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Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis Is Relevant To Modern Reader

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Why Persepolis is Relevant to Modern Readers
Marjane Satrapi’s widely popular graphic novel, Persepolis, is a popular choice for high school English classes. The complex themes, historical background, and unconventional format make the book compelling to teachers and students alike. Despite being set in the 20th century, the book is still very much relevant to modern readers; though the story is particular to a certain time period, the majority of the overarching themes are familiar to readers. Persepolis is relevant to modern readers because many others deal with cultural identity issues, women’s rights are still being threatened all over the world, and the coming of age theme is relatable to many young adults.
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Persepolis describes many incidents of discrimination against women, including the clothing rules that women were forced to adhere to. When running to catch a bus, she is pulled over by two Guardians who reprimand her. In response, she yells “Well then don’t look at my ass! (Satrapi, 304)” She is an empowered woman and has learned to stick up for herself. When Satrapi goes to Austria she becomes used to the way life is for women there and has trouble readjusting when she returns to Iran. She was going out for a walk one day after she had just returned and almost forgot to put her veil on (Satrapi, 253). She became accustomed to the culture in Austria and the way women were expected to behave. When Satrapi begins attending art school in Iran, a new and much more restrictive dress code for women is put in place. She finds it unfair that only women are being targeted and speaks out against the rules (Satrapi, 300). This is relatable to many modern readers because double standards for women are very much present in day to day life. Due to the challenges that are still being faced by women, Persepolis and its themes of gender inequality can be found very

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Persepolis is a bright light on how direct experience taught a young girl empathy and how it altered her perspective on life. Through Marji's direct experience of watching people in poverty, the reader learns the power of direct experiences. These direct experiences produce guilt, leading to change. Newfoundly, an open-minded way of thinking created an understanding of empathy in the reader and Marji.

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Persepolis Argumentative Essay “If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.” , (Alfie Kohn). In Persepolis, Mariji’s parents create a safe and free environment within their household to allow her to express herself freely. While she is growing up, she understands the meaning of the revolution through stories, books, and personal events because they provide her with knowledge and can affect her in the future.

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1263 Words | 6 Pages

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir that reveals the life of a woman growing up in pre-revolution and post-revolution Iran, as well as her experiences in Western countries. In this book, Marjane recalls and highlights historical events that affect her life during her upbringing in Iran. These include the oppression of the Shah, along with the rise and effects of the regime. These events are integrated into Persepolis in order to showcase their effects on Marjane and the other citizens of her country. These events’ inclusion are important due to the context and understanding that they grant readers unfamiliar with the text.

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There were occasions in the book where atrocities took place, atrocities that were proven accurate. There were demonstrations where people who participated were massacred, innocent people tortured for information, women being threatened of rape, and religious fanatics burning places down. These monstrous events that people far away hear of are how stereotypes are made. Even if Persepolis dispels some stereotypes, the events that influence some stereotypes are nonetheless true. The past cannot be unwritten, nor can the stereotypes that came out of them, but once must accept that not everybody should be defined by a stereotype that few people created.

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279 Words | 2 Pages

Satrapi depicts women in Persepolis in many ways. First of all, she does not really understand that in that time, women were considered lower than men, and did not understand things that were imposed upon the women, like the veil. “We didn’t really like to wear the veil, especially since we didn’t understand why we had to.” (Satrapi 3) This shows that Satrapi doesn’t really understand the veil and the things that the women had to to at that time.

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People are like cameras and their personal experiences can be their lenses that change and modify the actual picture. This evident in Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis because the whole book is about a girl growing up, and forming her own opinions. Furthermore, Marjane has to mature in the turmoil of an Iranian-Iraqi war, she also has to survive the brutal Islamic regime governing her. This creates a very particular point of view considering that the parents raising Marjane are against the new form of government, and actively protest, risking their lives. As a result, this rubs off on her creating a very rebellious and dauntless little girl, who isn’t afraid of the new oppressors.

