Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Leaving Certificate English Revision Notes. irevise.com Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

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1 Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Leaving Certificate English Revision Notes irevise.com Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

2 irevise.com All revision notes have been produced by mockness ltd for irevise.com. Copyrighted material. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, reprinting, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of irevise.com or a license permitting copying in the United Kingdom issued by the copyright licensing Agency. 2 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

3 Table of Contents Context... 8 Summary... 9 Characters Marjane Marjane s Mother Marjane s Father Marjane s Grandmother Uncle Anoosh Mehri Siamak Jari and Mohsen Shakiba Mali Uncle Taher Lucia Julie and Momo Frau Doctor Heller Kia Reza Themes with Supporting Quotations Iran Contrasted with Other Countries Women and Femininity Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

4 Coming of Age Warfare Politics Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

5 Freedom and Confinement Fear Mortality Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

6 Family Religion Alcohol and Drugs Sample Answers How would you describe Marjane's interaction with Western culture? Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

7 Whom do you think is described as the bigger enemy in the novel -- the Shah or the Islamic regime that takes control after the Shah? Discuss the theme of matriarchy in Persepolis Do you think that Marjane's father was a "resigned" individual, as Marjane claims in the novel? 36 How does the social class of Marjane's family conflict with their political views? Discuss the symbolism of jewels and jewellery throughout the novel In the novel's first scene, Marjane shows a photo of her elementary school class. She, however, is cut out of the picture. Why does Satrapi begin the novel with this imagery? Some critics of the novel have claimed that Satrapi's view of Iran is too one-sided. Why or why not do you believe this is true? What symbolism does Satrapi give to cigarettes in the novel? Why does Satrapi think that the Islamic regime was able to gain control of Iran after the 1979 Revolution? Changing Lifestyles in Persepolis Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

8 Context Books often explore stories from the other side. Persepolis is no different. It tells a first-hand account of what it was like to be raised in Iran. Unfortunately, we live in a world (especially post-9/11) that considers Iran and Iranians in general to be "the bad guys." Iran isn't actually evil the people who run the country are. Iran's citizens are people of the world just like us and, just like us, they want to listen to music, hang out with friends, and party. Many of them don't want to wear head-to-toe religious garments any more than you'd want to wear jean shorts in December. Marjane Satrapi grew up in Iran just as things started getting bad. Students were segregated by gender lines, women's rights receded faster than the polar ice caps, and family members were executed simply because they were suspected to be spies. It's a rough time to grow up there, to say the least, but Marjane not only survives protests and bombings she moves to Vienna, then back to Iran, and then manages to leave again. All that insight gives us a pretty fascinating story. Satrapi wrote Persepolis in Well, maybe we should say she drew it in It's a graphic novel which is more or less the literary term for comic book and, as such, uses pictures alongside words to tell its story. In France, where Satrapi lives, Persepolis was published in four volumes. In the U.S., it was released as two. Newsweek ranked Persepolis the #5 book of the decade. Of the decade. Later, The Complete Persepolis put the whole story in one convenient paperback volume to celebrate the release of the film. Persepolis was made into an animated film in It featured the voices of Catherine Deneuve (in France) and punk rock icon Iggy Pop (in English), and lost to Ratatouille in the Best Animated Feature Film category of the Academy Awards. Just as Persepolis proves that comics can be literature, the movie shows us that not all cartoons are Looney Tunes and Dragonball Z. Reading Persepolis is an eye-opening experience, especially if you've only swallowed media propaganda that has led you to believe that Iran is the enemy and all Iranians are trying to kill us. This couldn't be further from the truth, and there are plenty of folks living in Iran who aren't all that happy with their living situation either. They used to be able to listen to music. Boys used to be able to chat with girls in public. They used to go to parties. But they can't anymore, because of their uber-crazy fundamentalist religious regime. Persepolis shows us the danger of letting the opinions of very few dictate the behaviour of many. On top of that is the fact that everyone has a story, and not everyone in a country is exactly the same. 8 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

