Satrapi's Persepolis

The head crown she is wearing makes her look a lot more akin to many previous pharaohs and likewise the false beard also helps maintain to this image along with a masculine

The combination creates a likeness of a regal royal who seems to have a lighter side to his personality than many of his predecessors. If the outside of Seti is any indication of the inside of Seti then the perfect proportions of his face certainly contribute to his list of qualities. Additionally, his smooth skin, calm eyes, and smile, combine to create a vigorous king in the prime of his life. Yet, in creating a facial expression that conveys a seemingly acute perceptiveness, the artist has attributed far more than just boyishness to Seti. The calm nature of Seti’s face suggests a sense of control that Seti, as pharaoh, should, of course, possess.

In “Shrouded in Contradiction,” Gelareh Asayesh compares and contrasts her life in Florida with her life in Iran. While in Florida, she wears westernized clothing, but when she returns to Iraq, she must put on the scarf and long jacket that many Iranian women wear instead of a veil. The essay begins by telling the readers that Asayesh “grew up wearing the miniskirt to school, the veil to the mosque” (187). Instantly, we become aware of her double life; she changes her appearance and demeanor depending on her surroundings.

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.

In Persepolis, families protested against the Islamic republic, but the punishment most of the time was death. The revolution was violent due to the nature of Khomeini’s ruling. In the novel Satrapi illustrates how hard it is for her family and others living during that time. There were no drinking, partying, speaking out against Iran and more . The war becomes intensified for Marjane because the bombs dropped on her city Tehran.

According to Satrapi, she wrote the novel "The Complete Persepolis" to show that Iran a country just like any other belonged to fundamentalists and extremists such as terrorists. At ten years, she is forced to put on a veil when going to school. Her school, which was non-religious and owned by French was abolished, and that marked the end of boys and girls learning in the same environment. Satrapi had serious problems with the Muslim culture that confined women to be passive in matters that concerned their lives. The political environment was equally unpleasing to her, and this explains why she eventually opted to be a rebel.

During the Islamic Revolution, religion was very important to the fundamentalist Islamic regime that took power over the secular state. In her graphic memoir, Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, a spiritual young girl, suffers a deep loss of faith due to the oppressive fundamentalist religion in Iran. This loss of faith causes Marji to experience disillusionment and a loss of identity, which greatly shapes her character. Through her experiences with God, Satrapi comments on the difference between spirituality and fundamentalist religion and displays the negative repercussions of an oppressive religious state.

Religion has been the cause of different outbreaks such as ‘The Crusades’ and several terrorist attacks which date not very far away from today and more relevant to this topic the Iranian Revolution, but how can this “collection of beliefs” be the reason for someone to change their way of thinking, especially in such a religious country like Iran. The story of Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi tells us the story of her life in Iran before and after the revolution showing us the different ‘personalities’ she goes through, from innocent girl to a disaffected teenager. In this story Satrapi exploits different themes such as the heterogeneity in regions with Iran and the rest of the world, warfare and politics but one that stands out and is presented through the whole book is religion. Religion is portrayed as an excuse to start a conflict and it shows the personal development of characters, in this case the protagonist Marji.

The role of politics in Marjane Satrapi 's life is a critical one, as seen in her graphic novel Persepolis, which narrates her experiences as a young girl raised by revolutionaries during turbulent times in Iran. Particularly, Satrapi uses juxtaposition between her parents and children to highlight the hypocrisy and myopia of the upper class revolutionaries when it comes to the interpretation and implementation of their political ideology. Satrapi builds the foundation of her criticism through the superficial comprehension her child self exhibits regarding her parents '—and, by extension, upper class communists '—ideals, then warns about the dangers that such lack of understanding presents through child soldiers who are fed ideologies and then sent to war. However, while pointing out the shortcomings of the movement, Satrapi 's use of children as the vessels for comparison entails that there is room for the communist community to develop, like Marji does as she matures from child to teen, and encourage equality through the removal of social barriers created through binaristic thinking to truly promote communist ideals. The first point of juxtaposition is Marji herself, particularly her initial myopic thinking as a child.

One way Satrapi challenges negative stereotypes about Iranians is through important characters who oppose the Islamic Regime because she shows individualism. In the chapter The Veil Marjane in the year 1980 shows she doesn’t believe in being forced to wear

The theme of repression is an ever-present issue in Persepolis. The picture on the right shows a bearded Islamist explaining to children why the veil needs to be imposed to counter Westernization. However, Satrapi’s home was a place of liberal values and free expression. This is shown in the scene where Marji is split between

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is a novel based in Iran during and post Islamic Revolution that follows the life of young Marjane Satrapi, or as know in the story, Marji while her and her family try to get through all the changes happening around them because of the Revolution. The novel begins with Marji telling the reader that the Revolution had just begun, and a year after all women, children, and adults had to wear a veil even though “[they] really didn’t like to wear the veil, especially since [they] didn’t understand why they had to” (Satrapi 1). Throughout the story Marji constantly questions things going on around her, one thing in particular being the government's total rejection of the westernization that was slowly occurring in

Germaine Greer once said, “Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.”, Through the graphic novel Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi gives a voice to those who were oppressed during the Iranian revolution Ensuring that they are not forgotten. With the use of homogenous features and other stylistic devices, Satrapi shows how she and her classmates, her parents, and other nationalists were marginalised, excluded, and silenced during this time period. From early on in the book, the theme of oppression is ever-present. On page 3, Satrapi introduces herself, expressionless and wearing the veil, stating, “This is me when I was 10 years old”.

After the Iranian Revolution, it became compulsory for women to wear the veil as the Islamic dress code and all women were removed from government positions, leading to increasing oppression and inequality in Iran. The use of black and white on the first page of the book creates a very clear image that a lot of people are unhappy with the new rules that are introduced by the government. The use of images shows us the oppression of freedom in a way that it would be hard to imagine with words. The first panel shows Marjane in a somber mood, crossing her arms to show her defensive thinking against the veil and the world. In the following panel, the girl’s expressions range from neutral to dislike or discomfort, which shows the general thoughts from people on how they think of the veil.

In the passage, teachers force the students to rip pictures of the shah out of all of their textbooks. This made Marjane very confused about what to believe. In the text it says, “But she is the one who told us that the shah was chosen by God!” The teacher continues to say, “ Satrapi! You shouldn’t say things like that.