Coming of age can be a difficult part of the journey of one’s life, but it may prove to be essential to understanding the world in which one lives, even if it evokes a sense of loss of innocence. In Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood, Satrapi describes the story of her childhood and the various events that contribute to her coming of age journey. The journey of the main character, Marji, reveals what it is like to grow up bombarded by war and the effects that this has on both her innocence and knowledge as a child. In the beginning of Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood, Satrapi conveys that Marji has a yearning for knowledge to better understand the world she lives. The readers first see this when Marji the character realizes that she does not understand anything in the conversation amongst her parents and grandmother in the previous panels (32, 8). Marji then says that she pursued her reading to better understand the conversing of her parents. This is a crucial moment when Marji first starts to want to comprehend her surroundings. It also demonstrates how being so young can impact and lead to an early knowledge of the world she lives in through her experiences and exposure to adults. …show more content…
Marji contemplates the beliefs and idealisms of the socials classes in the world in panel 7 (33, 7). In the panel Marji demonstrates her struggles with the idealism of the social classes, by declaring her shame through a written letter (33, 7). Marji is first introduced by the realities of the class divisions through reading books by Ali Ashraf Darvishian. Marji then experiences this social class division when her maid, Mehri is not allowed to be with a boy she falls in love with. Marji’s identity undergoes a sense of revolution and gains knowledge of injustices of her