9 Summary It's 1980 in Iran, and Marjane Satrapi is being forced to wear a veil at her school, which is now segregated. The boys and girls are separated. This marks the beginning of years of political and religious turmoil in Iran. Marjane's mother and father often attend political protests, kind of like a more violent Occupy Wall Street, and support revolutionaries when they can, including many of Marjane's relatives, like Uncle Anoosh. Uncle Anoosh had fled to the U.S.S.R., because the Iranian regime believed him to be a spy. Uncle Anoosh teaches Marjane much about the world. He also gives her a swan carved out of bread, which is a lot nicer than a swan made from origami paper (because you can probably eat it). Marji grows very close to Uncle Anoosh, and she takes it very hard when he is executed. Because of her mother, father, Grandma, and uncle, Marjane's passions lie in social activism. At a young age, she wants to fix social inequalities and make the world into a place where old people don't have to suffer. That's kind of hard to do when there are bombs falling on Tehran and killing Marjane's friends and family members. Eventually, Marjane's parents decide that Iran is not the place for the daughter they've raised. Marjane is a girl who is headstrong, independent, and outspoken. Her behaviour gets her expelled from school, and mom and pop are afraid that a worse punishment will befall her as the regime gets stricter. They ship Marjane to Vienna, where she ends up in a boarding house run by nuns. Marjane gets along with the nuns about as well as she gets along with authority in Iran. Over the next few years, she finds herself in a variety of living situations: with her sexually liberated friend Julie, in an apartment with eight homosexuals, and renting a room from a horse-faced woman with a foul attitude and an incontinent dog just to name a few. Marjane misses her family, who she left back in Iran and are her only support system. She gets depressed, and becomes homeless. Living on the streets makes her so sick she coughs up blood. She survives, and moves back home to Iran. Giving up her freedoms is hard, but living with her family is what she needs. Her mom and dad treat her as an equal, and her grandmother gives her the reality check she needs: Marjane has to always be true to herself in order to be happy. Back in Iran, she continues doing what social activism she can, gets married, parties, and then gets divorced. All these things are steps on her way to finding her identity. After a couple of years, Marjane realizes (again) that Iran is not for her, and she moves back to Europe, letting us know that she only got to see her beloved Grandma once more before she died. Freedom has a price. 9 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

10 Characters Marjane Marjane is ten years old in 1980 when the novel begins. She goes by the name Marji, and she's not your average girl. She thinks she's going to be a prophet. "I was born with religion," she says, accompanied by an illustration of her as a baby with a seemingly glowing head, like a mini Mr. Clean. Maybe it's her halo, or maybe her bald baby head has just been polished to a nice shine (1.19). So instead of doing kid things, Marji is having conversations with God. Her teachers and classmates shame her into thinking this is a silly career choice. Marji tells her parents she wants to be a doctor, but she feels like she has betrayed God. "I wanted to be justice, love, and the wrath of God all in one" (1.45). This is only the beginning of her identity crises. Growing up in Iran makes it difficult to Marji to express herself. She's growing up at a time when Western culture is being demonized, and if Iran has any media of its own, we don't see it. Marji mentions no music, no films, no theatre. Instead, she secretly uses American rock music to express herself. When she's not rocking out, Marji reads a lot. This is primarily how she broadens her worldview, because it's not like Iranian education is big on teaching students what life is like in other parts of the world. Reading serves her well later in life too. When living in the boarding school in Vienna, Marjane studies philosophy in her spare time, which she has plenty of since her friends are always gallivanting off for tons of holidays. Maybe it's because of the reading (or the whole prophet thing) but Marjane is a very empathetic child. She sits in a bathtub for hours to try and figure out how her grandfather felt in a water-filled torture cell. She tries to understand that a child is not responsible for the actions of his father. And she gets mad at the plight of those who are a lower social class because she sees how anguished they are. Social justice isn't Marji's only passion. She loves heroes. Not that terrible NBC show, but actual people who have been imprisoned for war crimes. That's her narrow definition of hero. "There are lots of heroes in my family. My grandpa was in prison. My Uncle Anoosh too: for nine years!" (8.57), she boasts. Marji is almost the type of girl who, if you told her your dad was in prison for five years, she'd tell you that hers was in prison for ten and he was tortured. She doesn't change her hero ideal until the day when her friend's father dies, and she tells Marji, "I wish he were alive and in jail rather than dead and a hero" (11.53). Being a hero isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Her hero worship morphs throughout her life, later becoming a love for punk rock and anarchy. She loves her first boyfriend, Enrique, because he knows anarchists, even if they aren't the anarchists of her dreams these people are more like the free-loving hippies of the U.S. in the 1960s, but with more hide-and-seek. In chapter 20, which marks the beginning of Persepolis 2 if you were to buy the books separately, Marji starts going by Marjane. Marjane's talents from her youth come in handy 10 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

