.

Yet as Marjane starts to come to grips with the actual consequences of martyrdom and heroism — Anoosh, for example, gets executed by the new regime because of his former political activities — her positive feelings about heroism and martyrdom begin to fade. Even more importantly, as the Revolution results in a new regime even more oppressive than the Shah’s, and an Iran ruled by Iranians turns out to be no better and in many ways worse than an Iran ruled by foreign powers, Marjane is forced to grapple with the very notion of nationalism. What country or which people should be the object of her nationalism? Though before and just after the Revolution, she complains that her father is “no patriot” because of his pessimism, as she grows up and sees the actions and impact of the Islamic Republic, she begins to recognize her own country’s stubborn foreign policy and ideologically-driven warmongering for what they are. She realizes that the boys sent off to war as martyrs are being brainwashed and used, their lives wasted, in service to nationalism. She sees that just as nationalism can overthrow a dictator; it can also be used to prop up a dictator. And yet, at the same time, when she hears the Iranian National Anthem, Marjane is “overwhelmed” with emotion. Facing this conundrum in her feelings about her country, Marjane begins to understand that she can both love her country and hate it simultaneously. She begins to understand that a country is not one monolithic culture, one monolithic religion (her neighbours are Jewish, for example), nor one monolithic people: she sees how the people in Tehran make fun of southern Iranians, how the country is very much divided, and how there are many competing narratives about Iran’s past, present, and especially future. As Marjane explains in her preface, much of the book aims to give readers at least one narrative about Iran: her own.

Violence, forgiveness and justice

The historical body count by the end of Persepolis is enormous: from the start of the Revolution to the end of the Iraq-Iran War, over a million people die - on the battlefield, in the streets, and in prison cells — killed by the Shah and by the Islamic Republic that replaces the Shah. By the end of the book, Marjane expresses her sorrow that “we could have avoided it all”, indicating a belief that much of the damage done to the Iranian people was a result of the Iranian regime’s own actions: its warmongering with Iraq, its radicalization of young soldiers, its religious fanaticism, its valorization of martyrdom. Official, legally sanctioned punishment for infractions as small as an improperly worn veil or the possession of forbidden party fare could be shockingly severe, including torture and death, and the people who carry out these punishments are usually agents of the regime. As such, Marjane claims, “It was really our own who attacked us.”

Marjane must therefore contend with the reality of the complicity of the people around her. In the early days after the end of the Revolution, Marjane and her friends find out that Ramin’s father was part of the secret police under the Shah that killed many people. They get revenge by holding nails between their fingers and attacking Ramin. However, Marjane’s mother teaches her that one cannot blame and punish the child of the perpetrator, who has nothing to do with the crimes committed. She claims that one must forgive, and Marjane takes this to heart. Later, however, after seeing the deaths perpetrated by the new Islamic Republic, she contradicts herself somewhat, saying that “bad people are dangerous, but forgiving them is, too.” This comment suggests the realization of an impossible situation, that despite what the storybooks might say, forgiveness is not a cure-all, that forgiving bad people won’t magically turn them good. At one point, Marjane’s mother claims, “Don’t worry, there is justice on earth.” But the book seems to constantly question the veracity of this claim. In Persepolis, little justice is to be found.

Cruelty and war

The memoir follows its protagonist, Marjane, from childhood to young adulthood, and as such, it traces the effects of war and politics on her psyche and development. By her admission, Marjane thinks that the moment she comes of age occurs when she smokes a cigarette she stole from her uncle. However, by this point, Marjane has encountered so much sorrow, death, and disaster, with enough grace, dignity, and sympathy, that her tiny act of rebellion against her mother’s prohibition of cigarettes comes across as hopelessly childish — as more of a defence mechanism against the repression enacted by the state than an act of maturity. What might have, during peaceful times, been seen as a rite of passage into adulthood becomes muddied by the heightened stakes of the war, and Marjane must grapple with growing up quickly even as she still retains many of her immature instincts. War both stunts and quickens her growth, bringing out the weepy and sensitive child and the strong and willful adult in her.

