English A: Literature

Reflective Statement and Written Assignment

How is memory significant in Marji’s characterization in Marjane

Satrapi’s Persepolis?

Reflective Statement Word Count: 358

Written Assignment Word Count: 1300

Candidate code: hsb425

Class level: Higher Level

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“Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return.” Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi, Pantheon Books,
2007, p. 40.

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Reflective Statement

In her graphic novel Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi used many different techniques do develop

certain themes and the interactive oral deeply improved my understanding of both these techniques

and themes.

Before the interactive oral, Satrapi’s use of color did not make sense to me as I thought she

was randomly choosing the panels that would have white backgrounds and the ones that would have

darker backgrounds. After listening to my fellow classmates, I realized that she actually used the

white backgrounds to represent happy or neutral situations and the dark backgrounds were saved for

the less joyful scenes.

Regarding the themes that are present in this graphic novel, a few of them were rather

difficult for me to comprehend. The excessive firmness of the government was the most complex

theme to me because it is not easy to relate to my own culture. I did not understand the government

because I did not see why the government had to force women to wear veils. In Senegal, people

believe that wearing a veil without the will is worthless. After the interactive oral, this theme that had

been so difficult for me to comprehend became very simple because I had to opportunity to discuss it

with my classmates. Iran was led by a religious government thus the law became religious to a point

that not being a Muslim was to them a crime and was condemned by the law.

Other themes such as the consumption of alcohol by people who were supposedly Muslims

were easier for me to understand because they can be related to Senegalese culture but the interactive

oral helped me deepen my knowledge of the theme. The Muslim community that drank alcohol in

Iran never consumed the product to excess and always made sure then hid every trace of alcohol

when the authorities questioned them. In Senegal, even though it is not very frequent, Muslims who

do drink alcohol also try to hide and not let it be known because Muslims who drink alcohol have a

very bad image.

This interactive oral was a very instructive experience that helped me understand Marjane

Satrapi’s work on a deeper level.

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Written Assignment

Persepolis is an autobiography written by Iranian author Marjane Satrapi as a graphic novel.

The story is narrated in the past tense thus showing the presence of her memory and is divided into

two main parts respectively called Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2 which both took place in the 1980s

and 1990s. Persepolis 1 is mainly set in Tehran and tells us about Marji’s life during the Iranian

revolution whereas Persepolis 2’s main setting is in Vienna when Marji’s parents sent her away for

safety reasons. She initially grew up in the oppressed city of Tehran, later moved to Vienna to run

away from the war, lost herself due to bad influence and eventually decided to return to her home in

Tehran. From the beginning, Satrapi quickly characterizes herself as a rebellious, open-minded and

stubborn girl who seemed to get in many difficult situations. Without any form of analysis, the

readers may come to think that the strong personality developed by Marji was due to the situation her

country was in at the time and though some of her character traits truly originated from there, her

memory plays a big role in her controversial characterization. In her graphic novel Persepolis, Satrapi

allows the readers to perceive her memory through her use of past tense and her various flashbacks.

She uses this to characterize herself as a constantly evolving person in order to break Iranian

stereotypes of this era.

Throughout the autobiography, Satrapi narrated her entire story using the past tense in order

to effectively show the effect memory had on her personality. Satrapi tells her story basing herself on

the vague memory that her older self had of her childhood, which is why the novel only features a

brief moment of her life before the war. The first panel shows her at the very beginning of the

revolution looking full of dissent with the caption “This is me when I was 10 years old. This was in

1980” 2. This panel serves as an introductory panel and she uses the past tense as a way to announce

that the entire story is based on her memory of the past. Using this image to describe her younger self

2
“The Veil.” Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, vol. 1, Pantheon Books, 2007, p. 3.