11 when she has to make new friends in Vienna, having been sent there by her parents when Iran is its most tumultuous. She gets good grades and makes fun of her teachers. Students of all types love both those things, so she quickly falls into a group of people: "an eccentric, a punk, two orphans, and a third-worlder" (21.23). Although she makes friends fairly easily, she has trouble keeping them. She's never able to truly connect with them because she's so unsure of her own identity. This difficulty maintaining a connection applies to boyfriends, too. Her first boyfriend, Enrique, turns out to be gay; her second, Markus, cheats on her on her birthday. And although she gets married when she moves back to Iran, the union quickly ends in divorce. It's hard to tell if she finds herself in these kinds of relationships because of a typical teenage lack of selfesteem, or if she's even more prone to this pattern because of Iran's extreme objectification of women. It's hard for any Iranian woman to find a sense of self-worth. Low self-worth comes with little-to-no self-esteem. When Marjane hits bottom, she has a tendency to hurt herself. It happens in Vienna, when she chooses to be homeless until she starts coughing up blood. She's hard on herself about it too, saying "it was a banal story of love that almost carried me away" (28.56). We think that the real reason isn't the break-up. The reason is the breakup plus the fact that she has no support system. She also has trouble with shame. "I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame" (29.79), she says. Maybe this is because her parents put such high standards on her? She has a difficult time admitting that she has disappointed them and she never does tell them. Instead, she seeks medical care for her depression. The mental health care system in Iran is about as good as you'd expect it to be, and they simply dose her with pills. The side effect of the anti-depressants is that Marjane tries to commit suicide. She can't knife herself, so she takes all her pills, something that makes her hallucinate a bunch of rats, but she lives. After that, she decides to take control of her identity, so she does what any woman her age would do: becomes a Jazzercize instructor. There's one more aspect to Marji's coming-of-age we have to mention: laughter. There's a lot of slaughter in Iran, and you can't have slaughter without laughter, right? Marjane says, "Every situation offered an opportunity for laughs" (13.20). Faced with required self-flagellation in school, Marji decides she has to make fun of it. It's just too ridiculous not to. It helps that her classmates eat it up. Becoming the class clown is a sort of therapy for both her and her classmates. Her classmates show their appreciation by not turning her in; they all take the punishment together, and get suspended as a class for a week. As Marji said earlier, revolutions only succeed if everyone is on board. She continues using humour to balance out the horror in her life. To achieve adulthood, Marjane has to find a balance between family and freedom, humour and horror, career and relationships, Iranian and Western. Her whole life is a balancing act, but we think she's found her centre of gravity by the end of the novel: her heritage, her family, and her ideals. Marjane s Mother The first thing we learn about Marji's mom is that she's pretty revolutionary: "Her photo was published in all the European newsletters" (1.15) after a political protest. Marjane is 11 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

12 proud of her mother, but her mother is scared. In a country where women are pressured to all be the same, having an identity is dangerous. Marji's mom has the same conflict about her daughter: She wants her to live her own life, emphasis on the word live. You have to be alive to live the way you want to be. In order to stay alive, Marji's mom has to be resourceful. She's very clever, thinking up the idea to smuggle rock posters for Marji into Iran in the lining of her dad's coat. Marji eventually realizes that "For an Iranian mother, my mom was very permissive" (17.41). This almost gets Marji in trouble when she wears her punk-rock clothes in public (a more conservative mother would certainly have forbidden her daughter from doing so), but Marji takes after her mother in one major aspect: She's highly resourceful on her feet, and so she's able to talk her way out of it. There's one more thing Marji's mom is good at, and that's lying. She's not lying in a bad way, though. She's an expert at changing the subject away from something terrible, like the death of their neighbours (it's sad that this is something that even has to be done), but she's also really good at making Marjane think that she's a good cook, even though Marjane is a terrible cook. Marji thinks her mother is very strict. Mom is a great lie detector, and always seems to know when Marji isn't telling her the truth. Marji calls her mother a "dictator" (15.24), equating her with some of the biggest villains in the war, but only because she doesn't understand that her mother isn't restricting her freedoms for the fun of it. Honestly, she's doing it to keep her daughter alive. Iran is a dangerous place, so we think Marji's mom is allowed to be a little over-protective. In fact, for living in a constant war zone, she allows her daughter a ton of freedom to make her own mistakes and learn from them. If Marji was sequestered away from the rest of the world, like many young women in Iran were at the time, she wouldn't have grown up to be the woman that wrote this book. Marjane s Father Marjane's dad is a photographer, and he often finds himself in dangerous situations, photographing political protests. Although he's playing a small role in the revolution (someone has to document the horrors that are happening, and it's not like he can just tweet about them in the 1980s), Marji has trouble rationalizing the fact that her father is not a hero. "My father was not a hero. [ ] If only he had been in prison" ( ), she says. It takes her a long time to change her narrow definition of hero. A hero isn't just a person who goes to jail for standing up what he believes in. Marji's dad is a man who stands up for what he believes in, after all he just happens not to get caught. Marji eventually realizes that "he loved his country as much as I did" (11.36), and just has a different way of showing it. Because of his more thoughtful, less physical, nature, he is very sceptical. He checks everything out from two different news sources and likes hearing the other side of the story. As a result, he's a great source of information on what is really going on in Iran, both for Marjane and for us. 12 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

