Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi begins her memoir by describing her feelings about the obligatory veil.  She depicts the different ways children her age treated the veil in a comical way. While the veil is a serious religious matter, Satrapi uses humorous pictures to describe the way it was treated. Satrapi also shines light on gender roles in the first section of her memoir. She states that she always wanted to be a prophet and that her grandmother was the other person that believed in her while the rest of her family held the belief that woman cannot be prophets. Satrapi again used humor in the image of her, personal prophet rules. This image also reminds the reader of just how young and naïve Satrapi is at this time in the plot. Early on in the memoir and in her childhood, Satrapi abandons her self-proclaimed destiny as a prophet to revolt with the rest of her nation. Satrapi’s image of herself and friends in the garden where she states that “the revolution is like a bicycle. When the wheels don’t turn, it falls.” This short statement eludes the reader to the vast knowledge Satrapi has of what is going on around her at such young age. While Satrapi is not allowed to partake in actual demonstration of protest, her parents do. They demonstrate after learning of the movie theater fire in which the doors were locked from the outside. Satrapi is very aware of the facts of this violence and the lack of police activity that occurred.

Satrapi illustrates the conflict between what she is learning in school and what her parents are telling her in The Water Cell section of the memoir. Her teacher says that “the Shah was chosen by God.” This is easy for Satrapi to believe considering her devotion to religion that she elaborated on earlier in the memoir. Satrapi’s personal involvement in the revolution comes when she finds out that “the emperor that was overthrown was [her] Grandpa’s father.” Satrapi learns of her Grandfather’s water torture in his cell and reacts by wanting to stay in her bath for a long to time to feel his pain. This act again shows the reader how involved and informed she was for such a young age.

During the Persepolis section of the memoir, Satrapi realizes she doesn’t truly understand what is going on around her and vowed to read all the books she can. Satrapi begins to understand the difference in social classes when her father catches her writing letters for the maid to the neighbor.

Satrapi’s memoir takes another sad turn when she illustrates her mother hitting both her and her maid for demonstrating. She does not directly say that her mother hit them both, however it is shown in the picture. The image of her mother hitting them is, in my opinion, more powerful than words would have been. It makes the reader stop and think about what is going on in the scene. The hitting of the children was obviously a big deal to Satrapi because the bruises or marks on their faces are shown in more than just the one image.

Again Satrapi’s mother takes a prominent role in the plot after the fall of the Shah. She tells Satrapi that the Shah was the devil. While she knew how her mother felt about the Shah, Satrapi depicts her confusion when her teacher who once told her that Shah was chosen by God, tells her to rip out the images of him from her textbooks. In The Heroes section, we begin to see the corruption of her young mind from the acts of violence she knows about. The stories of torture corrupt her young mind.

On page 57 Satrapi uses sarcasm in her text that can only be understood by the clarification of the image. Her mother says “you always say the right thing at the right time!” but her facial expression is angry. The text and the image work together to create humor in this section. As the war begins and her friends start to move away, Satrapi loses he faith. This is a huge turn around from the beginning of the story when she wants to be a prophet. It symbolizes the corruption that was taking place within her and around her. Again the image of her seemingly floating in space alone, holding onto nothing clarifies and furthers the idea that she is feeling lost and alone during this scary time.

Lastly, the cigarette Satrapi smokes symbolizes the end of her short youth. The smoking of the cigarette sealed her acts of rebellion. The image of her smoking the cigarette with tears rolling down her face moves emotions in the reader that would otherwise not be as powerful. With lit cigarette in hand and wide eyes, Satrapi says goodbye to her childhood that was taken from her by the devastating war.

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon, 2003.