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Imagine if everyone had a pre-determined negative image about you? This is what life was like for Marji, the protagonist of the novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The book is set in the year 1980, in Iran where Islam was a major religion at the time. This is also the time for the Islamic Revolution which kicked the Shau out of office and made Iran a theocracy. In Persepolis, Satrapi challenges negative stereotypes about Iranians through important characters who oppose the Islamic Regime.

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Importance of religion in Iran and its society is a crucial point in this graphic novel, Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood. It was mentioned in the novel how the society was corrupted when the Shah took charge. When the Shah took over, this lead to the many rebellions and demonstrations Iran had in order to keep the peoples freedom. The significance of women and how they were treated was also affected when everything changed during the 1980’s. Women are treated not only like trophy wives but they also did not have any sort of freedom for themselves.

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It is human nature to be in conflict. Either internal, external, one vs one, or one vs society. Conflicts are an everyday part of life that shape cultures, nations, and even the whole world. In Persepolis, the story’s setting is in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Which for Iran, was a very conflicting time that changed the country and its people.

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Although many people may be against two years of military for the young, I am all in for military service for the young for freedom, to help others and yourself, and strength. If we do not serve the military while we are young, we will not get nowhere in life. First, we should have to have military services at a young age for two years for freedom. Some may think we have all the freedom we need in our “free country”, but you can not just say you want something big and expect to have it, you have to work for what you want, like you should work for your freedom.

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Children are constantly learning about themselves and the world around them. As they grow up, their world expands from their home to peers and, eventually, to people and places they know about. Children should learn about themselves and develop a positive self-image if they have to be successful citizens in society. They must learn how different they are as well how alike they are in relation to others. Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is the story of Satrapi’s childhood growing up in a tumultuous post-revolutionary Iran.

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Persepolis, published completely in October of 2007, is a graphic memoir which encompasses the childhood and adolescence of Marjane Satrapi in Iran during and following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and her teenage years spent in Austria. Satrapi uses her life experiences from living in these two contrasting societies, as portrayed in the graphic memoir, to break the many stereotypes that those reading from a Western perspective may or may not have by showing them women’s roles, Iranian culture, youth culture, and the everyday action of the average citizen of Iran. Throughout the entire book, we see Satrapi constantly rebelling against the rules put in place by the Islamic regime, starting out when she was only ten. We see Satrapi and many of the other girls are using the veil to jump rope with, use as a monster mask, and basically everything but its intended purpose (3 / 5).

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1203 Words | 5 Pages

She knew that it wasn’t all perfect and good but she also knew that it was not a cesspool of despair and darkness that some people make it out to be. So, she wrote the novel in a very smart way, she uses literary devices to show and tell a fantastic story but at the same time uses it as a way to talk about the problems and good things about Iran in the 1970s. This allows Persepolis to live longer and be discussed much longer if she simply didn’t use metaphors. It is also a way to show and teach people about a very heated subject and show them not everything is totally black and white in this world and that sometimes the monsters are actually men but at the very same time people can be great, people can work together to further a cause, people can care and at the end of the day people in Iran are exactly that, people and Marjane Satrapi simply wanted to show that in her novel and she succeeded

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976 Words | 4 Pages

The graphic novel, Persepolis that is written by Satrapi depicts the coming of age story of Marjane and her experiences during and after the Iranian war. Through Marjane’s experiences, the character frequently encounters the hardship and conflict of growing up. However, these hardships are major factors that shape Marjane as a character and establish the context of the novel. Within this novel, Satrapi uses graphic novel conventions and literary devices to convey the conflict of Marjane; with herself, with man (in the form of her teachers), and with the society that is revealed in Persepolis.

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1228 Words | 5 Pages

Yet she cannot live like this under the Shah’s rule, although her faith is in god. In Persepolis, there is a substantial impact on social classes, education, women, and military. To begin, in the 1980’s located in Iran you had to be friends, and have relations with a significant other in your social class. You could not have a relationship with someone from a lower social

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