13 When Marjane returns to Iran after living in Vienna, she sees just how beaten and broken down her parents are from staying in the country. After talking to her father about the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iran over the previous few years, she observes, "I didn't feel any real conviction in his voice. He seemed to me as blasé as my mother" (29.76). Her father always hoped to enact social change and, well, it never happened. No wonder he is tired and worn out. The only good to come of this is that he devotes his passion and energy into Marjane. Maybe she can be the one to change the world. Marjane s Grandmother Grandma is a very influential figure in Marji's life. She lies to the soldiers about having diabetes so that they can dump all the wine in the toilet; she keeps her bra fresh with lavender; she tells Marji that she soaks her breasts in a bowl of ice water for ten minutes every morning and night, to keep them round and firm. Oh yeah and she tells her to "always keep your dignity and be true to yourself" (19.55). This whole keeping her dignity and being true to herself thing is probably the most important lesson for Marji, and it's also the most difficult thing for her to achieve. Marjane thinks of her Grandma while living in Vienna, when she "managed to deny [her] nationality" (24.35), and she uses that memory of her grandmother to assert herself and feel good about her identity. However, Marjane backslides a bit later, after moving back to Iran. She ends up turning in an innocent man to avoid getting herself taken away during a raid. She relays the story to Grandma, thinking it's funny, but Grandma's not having it. "I think that you're a selfish bitch! That's what I think!!!" (33.46), she says. Grandma reminds Marjane that her ancestors fought for freedom, not for imprisoning innocents, and this reminder is exactly what Marjane needs. She loves and respects her Grandma, and, hey, Grandma is always right. Marjane decides that she needs to act in a way that will ensure Grandma will never yell at her again. Uncle Anoosh Marji's Uncle Anoosh has had a crazy life. His uncle helped Azerbaijan declare its independence, and he himself was a revolutionary who escaped Iran for the Soviet Union. His personal life was always in turmoil, too. Although he married and had two kids with a woman in the U.S.S.R., it wasn't a happy marriage, and he's scratched her face out in the family pictures he still has. That's some deep-seeded resentment there. Normally you don't see someone's face blurred out in photos unless it's the girl from The Ring, but Anoosh is very angry about his marriage. He never says why, only saying that Russians "aren't like us. It's hearts they don't have. They don't know how to love" ( ). His Russian bride was such a terrible experience in fact, that being imprisoned in Iran for nine years is an upgrade for him. "What my wife made me suffer was much worse" (8.52), he says. Ouch. When Marji's dad tells her that Anoosh left to go back to Russia, she knows this isn't true. Being "on a trip" is code for dead. It turns out that Anoosh isn't dead yet he's just in 13 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

14 prison, and she gets to visit him one last time before he dies. She's the one he wants to see, and he calls her the "star of my life" (9.55). Mehri Mehri is the family maid who started working for them when she was eight years old. She would have been Marji's friend if not for the fact that she's basically "the help". Despite being a maid, Mehri was more like the older sister Marjane never had. Only ten when Marjane was born, Mehri even refers to Marji as her sister when Marji is writing love letters for her because Mehri can't write. We only get to know Mehri over about six pages. She falls in love with the neighbour, but is shamed by his rejection when Marjane's father tells the neighbour that Mehri is of the servant class and forbidden to date him. This class distinction is arbitrary to young Marjane, and it marks a turning point in her life when she starts thinking about how unfairly people of lower classes are treated. But after that chapter, we never see Mehri again; later on, the family has a different maid. Siamak Jari and Mohsen Shakiba These two guys were imprisoned for rebelling against the government, and their fates are not pretty. In prison, they were tortured: whipped, burned with irons, had their fingernails pulled out. They are the first political prisoners Marji meets. She respects them, but her tendency for hero worship leads her to respect them at the expense of respecting her father. Unfortunately, their freedom is short-lived: "All the former revolutionaries became the sworn enemies of the republic" (9.35). Mohsen gets drowned in his bathtub when the new regime takes over, and Siamak is targeted too, though he manages to flee. Marjane seems to include their stories to show us that one regime in Iran is no better than the previous one. Mali Mali is a friend of Marji's mom, and when her house is bombed, she comes to stay with the family for a while. Her arrival provides important insights into what is going on in Iran politically, in addition to providing cultural comparison between Marjane's family and others. Whereas politics are at the forefront of Marjane's family's minds, Mali's family seems pretty out of touch with reality. Marji's dad doesn't like Mali's husband because he's too materialistic, a quality that's been passed down to their children. For instance, though their house has been bombed, all they can think about are their Star Wars figures. Uncle Taher Being Marji's uncle seems to be bad luck (be sure to read about Uncle Anoosh in this section), and Uncle Taher is no exception. He has a heart attack, and needs to go to England to have heart surgery. But Iran, being the paranoid place full of freedom restrictions that it is, will not give him a passport in a timely manner. Taher's one wish is to see his son one last time. Marji's family tries, and almost succeeds, at getting him a fake passport, but the man who will make the fake gets caught and has to flee the country. Uncle Taher dies and is buried on the same day as his official passport arrives. 14 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

