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Violence In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

1068 Words5 Pages

In the graphic memoir Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi shows readers how tragic events can leave a huge impact on a young individual. As Marji grows up, she experiences multiple conflicts in terms of politics/government and the inequality in her country. One of which being the Shah, a ruler reigning over Iran. With all of the actions and that are performed as well as what was said by the Shah, it causes an uprising to arise which leads to a lot of violence within Iran. Marji witnesses deaths of those participating in the war, and it enlightens her to how dangerous and life threatening it could be. During the war, the government establishes rules that limit what the people of Iran can do, no matter what social class one was in. Marji’s family disobeys …show more content…

This idea of standing up for what you believe in is developed because of the Shah. The Shah was a despised figure during his time as a ruler for Iran and when the time of his departure came, Satrapi states, “The day he left, the country had the biggest celebration of its entire history” (Satrapi, 42). The context prior to and after this show how the people of Iran were fighting and standing up for what they wanted, and they eventually got it in the end after a numerous of people being killed. That point is true, but it is not relevant because there is no logic in potentially get killed just to stand up for something. It is best to just conform to save yourself from facing serious consequences. The majority of the people wanted the Shah gone, and in the end, he left because of the that very reason. Marji’s uncle, Anoosh, was arrested and faced his proper punishment because of this (Satrapi, 70). This clearly conveys the idea that Anoosh made the decision to risk his life in order to try and make a change in Iran. In the end, he was executed and did not really make a change. It would not make sense to risk your life to accomplish nothing - that is essentially what happened with

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While this is happening, none of the people in Iran are fully aware of how to react because the country didn’t have a leader at the time. Marjane had to experience this imperialism during her teenage years and it played a large role in her perspective. To demonstrate this in the book, it says, “‘God did not choose the king. ’[said Marjane’s father] ‘He did so!

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The Shah kept none” (27). This was the perspective of many adversaries of the Shah. Because of the manipulative nature of the Shah, the citizens felt that they couldn't trust him. As a community, the Iranian citizens “wanted only one thing: his departure!” (41).

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Religion, gender, and culture were being strictly reinforced and Marjane who is split in half by wanting to be independent but also incorporate herself into her religion is still trying to find herself in a place where you aren't allowed to stand out. Even with her independent side, Marjane is having trouble being able to express herself because of the constant use of shaming the the Iranian government does to try and keep from expressing ideas that will go against the government, specifically with the use of the veil which became mandatory to wear and the segregation of schools between boys and girls. This brought a major shift to Marjane who would then begin rebel is small ways like wearing punk clothing or reading about Marx and other socialists to combat the oppressive regime in her own

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Marji loves her country and believes that the Shah is a hero to her culture. She shows pride and nationalism during this time which many people don’t. Only after she realizes the social class difference do her views start to change. Later, once the

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Marji and her grandmother manage to sneak in first and pour all the alcohol down the drain, only for Marji’s father to come in and say the patrol only wanted money in order to go away. This situation shows how even though the people of Iran are doing whatever they can to make their lives more enjoyable, there is a large risk that if they are caught their lives will be

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Without God as a guiding presence in her life, Marji began to rebel against the ever-encroaching fundamentalist institution as much as possible. Under the pretense of religion, Iran strictly enforced new laws against social gatherings and all items of decadence, “They found records and video-cassettes at their place. A deck of cards, a chess set, in other words, everything that’s banned… It earned him seventy-five lashes”(105). This sudden loss of mediums to enjoy one’s self and prevalence of excessive punishment enforcing the declared moral code (132) were invitations to rebel for Marji.

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Religion and marxism are very contrasting, with few similarities. Marji tries to find a connection between the two, but they’re too different. Fundamentalism upholds the literal interpretation of religion. Fundamentalism takes over Iran and Marji witnesses Fundamentalists weeding out communists and executing them. When her communist uncle Anoosh, whom she loves, is executed for being a communist, Marji tells God to “get out”

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As this revolution takes place, bilingual schools are not acceptable anymore and the boys and girls have are segregated. Along with this physical separation, the girls and the women not in school are also obliged to wear veils (4). This clearly angers many of the Iranians as “everywhere in the streets there were demonstrations for and against the veil,” (5/1) including Marjane. Due to this ‘new era’ and disagreement about this different code of conduct, there were often two different types of men and women that would be found: “the fundamentalist man [or women]” and the “progressive man” or “modern women.” Satrapi does mention that one of the few ways to rebel against these new dress codes was for women to “[show their] opposition to the regime by letting a few strands of hair show,” for women or “more or less shaving” for the men.

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(Keddie) The acts of rebellion is the revolution, no matter how loud or silent they are, Iranian citizens are waking up realizing that the equality they have been missing out on for about a century is more than fair to want and is worth a fight. However ever since the death of twenty-two year old Mashi Amini who was detained on September thirteen, twenty twenty-two because she was habiting an ‘inappropriate’ hijab for the morality policies standards she was found dead three days later on the sixteenth. Many voiced up demanding justice as she was clearly mistreated in custody although the authorities denied the claim.

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From a secular point of view, the Pahlavi regime’s incessant abuse of power, overarching oppression, and limitations to basic human freedoms would have naturally fostered distaste amongst a certain group of the Iranian populace: broadly that of the educated, urban class. However, it is the imposition of Western ideals and alien values upon Iranian society as a whole which created even more disgust amongst the wider, general population. The Pahlavi regime might have perhaps been able to sustain the oppression of the Iranian people if his western backed policies were effective and popular with the Iranian people, but his failures with Iranian Oil and land reforms only exacerbated the situation. It was feared by many intellectuals that the growing westernisation of Iran, and more specifically Iran’s role with the west, would threaten the core traditional Iranian (and to some extent Islamic) values in society at that time. Hence, Al-e Ahmad, as the leading literary figure at that time, saw in Islam a medium through which to reunite an entire population, and as a force great enough to overthrow the Pahlavi regime; herein lies the core moral dilemma of many secular Iranian intellectuals at the

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This evil act pursued by the Shah and police was a defeat for the Iranian people, but they continued to demonstrate daily. Although many people fled the country, including Marji when she got sent to Austria by her parents, the people of Iran and Marjis parents who stayed, fought for humanity and eventually

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Marjane Satrapi’s negative representation of Islam and Iranian culture affects her presentation of nationalism, social classes, and religion. This photo shows a group of people following their leader off a cliff. This photo perfectly displays nationalism because it shows that this group of people

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Her grandfather, Mohammed Mossadeq, was the prime minister of Iran and nationalised the oil industry, because of this Marjane grew up in a rich and wealthy class. Therefore, when she was only ten years old her perspective on other classes where pretty vague. Growing up Marjane’s mom hired a maid that belonged to the lower class. Marjane treated her like her older sister and grew up with her not knowing she belonged in one of the lowest classes. One day Marjane helped the maid write a love letter to their neighbor whom she loved, the nabor rejected her because he figured out she was a maid and did not accept her because of her class.

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Everything can be viewed from two perspectives; A fist fight, a murder, bullying, just to name a few situations. This is still the case with Iran and it’s people. Iran and its neighboring countries are often portrayed negatively as terrorist, or failed nations. This is not always the truth, however, and one can learn that through Marjane’s coming of age story, Persepolis. The personal nature of the story is told through Marjane’s loss of innocence, her opinions on religion, and her observation of the prominent gender roles.

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This shows the freedom that people are allowed to have rather than the restricted rules that are implemented in Iran to oppress women. Marjane thought the act would be liberating, however, it wasn’t as simple as that because her inner thoughts still continued to conflict with

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