ipl-logo

Persepolis Conflict Essay

1249 Words5 Pages

Changing oneself to fit societal expectations is a shift many teenagers have to stop themselves from making. In the semi-auto biographical graphic novel Persepolis, the author Marjane Satrapi uses symbolism and conflict to represent the central idea that sacrificing one’s identity to appease the people around them is not always a personally beneficial change. Throughout the story the main character Marji faces many instances where she feels she needs to adhere to either peers or society’s wants and expectations of her. Whether that’d be in Iran from the oppressive religious government during the Iranian Revolution of the early 1980s or during her adolescent years spent in Europe among her starkly different friends. Above all, Persepolis is …show more content…

Internal conflict can be found throughout the book, but is especially prominent in The Croissant. For example, after Marji’s teacher asks her how she is, she responds in her head with “What do you want me to say, sir? That I’m the vegetable that I refused to become.” (226) The sacrifice that Marji made to fit in with the crowd in Vienna and with Markus has come back to cause her significant personal damage. She feels an immense amount of self-loathing, evidently from the way that she has now fully flung herself into drugs which she did not want to do and now she feels as though she has failed herself. Furthermore, Marji is not the only one seemingly disappointed in herself, she feels that Markus has become disgusted with her as well. Marji’s feeling becomes clear when she says “This decadent side, which had so pleased him at first, ended up profoundly annoying him.”(226). Marji feels as though Markus has started to find her drug habits uncompelling even though she was the main instigator for her newfound drug use. So, now not even Marji feels disgusted with herself but the person who really made her feel like she had to do and sell drugs in the first place feels embarrassed of her. Marji’s entire drug progression proves the central idea through showcasing how abandoning one’s own moral standing to appeal to the greater society or peers can cause pain. For Marji her pain manifested in self-hatred and many mental health problems to

Show More
Related
1810 Words | 8 Pages

In this story, we learn of the society surrounding these two young dealers and their daily lives and through that we can see the way that they identify themselves. Like many people, these two characters among others in the book identify themselves through their race, ethnicity, family and the life that they have led. However, in this city especially, the drug-trade takes an important position. As Bergmann states early in the book, the drug trade is one of the most important social institutions because it is “the locus of their senses of identity, politics, and promise in the world…taught them about the nature and power of the state…family…senses for the shifting distinction between childhood and adulthood, the length of natural life, and a timely death” (13). As such in this novel we see that the drug trade and the practices emerging form it such as the use of homes as a drug-spot and the proliferation of gun violence as caused by the drug-trade in the society creates a scenario where the drug-trade shapes the identity of the young people in the society and is the main window through which they see the world around

Read More
552 Words | 3 Pages

Tim LaRocca Persepolis KPA In the book “Persepolis”, the author Marjane Satrapi, uses excellent diction to help the reader obtain knowledge and gain understanding of her main purpose in a specific passage or chapter of the book. Despite her specific word choice, it is challenging for readers to truly understand her main purpose only through literary terms and devices used throughout the book. Therefore, to help increase the readers ability to understand the main purpose of a certain specific passage, Satrapi uses an extensive amount of precise graphic elements. For example, in the passage “Kim Wilde”, Satrapi is able to express her main purpose that when governments tend to restrict the people too much, and become oppressive, the people tend to resist their law and rebel against the law by using the graphic elements of shading and facial expressions to express her purposes in and easier and clearer visual way.

Read More
1954 Words | 8 Pages

With the breaking of this expectation creating the rift between him and his family. The effects of early life stress on Jesse’s adulthood and his later issues with drugs is further proven by the article, exemplifying the effects of his mother’s disappearance, and his grandfather’s overwhelming amount of discipline as main contributing factors to Jesse’s addiction to drugs in the

Read More
480 Words | 2 Pages

This question is addressed in the third section of the article. For that reason, the author writes with a rhetoric of pathos to encourage the reader to persevere and also purchase Naloxone, a drug which can alter the effects of opioids in case of emergency. Since addiction is an emotional subject, this section of the article contains much pathos rhetoric

Read More
2327 Words | 10 Pages

When your suffocating all you want is air. When your dying all you want is life. But what about after you’re saved, what do you learn? What do you become? The experiences we go through in life helps us shape into the person we are today.

Read More
1008 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
570 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1744 Words | 7 Pages

In Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, The Stranger by Albert Camus, and the current college process that I am engulfed in, existentialism proves itself to be true. Existentialism is intimidating until an overarching lesson is learned through the choices and responsibilities, passions (or lack thereof), and the isolation of a person, such as Marjane, Meursault, or myself. On the surface, the three of us are extremely dissimilar, but we all experience relatively negative things that teach us more than we knew before. Marjane Satrapi is a real woman who grew up in Iran, Meursault is a character from North Africa, and I am a real teenage girl from a small seaside town. Nonetheless, when it comes to existentialism, the three of us stand as examples of the legitimacy of its philosophy.

Read More
1255 Words | 6 Pages

All throughout history, occurrences of oppression and invasion have happened all around the world. The rights and freedom of innocent lives have been taken. The people with power have abused it and become tyrannical and self-centered. The innocent begin to rise against the malicious leaders trying to control their lives. Even through times of downfall and nonsuccess, humanity continues to fight back.

Read More
1614 Words | 7 Pages

In the first portion of the narrative, Marji 's political views are a direct reflection of those of her parents, and therefore, of the upper class communist movement. As such, Marji 's superficial, and at times idealized, understanding of political

Read More
957 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
1203 Words | 5 Pages

To what extent is the literary devices shown in Persepolis increase the impact of the novel and show the culture of Iran in the 1970s? In the novel Persepolis by Majane Satrapi, she tells the story of her life living in Iran in the 1970s. In this novel she discusses the atrocities committed by both sides of the bloody Iranian revolution and how both sides truly were. In the novel, Satrapi uses several literary devices to enhance the meaning of the novel to a much greater degree than directly telling the reader. Still, these literary devices also allow the reader to peer into the very culture of Iran in the novel and how certain objects can mean certain things both from within the culture and the context of the novel.

Read More
1436 Words | 6 Pages

The graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is an animated ‘identity crisis’ showing how she has trouble reconciling the Eastern and Western values that she has been influenced by. By ‘identity crisis’ I mean Marjane is uncertain about who she is and where she belongs to. The Eastern values would include hierarchy, restraint, collectivism and deference, whereas the Western values would include equality, freedom of expression, individualism and self-assertion. A graphic novel can be defined as a book containing a long story told mostly in pictures but with some writing. I intend to investigate why Satrapi has chosen to use the graphic novel instead of using other styles to present Marjane attempts to reconcile the different values and find

Read More
1228 Words | 5 Pages

Have you ever read a graphic novel with a variety of worldwide problems? From: racial issues, economic issues, women’s rights, political repression, social issues etcetera. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is the authors memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane Satrapi tells her story through black and white comic strips of her life in Tehran from her childhood ages six to fourteen. Persepolis portrays a memorable portrait of daily life in Iran, as well the perplexing contradictions between home life and public life.

Read More
1083 Words | 5 Pages

SHUBH MITTAL IBDP XII B D-BLOCK Paper 2 Essay Context: Historical, Political, Economic, Cultural, or Social can have an influence on the way literary works are written or received. Discuss with reference to two literary works that you have studied. Writer’s use of context acts as a driving force enabling and shaping literature.

Read More

More about Persepolis Conflict Essay

Related Topics

Open Document