15 Just to twist the knife into our heart even deeper, Marji tells us, "He never got to see his son" (16.56). Lucia Lucia is Marjane's roommate at the boarding school in Vienna. Before meeting her, Marjane imagines that Lucia might look a little like Heidi. When they finally meet, there's a huge language barrier between them. They try to find some common ground by sharing food with one another: Marjane shares some Iranian pistachios and Lucia shares a Knorr soup. While Lucia isn't the roommate from hell, she still blow-dries her hair at 6:30 every morning. We don't think Lucia means bad; it's just cultural differences and an inability to communicate on both their parts. Julie and Momo Marjane meets Julie at the school in Vienna, and Julie introduces her to Momo, Thierry, and Oliver. We don't really get to know any of them very much (Marjane doesn't talk about hardly any of her friends for more than a chapter) aside from Julie and Momo. Momo is the eccentric of the group: someone with a Mohawk, round glasses, unusual earrings, and a unique fashion sense, who goes around saying things like "life is pain" (24.28). We have to wonder how much of this is purely a persona, a façade he puts on for show. He kisses everyone on the lips when he meets them, even men (technically he is Marjane's first kiss) and is fascinated with death. However, he gets a little irritated when Marjane, who has seen plenty of death first-hand in war-torn Iran, turns out to be more of an expert on the Grim Reaper than he is. We see a little more of Julie, and we do mean more of Julie. When Marjane moves in with her, she realizes that Julie is having sex. And outside of marriage, too. She's even on the pill. She also dates "mature" (22.4) men and smokes and drinks. Frau Doctor Heller She calls Marjane a prostitute for bringing her boyfriend home (and this in Vienna, a city more sexually liberated than Iran); and she blames Marjane for everything that goes wrong, like stealing her bracelet. We have to wonder, though, if she's as bad as Marjane says she is. It's not like Marjane is exactly a treat to live with at that time. Kia Kia is one of Marjane's childhood friends. He helped her bully another kid with some homemade iron knuckles back in the day when torture seemed fun to a child, and he also served in the war while Marjane was away in Vienna. He came back missing both his left leg and his left arm. Marjane has trouble dealing with this severe disability it's the handicapped elephant in the room, and she wants to address it, but she doesn't want him to have to talk about it either. It makes their reunion difficult. However Kia, like Marjane, turns to humour to cope. He tells her a bawdy joke about a disabled soldier, and they're able to laugh and chat like they never spent years apart. She says "the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it" (30.69). His story is a testament to the power of humour and a good dirty joke. 15 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

16 Reza Marjane and Reza are extreme opposites. Yes, people say opposites attract, but we get the feeling this isn t going to work out. Reza is a painter, and Marjane is a painter. And that's all they have in common. Marjane says "we complemented each other" (32.34), which is true. The problem is they don't compliment each other. They're not very nice to one another, which is kind of important in a relationship. Marjane and Reza decide to marry, but the reason seems to be less romantic and more societal. Iran kind of expects people to be married. Marjane doesn't realize that she's caving to societal pressure, but her dad does. He makes sure Reza grants Marjane a "right to divorce" (36.11) and encourages her to exercise this right: "Live together as long as you feel truly happy. Life is too short to be lived badly" (36.13). 16 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

17 Themes with Supporting Quotations Iran Contrasted with Other Countries Persepolis explores what it's like to grow up in Iran, and to be misunderstood no matter where you go simply because of where you came from. 1. "You think I'm stupid?!!!... I can tell by your tie! Piece of westernized trash!" (14.33) Being called westernized is an insult in Iran. It's the most ironic of insults, too, considering how many people secretly idolize western culture, like pop music and movie stars. 2. It had been four years since I'd seen such a well-stocked store. [ ] Even today, after all this time, you can always find at least a dozen boxes of good-smelling laundry powder in my house. (20.38, ) Marjane locks onto grocery stores and detergent as symbols of Western safety. In Iran, they can barely find bread sometimes because people hoard food due to the constant threat of war. Detergent is a sign of both safety and a little bit of Western excess. 3. "It's wonderful to have international friends." (21.47) This attitude seems to be the exception in many places in the world, especially when it comes to Iranians, whom many people are scared of. Lucia's family, however, enjoys meeting Marjane and talking to her about her culture. Marjane relishes the brief opportunity to be treated as a human instead of as a scary Iranian. 4. "It's true what they say about Iranians. They have no education." (22. 32) This is coming from a nun. A nun. Even Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act wouldn't mouth off like this. But it just goes to show us how widespread hatred for Iranians is. Even nuns in Vienna hate them. 5. I was distancing myself from my culture, betraying my parents and my origins. [ ] I was playing a game by somebody else's rules. (24.29) Do you think Marjane is being too hard on herself? After all, pretty much any place she goes is going to have different rules than Iran. She has to compromise a little in order to fit in, right? Or does she compromise too much? 6. "I AM IRANIAN AND PROUD OF IT!" (24.47) Today, this would be akin to shouting that you have a bomb in an airport. While it wasn't as dangerous back in Vienna in the 1980s, it still doesn't win Marjane any friends. Most people, even then, look upon Iranians with disdain and fear. 17 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

