Abigail Hustler’s essay, Geographical Context of Persepolis (2013) on Marjane Satrapi’s, Persepolis (2000)

Experiencing childhood in Iran

Marjane Satrapis uses illustration as a way of retelling her lived experiences in her autobiographical story. She details childhood while growing up, starting from age 10 in pre-revolutionary Iran through a linear graphic story. Experiencing war, revolution, political and social upheavals and her stuggles as a child are a big part of her book. In a critical analysis essay of persepolis, Abigail Hustler describes how Marjane deals with confusion and inner conflicts of alienation as her family’s beliefs are liberal but she feels constrained by Islamic traditions, religion and the political and social contradictions in Tehran. “The novel recognises these contrasts: Marjane, even as a child, is very conscious of the social injustices, for example the fact that her maid is not allowed to eat with them and feeling guilty that her father drives a Cadillac; she also demonstrates the gap between the modern and traditional, Eastern and Western cultures, when she goes to buy tapes on Gandhi Street in her punk jacket”.

The essay also discusses, how “the war is a significant factor in changing both the public and the personal space. For a child especially, the home is a place of safety and security of the home, which is changed by the invasive bombing. The relationship of between the public and private space is also altered throughout the novel by the oppression of the regime. “Our behaviour in public and our behaviour in private were polar opposites” (307): within the private space, she is able to behave more freely”. “School is another important space within the novel. Like the home, it is a key space for a child but rather than an environment which is stable, nurturing and creatively freeing, it is instead presented as a limiting space. In 1980, “it became obligatory to wear the veil at school” (3), boys and girls were separated and Marjane’s school was no longer bilingual because that was a symbol of “capitalism” and “decadence” (4). In this class photo, she is off the page, symbolically marginalised and isolated by the system. Indeed, she is expelled from school because of her willingness to challenge both the strict school rules, for example by wearing jewellery, and the regime, questioning what the teacher said about political prisoners (144). This is reflected later in the book when Marjane attends the art school: the college too is restricting. Rather than the creative freedom one would expect from an art school, it is a repressive and limiting space. The students are forced to draw fully veiled life models and forbidden to look at a man when sketching him, while the uniform, their own veils, restricts their freedom of movement”. Marjane’s parents and their Westernized beliefs had a big impact on her. She shows several times that she is rebelious and mature from a very young age, questioning her cuntry’s system, religion and traditions. Where we grow up, experience childhood and who we are surrounded by often has an effect on our lives.

Bibliography: Hustler, Abigail; (2013) Geographical Context of Persepolis; Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies,University of Warwick; online: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en123/cwl-litcrit/persepolis2013/persepolisgeographicalcontext/

Images: Satrapi, Marjane; (2000) Persepolis; online: https://www.google.com/search?q=persepolis+marjane+satrapi&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwix5Mv5mMnwAhUUKhoKHVFDCtAQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=persepolis+Ma&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADoECCMQJzoECAAQQ1DGelipggFg6YkBaABwAHgAgAFWiAHuAZIBATOYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=6m-eYLHHGpTUaNGGqYAN&bih=686&biw=1396&rlz=1C1CHBF_deDE725DE725