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shows how the memory of her happy childhood was somehow baffled by her memory of the

revolution. All she remembered from this part of her life was how the revolution and the war were

both about to strip her of her happiness but also of her childhood. Using the past tense also allows the

readers to point out the fact that this portion of her life is over and that she is writing in an evolved

state. Before the war officially broke, memory was not yet very present in Marji’s life, which meant

that she had not yet found who she truly was because she was still too young. The start of the war

somewhat pushed her to grow up faster than she should have. Because of this, her memories slowly

became more and more important as she began to build her personality.

As Marji grew older and moved to Vienna, Satrapi started including various sequences of

nostalgia and flashbacks in order to highlight her evolution as a person. When she first arrived in

Vienna, she lived with her aunt but was not welcome there. After staying a few days, she was quickly

put in a boarding house managed by nuns but she did not get along with them very long. She spent a

lot of time remembering her family in Iran and these memories generated a deeply anchored feeling

of nostalgia. This nostalgia followed her for a long while and eventually created an inferiority

complex during her first few months in Vienna. As a matter of fact, Marji was afraid that her peers

would judge her because of her origins. To avoid this dreaded discrimination, she attempted to drown

all of her memories by passing herself off as a French student. This worked for a while and she was

able to fit into different groups but her classmates quickly found out that she actually was from Iran

and all her memories came rushing back leaving her in an ocean of loneliness and depression. In

Persepolis 2, Satrapi captions one of the flashbacks: “I wanted to forget everything, to make my past

disappear, but my unconscious caught up with me” 3. In this sequence she reefers to her memory and

her unconscious to show that she did not want it but it kept coming back on its own. Marji constantly

compared the situation she currently was in to older situations from her childhood using her memory.

By doing this, she quickly develops an urge to constantly evolve in life but her evolution does not

necessarily make her happy. This deep sadness leads her to forget who she really is and gets her into

various problems. She went through a rough period of poverty and illness and finally decided to go

3
“The Vegetable.” Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, vol. 2, Pantheon Books, 2007, p. 40.

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home to Tehran. She had a few flashbacks of her old life and her family, which lead her to feel

ashamed of the person she had become: “I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather

than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made

my parents proud after all the sacrifices they had made for me. The shame of having become a

mediocre nihilist.” 4. Most of these flashbacks are drawn onto black backgrounds in order to show

how they represent dark and unhappy memories to the protagonist. She was unable to forget these

memories, no matter how hard she tried and eventually realized that the only solution for her was for

her to accept them and use them to evolve.

Marji’s memory was clearly a key component of her characterization, which allowed Satrapi

to break the common Iranian stereotypes. A few of these stereotypes are that all Iranians hate

westerners, all Iranians are extremely fundamentalist or even that women in Iran are excessively

oppressed. Satrapi wrote her autobiography to let the world know that many Iranians did not

correspond to this image. On the contrary, many of them just wanted to forget the revolution and

move on with their lives. Marji attempted to do this but eventually realized that trying to subjugate

her memories was not the way to go. After a long period of rebuilding herself in Tehran and learning

to accept her past Marji decided to live a new life in France, this time without trying to get rid of all

her memories. As she makes this decision, Satrapi slowly starts to reduce the flashbacks. This shows

the readers how once she decided to use her memory to her advantage, it stopped haunting her and

became her strength. Many Iranians went through similar struggles after the revolution and by

illustrating this, Satrapi was able to prove to the readers that stereotypes were not always true.

In her graphic novel Persepolis, Satrapi uses her memory to characterize herself as a person

who constantly seeks evolution and perfection. Her use of the past tense shows how she had a

difficult childhood due to her country’s crisis and her flashbacks show the readers how those bad

memories followed her forever. Marji was happy every time she was able to forget her memories but

whenever they returned, she fell back into her depression. The only way she could live a happy life

4
“The Veil.” Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, vol. 2, Pantheon Books, 2007, p. 90.

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was by accepting that those memories were a part of her personality and that they are a motivation

for her evolution, not a burden. Throughout this autobiography in the form of a graphic novel,

Marjane Satrapi effectively helped the reader understand that most Iranians lived by these extremist

rules against their will, thus breaking many common stereotypes.

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