18 7. My eight housemates were eight men, all homosexuals. (25.4) This is a huge change for Marjane because, as you may or may not know, there are no homosexuals in Iran. At least, that's what Iran wants you to think. 8. "As soon as they learn our nationality, they go through everything, as though we were all terrorists. They treat us as though we have the plague." (25.42) The way the world treats Iranians affects them greatly. Their morale isn't just beaten down by their own government, it's beaten down by the world. It must be hard to stand up for yourself when everyone makes you feel like you're worthless. 9. It had been so long since I'd been able to talk to someone without having to explain my culture. (25.62) Marjane has a hard time being an Iranian anywhere in the world. Even outside Iran, she's constantly having to explain Iran. It must be exhausting. She has a good time just relating to her mother on a person-to-person level. Maybe this is why when people from other countries get together, they prefer speaking their culture's language instead of English. 10. I didn't understand why the mother-in-law [on TV] hated the hairdresser so much. Much later, I got to know a girl who dubbed television shows. She told me that Oshin was in fact a Geisha and since her profession didn't suit Islamic morals, the director of the channel had decided that she'd be a hairdresser. (31.17) This isn't TV it's not HBO, either it's ridiculous censorship. The director didn't make any effort to change the context, he just changed one word and assumed his viewers would swallow it without question. Sadly, most of them probably did. That's how Iran is the place it is: many people swallow what those in power tell them without questioning it. It's how all sorts of places operate. Women and Femininity Women are constantly judged by what they wear. Iran gets around this by setting a strict dress code for women. The thing is, though, telling women what to wear is just the first step toward limiting their rights. They're also told how to act, what to think, and how to raise a family. 1. Then came 1980: the year it became obligatory to wear the veil at school. (1.4) One thing that's important to note is that only women wear the veil. The boys' clothes change, but they're never as restrictive as a veil. 2. I wanted to be an educated, liberated woman. And if the pursuit of knowledge meant getting cancer, so be it. (10.14) 18 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

19 Marji really wants to be independent, even if like Marie Curie she does so at the expense of her health. As we've said a few times, freedom always comes at a price, even if we're talking about the freedom that comes with gender equality. 3. "They insulted me. They said that women like me should be pushed up against a wall and fucked and then thrown in the garbage." (10.19) This traumatic experience happens to Marji's mother because she's not wearing a veil. Iran decides to let the rapists win instead of punishing these men, their solution is to repress women further, and make them all veil their bodies. By doing this, they are also saying that all men are rapists who cannot control their urges. Neither sex wins when this attitude prevails. 4. "[Marji] should start learning to defend her rights as a woman right now!" (10.32) Marji gets a lot of her feminist nature from her mother. If her mother was the type of person to wear the veil and force Marji into wearing it also, without having a discussion about how wrong she felt it was, Marji would be a different person. We probably wouldn't have this book were it not for her mother's influence. 5. "Soon, it won't just be food. With all those sluts out there, we're going to have to watch our husbands." (12.42) Persepolis just got real. It's incredible how fast the women of Iran turn against each other, referring to other women as sluts for no reason other than to shame them and humiliate them in public. 6. "They told him that in Paradise there will be plenty of food, women, and houses made of gold and diamonds." "Women?" "Yeah. Well, he's fourteen years old. That's exciting." ( ) The government uses women as a propaganda tactic to lure boys into war. All this really does is reinforce to the boys of Iran that women are no more than property. 7. "It's against the law to kill a virgin, so a guardian of the revolution marries her and takes her virginity before executing her. Do you understand what that means??" ( ) The implications of this are insane. It further illustrates how much women are considered property, objects to be used by the men of Iran. It also helps explain why Marji's mother is super-protective of her daughter. As women, Marji and her mom have more to fear in Iran than men do. It's a dangerous place for women. 19 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

20 8. Simone [de Beauvoir] explained that if women peed standing up, their perception of life would change. [ ] As an Iranian woman, before learning to urinate like a man, I needed to learn to become a liberated and emancipated woman. (22.22, 22.23) Standing up and peeing like a man is a purely symbolic act for Marjane to recognize her independence. It doesn't actually do anything except get her leg all wet. It does, however, help her to realize that she needs to take concrete actions to assert herself. 9. From the moment I arrived at the Mehrabad airport and caught sight of the first customs agent, I immediately felt the repressive air of my country. (29.1) That repressive air is heightened by the fact that all the woman, including Marjane, have to wear the veil. It's hard to read. 10. What's the difference between you and a whore???" (31.24) Marjane has some great friends: Despite wanting to be "liberated" women, they judge Marjane and her sexuality. How hypocritical. Coming of Age Teen angst is the same everywhere in the world. Whether teens are growing up in the U.S., Vienna, France, or Iran, they're busy learning about themselves and exploring their identities. They learn about themselves in relation to their friends and family, and often they use music too, and Marji is no different. 1. I realized then that I didn't understand anything. I read all the books I could. (4.40) After listening to a conversation between her parents and her grandparents, Marji realizes that she's simply too young to understand the adults' conversation. She decides to read, but we have to wonder if that's an adequate replacement for life experience. 2. "His father did it, but it's not Ramin's fault." (6.34) This is important advice from Mom that young Marji is getting old enough to understand. She had just bullied a boy because of something his father did, but as she gets older, she's starting to gain some perspective. She even does the Big Girl thing and apologizes. 3. "My God! He repeats what they tell him." (6.38) Here she is again calling attention to the general ignorance of children they repeat what their parents tell them. We're not sure if this ever changes, because let's face it: as Marji gets older, she becomes a combination of both her parents' ideals. Even as an adult, she's still repeating what her parents say, to some extent. It's just filtered. 20 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