Persepolis shows children to be extremely malleable ideologically and behaviorally during war precisely because children cannot yet understand the complexity of the situations around them. For example, many boys easily become radicalized and believe in the heavenly benefits of martyrdom because they naturally trust authority. The graphic novel opens with Marjane professing that she and her friends did not understand the meaning of the veil newly imposed by the Islamic Republic; they only knew it as a change from the time before, when they did not need to cover their hair. This alerts us that for a child born into this new rule, the rule will seem perfectly normal, just as not wearing a veil felt normal for Marjane before the Revolution. Children, thus, take their cues about what is normal in the world from the adults around them, and Marjane and her friends throughout Persepolis emulate in reality or imagination the roles of soldiers, torturers, demonstrators, prophets, heroes, and political leaders. Rather than thinking rationally or sophisticatedly about all the different players in this societal moment of crisis, Marjane at first follows or reveres anyone with power and popular appeal.

However, the graphic novel illustrates her growth into young adulthood as she becomes continually confronted with the contradictions and confusion of life. Marjane’s growing up is complicated because the Iranian government understands that today's children are the adults of tomorrow, and so wants to influence children to become adults who will support the Islamic Republic. Marjane’s school thus becomes a microcosm of the wider world in which the government’s ideology gets thrust onto the populace. Not only must the girls wear veils, but once they did not, after the Revolution, they must also tear out the photo of the Shah—a man they were once told to adore. This confusion leads Marjane to understand that she cannot simply follow the opinions of others—she must make up her mind about the political realities and questions surrounding her. She must grow up.

Impact of Politics on Individuals

Persepolis is a story about Marjane Satrapi, her family, her friends, and the people she knows — and also about the nation of Iran. These two stories cannot be unspooled from each other — one cannot be told without the other, and no individual in the story can exist or be understood outside of the context of the historical change happening in Iran around him or her, no matter how much he or she might try. From the start, Marjane’s story is about how the individual engages with the political — as her parents demonstrate against the Shah during the Revolution — and how the political encroaches on the personal — as after the Revolution, Marjane must suddenly wear the veil at school. Indeed, what Marjane at one point pinpoints as the source of the Revolution —class differences — she recognizes in her own family home: the family maid, Mehri, does not eat dinner at the table with them.

The question becomes one of the degrees: if one cannot escape the politics in one’s life, how much should one participate in the political sphere, and does one have a choice? For the Satrapis, the question manifests in how much risk they want to take to protect their rights — do they want to demonstrate and possibly be beaten, for example? The Satrapis' solution is to try to recede as much as they can to appear like good citizens of the Islamic Republic, even as they privately hold parties, make wine, and buy imported goods. Yet even these choices are political acts, as they are forbidden and might lead to arrest.

Though Marjane cannot outwardly rebel beyond improperly covering her veil, she finds small ways to resist the oppressive rules imposed by the Islamic Republic. The personal and the political, then, become inexorably intertwined in Iran. Asserting individuality in clothing or spoken opinion becomes a political act. Furthermore, Marjane expresses that government policies affect people’s behaviours: “It wasn’t only the government that changed. Ordinary people changed too.” Under such a repressive regime, what once seemed like an enormous separation between the public and private spheres considerably narrows. By the end of the graphic novel, Marjane’s mother is both covering the windows to protect against flying glass — a consequence of the ongoing warfare, indiscriminate in its destructiveness — and from the eyes of prying neighbours, who might inform the authorities about the family’s Western ways, which would be an individually targeted and motivated act.

Gender inequality and other

Persepolis opens at the moment in Iranian history when it became obligatory for women to wear the veil and schools became segregated by gender. The Revolution brought many changes to Tehran, but the changes imposed on women and men in how they dress and look—women must cover their heads, men must cover their arms and not wear a necktie—might be the most immediately relevant and personally frustrating. Throughout the graphic novel, Marjane begins to understand that to be a woman in her new society is to be subjugated to a lesser role than the one she expected to have in her younger years. As a child, she imagines herself as the last prophet, even though all the other prophets were men. However, as the graphic novel progresses, she realizes that though she “wanted to be an educated, liberated woman”, this “dream went up in smoke” with the Revolution. Though she had once wanted to be like the celebrated scientist Marie Curie, she thinks that “at the age that Marie Curie first went to France to study [chemistry], I’ll probably have ten children.”

