Christopher
Avalos
Professor Knapp
English
1A
03
March 2013
Persepolis is a graphic novel, in
comic strip format, that details the life of a girl named Marjane Satrapi as
she experiences the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In the beginning of the novel
she explains how she speaks to God every night and eventually would like to be
the last prophet. Her parents are revolutionaries and are out protesting all
day so naturally she is upset when her parents deny her permission to go out
with them. Of course they could not let her go but with great reason, officers
would usually shoot into the crowds and the crowds would be throwing rocks back
at the officers. The protests could get very violent at times.
The revolution begins when
Marjane is at the age of ten. She starts noticing some changes especially when
the schools start segregating students by sex and the female students are
required to weir a black veil over their face. Marjane’s family is religious at
heart but very modern so she is taken aback when she learns about this. Coming
from a family with similar attitudes towards religion with modern parents, I can
relate to Marjane such that, if I were forced to wear a cross around my neck at
school, I would be very confused because of the way schools are secular and I had
been brought up this way.
At school, she is taught lessons
that often contradict with the revolution and her parents’ beliefs, so her
parents start to educate her and tell her stories about her family and the
revolution. She learns her friends have stories of heroes in their families and
Marjane wants to compete with them so she asks to hear multiple stories from
her family. She learns her great grandfather was the emperor before the Shah’s
father overthrew him. He was appointed prime minister when he Shah took power
but he would eventually become a communist and be imprisoned. Marjane cannot
stand it when she feels someone else has a better story to tell than her. I
know I sometimes feel a little competition in me and I love it when my story is
the best out of everyone else’s.
From reading Persepolis up to
this point, I have learned much information that I had not previously known
about Iran. There are many things that are left out in our American textbooks
which I feel is a form of censorship to force our nation’s people to form a
bias. Iran has gotten to its current state because of all the events that have
happened in the 20th century and more currently, this past decade in
the 21st century. Western powers have shaped Iran’s state of
politics completely. I am curious to read more of this book; I would like to
see how things turn out for Marjane and her family.
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