21 4. "Don't you know that when [parents] keep saying someone is on a trip it really means he is dead?" (7.7) Marji is at an awkward social stage where she understands that her parents are kind of lying to her, but she still doesn't understand that it isn't socially acceptable to tell a friend that her dad is dead. 5. If I wanted to be friends with 14-year-olds, I had to do it. (15.7) Marji has reached an age where she wants to have older friends. The problem is that she's not mature enough to pretend to act like a fourteen-year-old, and she ends up making a lot of mistakes. Though maybe that's what growing up is about. 6. "I will always be true to myself." (19.58) Marji tells herself this in the mirror at age fourteen, and she grapples with this for the rest of the book and probably for the rest of her life. We say this a lot, but maybe this is what growing up is about: learning who you are, and staying true to that. That's what it's like for Marjane, at least. 7. I headed straight for the supermarket to buy groceries like a woman. (20.37) This is the first thing Marjane does after she finds herself in the boarding school in Vienna. Does buying groceries on one's own make you a woman? She also starts going by Marjane instead of Marji at this time, so there's that to factor in, too. 8. My mental transformation was followed by my physical metamorphosis. (24.1) This statement is accompanied by an image of Marjane looking like the hulk, ripping through clothing. It's an appropriate comparison, seeing how she grows seven inches in a year and totally changes. 9. It was beginning to look like something. (24.11) And she doesn't mean beginning to look a lot like Christmas either. She's talking about finding her personal style, which is very important as a teenager. Marjane spends a lot of time crafting her unique look, and the fact that her character stands out on every page shows that she succeeded. 10. I decided to take this little problem as a sign. It was time to finish with the past and to look forward to the future. Marjane returns home to her room, including a too-small desk and punk rock posters she's not into anymore. When she looks for her tapes, she can't find them turns out her mom 21 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

22 gave them away. Marjane decides to throw away all the stuff from her childhood and move on. We think this might mark the last step on her journey to adulthood. She's found her identity, and she doesn't need things around that symbolize her struggle for it anymore. Warfare No matter where you live in the world, you probably know what war is like in some aspect. Perhaps you, a friend, or family member has served in the armed services. Or perhaps your hometown has been the subject of attack. In Persepolis, Marjane lives in Tehran, which is subject to relentless bombing throughout Marjane's childhood there. Many of her friends and family members also either serve in the war or are prisoners of war. She makes it perfectly clear that war is hell, no matter how you experience it. 1. The revolution is like a bicycle. When the wheels don't turn, it falls. (2.4) This is a good quotation from a very young Marji, and it's true. We'd like to add that a revolution is like a really long tandem bicycle. It takes a lot of riders to keep it going, and they have to be in sync. If one person stops, the whole thing is going to tip over. 2. "Marji, run to the basement! We're being bombed!" (9.60) It would be easy to say that the war begins with the sound of bombs dropping, but there was a slow-boil building up to it. Things have been festering under the surface for a long time before they explode. 3. "The Iranian fundamentalists tried to stir up their Iraqi Shiite allies against Saddam. [ ] He's always wanted to invade Iran. And here's the pretext. It's the second Arab invasion." (10.50) Iran seems to be living in a time warp, dealing with invasions every thousand years or so. Why are they perpetually at war? Could it be because of every regime's insistence on cultural ignorance? By ignoring the mistakes of the past, they might be doomed to repeat them. 4. "Dad [ ] are you going to war? Are you going to fight? We have to teach those Iraqis a lesson!" (11.11) Marji gets a little wrapped up in Iranian nationalism, which isn't exactly a bad thing. She also has to grapple with the fact that her father can be a hero without going to war. In fact, fighting wouldn't even be the best place for her father since he's an intellectual. He shows us that there's room for more than just brute force even when a country is at war. 5. War always takes you by surprise. (11.19) This is a good quotation, but we have to ask, does it really? Haven't they been expecting war the whole time, what with all the political turmoil? Is it just the act of war that takes you by surprise, like the bomb that almost kills your family? 22 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