Marjane understands that her destiny as a woman depends on the state’s allowance or disallowance of women’s freedom. Early in the days after the imposition of the veil, Marjane’s mother gets assaulted for not wearing a veil. At a demonstration against the veil, Marjane sees women getting beaten up and even a woman getting stabbed. Though her mother thinks earlier that she “should start learning to defend her rights as a woman right now,” Marjane understands this to be impractical and dangerous, so she resigns herself instead of committing small acts of disobedience, like improperly wearing her veil. However, she continues to speak out against the contradictions and unfairness she notices around her, which gets her expelled from school. Soon after, her parents reveal to her the extent to which the state believes it has a right to control women’s bodies—it is against the law to kill a virgin woman, so before executions of virgin women, a prison guard will rape the condemned prisoner. The situation appears completely hopeless and dangerous to an outspoken girl like Marjane. So her parents decide to send her out of the country to Vienna, where she will have the freedom to be and grow as she pleases and befits her as an independent woman, an independent person.

Identity, culture and self-expression

Iranian-born Marjane believes, "I would always be an Iranian in the West, and a Westerner in Iran.” This encapsulates one of the memoir’s central conflicts: as Marjane moves back and forth between Iran (her home country) and Austria (where she goes to school), she must constantly adjust her understanding of social norms—often with only limited success. As Marjane comes of age and attempts to figure out who she is, she must also figure out whether she feels more comfortable in Europe or in Iran. The memoir makes the case that to some degree, this is a black-and-white decision — a person must decide where to live, after all—but it’s also possible to bridge the gaps between cultures and form a multicultural identity.

No matter where in the world Marjane is, she consistently finds that her friends—if not she herself—view her identity as oppositional to the dominant culture. For instance, in Vienna, Marjane is shocked by her friends’ sexual activity and their openness about it—in Iran, people who have premarital sex go to great lengths to hide it. Thus, although Marjane came from Iran believing that she was liberal in her thinking about gender relations and sex, her friends find her embarrassingly innocent and conservative. Marjane ends up having several sexual experiences of her own while in Vienna—though when she returns to Iran years later, she doesn’t necessarily think of herself as being as promiscuous as many of her European friends. But even to her sexually curious friends in Tehran, Marjane finds that she’s an outsider—they ask, for instance, whether Marjane is any better than a sex worker given that she’s had sex with more than one man. This issue with sex is only one area in which Marjane finds herself on the outs, both in Vienna and in Tehran. This sends the message that no matter where Marjane goes, she can’t win: she’ll always be too liberal or too conservative in at least one regard.

Marjane also discovers that the desire to fit in is often overwhelming no matter where a young person lives. But to someone from a different culture, those attempts can look wildly misguided. In Vienna, this desire to fit in leads Marjane to study political theory and philosophy, to experiment with drugs, and to alter her appearance so as to stand out less. Marjane immerses herself in the works of Sartre, cuts her hair and begins wearing heavy eyeliner, and even becomes her school’s resident drug supplier. Nevertheless, she recognizes that her intellectual and physical experiments don’t always help her be the person she wants to be. Indeed, Marjane takes issue in particular with her own heavy drug use. Using drugs and procuring them for her friends might make Marjane popular, but her parents’ warning that drugs turn people into vegetable rings in Marjane’s head. She feels ashamed about using drugs, though she simultaneously relies on them more and more to escape this shame. In this sense, then, Marjane’s attempt to fit in turns her into someone she knows she doesn’t like and who she knows her parents wouldn’t appreciate either—and Marjane still deeply craves her parents’ approval. She thus realizes the importance of bridging the part of her that wants to fit in with the part of her that wants to remain true to who she is: a proud Iranian Muslim woman and a believer in women’s independence.

Once Marjane moves back home, she learns how a person can combine different aspects of their identity into a cohesive whole: they should simply discover and pursue what makes them happy. Marjane does this by pursuing her degree in art from the local university and by marrying a fellow student named Reza. But while her art gives her the opportunity to express herself and be happy, Marjane also realizes this pursuit isn’t something she can successfully pursue in Iran. This becomes abundantly clear when Marjane and Reza’s joint final thesis (plans and designs for a theme park using Iranian mythology as inspiration) receives high marks but is turned down by the local government. The government official points out to Marjane that while their designs are beautiful and well-researched, they have no place in Iran’s fundamentalist culture. For instance, he notes that it’s impossible (and illegal) in this culture to portray a woman without a veil riding a mythical creature as Marjane and Reza did in their designs. The kind of art Marjane wants to make (including this graphic novel and its predecessor, Persepolis) can only find an audience outside of Iran. This ultimately leads to Marjane divorcing Reza and once again moving to Europe. But this doesn’t mean that Marjane leaves behind her identity as a proud Iranian woman simply because she chooses to leave—rather, Persepolis and Persepolis 2 symbolize a merging of cultures within Marjane’s identity. The books allow Marjane to express her love for and her frustrations with her home country, and to introduce its intricacies to others.