23 6. After the border towns, Tehran became the bombers' main target. (14.1) War often starts out small and escalates. The Iraqi bombers didn't directly affect Marji's family's lives until they changed their focus to Tehran, which is where they live. Although the family hides in the basement, they also start rebelling more at this time. Maybe the closer war hits to home, the stronger your reaction is. 7. While people were dying in our country, she was talking to me about trivial things. (20.13) Well, you can take the girl out of Iran but you can't take Iran out of the girl. Marji believes that all Iranians should be concerned about the war in Iran, and gets mad when Shirin, Zozo's daughter, is not. Does she have a point? Should Shirin shut up about gloves and be more politically active? What can she do all the way in Vienna? 8. "Everything has to be rebuilt now." "While we wait for the next war which will destroy everything again." (29.44) Marjane's mother says the second line here, and Marjane calls her mother "disillusioned" (29.47). Is she disillusioned or realistic? Iran has been at war for over 2000 years it seems. She's right that there will be another one eventually. Does that mean they shouldn't rebuild? 9. "The entire war was just a big setup to destroy both the Iranian and the Iraqi armies. The former was the most powerful in the Middle East in 1980, and the latter represented a real danger to Israel." (29.53) Here's another reason that Iran will never be at peace: other powers pit them against other countries. Marjane's dad is referring to U.S. and British involvement in these wars in the 1980s and '90s. What are these countries' relationships with Iran like now? We bet that, whenever you read this, they're not good. 10. In 1994, the year of my marriage, Iraq attacked Kuwait. (37.1) It's pretty morbid to remember the year of your marriage by thinking about what war happened then, but in Iran, there's always a war happening. So it might be morbid, but it's not unusual for an Iranian to do this. Especially since this war in the Middle East will likely directly impact Marjane's life in Iran. Politics Politics in Iran are a life-or-death situation. While the U.S. has The Daily Show and The Onion to satirize politics, and talking-heads on CNN and Fox News to argue until they're blue in the face, Iran regulates everything. They control the media, and they don't just restrict freedom of speech for people who oppose the regime: they kill them. 23 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

24 1. In 1979 a revolution took place. It was later called "The Islamic Revolution." (1.3) This quote does two things: (1) It sets the scene Marji is growing up in a time of political turmoil, and (2) it shows us that revolutions are only named after the fact, which is an interesting way to think about history. 2. "I love the king. He was chosen by God. [ ] That's what it says on the first page of our schoolbook." (3.6, 3.10) This quotation is such a messy stew of religion, education, and monarchy that it could only go under the theme of politics. Politics tries to find its way into all aspects of life, and the current regime wants to brainwash kids at a very young age. That is why they tell them that God chose the king; a kid won't ever want to go against God's wishes. 3. "Since the dawn of time, dynasties have succeeded each other but the kings have always kept their promises. The Shah kept none." (4.11) We never thought we'd meet anyone more dishonest than a western politician, but the Shah takes the cake. He doesn't just take the cake, either he takes it, eats it, and spits the crumbs in the face of his kingdom. He makes things hard for everyone. 4. We had demonstrated on the very day we shouldn't have: on "Black Friday." That day there were so many killed in one of the neighbourhoods that a rumour spread that Israeli soldiers were responsible for the slaughter. But in fact it was really our own who had attacked us. ( ) This is a complicated quotation to unpack. When Marji says it was their own who attacked them, she's referring to two things: (1) The scandal surrounding the attack that was blamed on Israeli soldiers, and (2) the people who slapped them for protesting on that day. Politically, Iran is still conflicted, and plagued by people attacking their own. 5. As long as there is oil in the Middle East we will never have peace. (6.15) Oil is a huge political motivator, because it's desired by every industrialized country. 6. Politics and sentiment don't mix. (6.17) Marji's father is talking about the relationship between Egypt and the Shah, but the same quotation can be applied to Marji's internal conflict regarding her feelings and her politics. You've heard the phrase it's business, not personal, but sometimes business is really personal. 7. "The elections were faked and they believe the results." (9.5) 24 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English

25 We're not sure if this is Marji's father telling the truth or him buying into political propaganda, but he definitely believes that this is the truth. 8. "The regime got scared because if these opponents had reached Tehran, they would have freed those who represented a real threat to the government " (29.66) Marjane's dad talks a lot about Iranian politics in this chapter, and it can be confusing, especially for an outsider. The short of it is this: the few in power killed hundreds of thousands of people to ensure they stayed in power. That's some corruption right there. Notice that Dad says "real threat to the government," instead of a real threat to the people. The powers that be are not concerned with the people only themselves. 9. Between 1980 and 1983, the government had imprisoned and executed so many high-school and college students that we no longer dared to talk politics. (35.22) Fearmongering is the main political tool in Iran. Disagree with your official? Go to jail. 10. The regime had absolute power and most people, in search of a cloud of happiness, had forgotten their political conscience. (37.28) The Iranians seem to have forgotten that politics directly impact their lives. Instead of staying involved (remember all the protests?), they stay at home and watch cable TV. If they don't stay involved, how will they keep past mistakes from recurring? Freedom and Confinement It's easy to take certain freedoms for granted: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. Many times, we don't notice our freedoms until they're gone. This is what happens to the people of Iran in the 1980s, when Marjane Satrapi's story begins. Revolutionaries who speak out against the regime are executed; everyone is expected to dress as though they are Muslim fundamentalists, especially women who need head-to-toe coverings and a veil. 1. We didn't really like to wear the veil, especially since we didn't understand why we had to. (1.5) The reason why women have to wear restrictive clothing is pretty much "because we said so." It's simply a way to limit freedom and limit the ability to express yourself through your hairstyle. 2. "[The police] forbade people to rescue those locked inside." (2.24) This is a double dose of oppression here. Not only are the police locking people inside a theatre to burn, they're forbidding others to rescue them. It's a brutal act that no one should have to witness. 25 Persepolis Leaving Certificate Revision Notes English