Symbols

Veil

The veil is an extremely vital piece of clothing to Marjane’s identity, not because she feels pious and wants to wear it and thus asserts it as part of herself, but instead because she doesn’t want to wear it and must anyway. Persepolis opens with Marjane describing how she first has to start wearing the veil at school. This moment for her most markedly divides her pre-Revolutionary life and her postrevolutionary life, when the rise of the Islamic Republic creates an enormous schism in society between those who are traditionally religious and those who are not and prefer to dress with Western influences. Marjane, though she still considers herself Muslim, belongs to the latter category. But the Islamic Regime dictates the moral code of society, and Marjane must contend with a world that disallows her regular mode of expression. The veil for Marjane and for many women in Iran becomes the key symbol of repression, particularly against women.

Bread Swan

Marjane receives her two bread swans from Anoosh, her uncle who spends much of his life hiding in Moscow from the regime of the Shah or imprisoned by it, and who, shortly after his release from prison after the success of the Revolution, get arrested and executed. Anoosh is a man who spent so much of his life hiding or imprisoned, and yet the bread swan represents his ability to maintain his humanity in dreadful situations. Having few materials to work with, he creates a sculpture of a swan from the bread he receives in jail. Despite its modesty, its splendour comes from the fact that Anoosh has been able to find whatever good remains in his situation and create a work of art. He has not become embittered or angry but instead focused his energies on his sculpture. The bread swan indicates the redeeming quality of art and suggests that Marjane’s book functions in a similar sense of redemption after all the trauma and suffering she experiences.

Plastic key painted gold

The plastic key painted gold is a beautiful object from the outside. Mrs Nasrine’s son is given the key by his teachers at school, to represent the “beautiful” idea that if he were to die for Iran in the war against Iraq he would be a martyr and immediately enter heaven. Mrs Nasrine, however, sees the key, which is plastic is actually nothing more than a trinket, as propaganda and brainwashing — she believes that the regime wishes to sacrifice her son for the cause of a political war rather than putting any real value on his life. The key, then, is a way for the regime to further the war and people’s enthusiasm for it, but it also comes to represent in the book how the regime’s promises emphasize beauty and reward but are often self-serving and hollow. It turns out, also, that only the lower-class boys, who are shipped off to the front, get these keys from their schools. The rich boys do not get fed such stories of paradise. Thus, the key also demonstrates the great class divide entrenched in Tehran’s society.

Cigarette

When Marjane reaches her teenage years, she smokes a cigarette in order to rebel against her mother’s strict rules. Marjane skips school in order to buy an illegal hamburger, and when she returns her mother yells at her and indicates that to skip school is to throw away her future Later that day, Marjane smokes a cigarette as a symbolic gesture against her mother’s “dictatorship” and feels that she has reached adulthood. This insubordinate gesture, which is actually quite childish, becomes a way to deal with the heavy stresses of the war. On the one hand, Marjane wants to be a normal teenager; on the other hand, every move she makes might have enormous consequences for her future — taking the wrong step might ensure that, in fact, she has no future. Consequently, the gesture is broader even than Marjane intends, and is directed against all the repressions in her life: from her parents, who rightly pressure her to behave responsibly, but also from the regime, which makes life difficult and restrictive enough that she has to sneak around in order to lead what she considers a normal life. That Marjane uses the language of the regime — “dictatorship” — to describe her relationship with her mother indicates just how intertwined her personal life has become with the larger political issues of her day.

Marji's and Reza's joint thesis

Marjane and Reza’s collaborative final thesis project represents Marjane’s sense of alienation in her home country of Iran. The thesis (plans and designs for a theme park based on Iranian mythological heroes) allows Marjane to show exactly what she can do as an artist. Over the year that Marjane and Reza work on it, their marriage also improves, offering hope that they won’t end up divorcing. At first, then, it seems like the thesis will help Marjane settle in and express herself freely in Tehran. However, although the thesis is well-received by the dissertation committee and even a local government official in Tehran, the government worker makes it clear to Marjane that the theme park will never come to fruition as designed. It’s impossible, he notes, to portray women without a veil — let alone mythical creatures — in Iran’s fundamentalist culture. The thesis, then, ultimately comes to represent Marjane’s realization that she’ll never feel at home in Tehran. In order for her to pursue the life she wants and make the kind of artwork she wants, she must divorce Reza and leave Iran altogether.