PERSEPOLIS:

THE BICYCLE
BY ABIGAIL GOODRICH ANAYA
WRITER
Marjane Satrapi
 ◦ The setting in my chapter “the bicycle” is the
garden, cinema, and family home. It is taking place

OCASSION of course as she is still a young girl. They are also

still in the beginning of this revolution.
CHOICES
◦ Satrapi made sure her writing was
convenient and straightforward in
Persepolis, which allows readers to have a
better understanding of the story. As well ,
she uses clear terminology that helps reach a
broader audience and allows for more
people to understand it.
 ◦ Persepolis shows the intersection between
religion and modern times, as well as the
impact of repression from religious beliefs
SUBJECT and practices that force other to endure it by
being a part of the religion.
AUDIENCE
◦The author wrote the novel first in French in order
to reach westerners with her message, but it was
then later adapted into many other languages
including Farsi, the authors first language.
 ◦ It seems that the author assumes that readers have
ASSUPTION background knowledge of Iranian culture and war.
Moreover, she believes that you know about the
S procedures in place over there.
 ◦ The story line of Persepolis takes place during the late
CONTEXT 1970’s in the Iranian capital city of Tehran. During this
time period, the country of Iran was undergoing major
AND political changes that would forever change the social
and political landscapes of the nation.
CULTURE
IMAGES
 The images only

COLOR
contained very
uniform colors.
Those being both
white and black.
 ◦The text of this story was written in the format of a
comic. This allows there to be more of a visual
TEXT aspect to the story making it even more appealing
to readers.
 ◦ PATHOS
◦ Pathos was seen in the scene where the cinema is burnt down
because it makes you feel hurt and sad to know that 400 people
were lost that night and firemen didn’t show up till 40 minutes

RHETORICAL after the fire had started and it makes you angry the police didn’t
allow anyone to try and help rescue the people inside burning

APPEALS alive. It also makes you upset that the Shah blamed the incident
on a religious fanatic group when in reality everyone knew it was
the Shah’s fault.
◦ LOGOS
◦ Logos for me is seen with the logical reactions everyone has to
the massacre and wanting to protest the very next day.
TONE

◦ The tone in this chapter is very serious as well as tragic due to all the lives lost in this chapter. We see
the seriousness in this chapter is seen by the intensity protest are going to bring and we also see deceit
with the shah being responsible for all the deaths and blaming it on someone else.
PURPOSE
◦She wanted to provide an alternative outlook into Iran for “westerners” who consumed the false and
negative media attention given to Iran at that time.
EFFECTIVENESS
◦I believe she was very effective in delivering
her point in this chapter of and the whole book
of providing an alternative outlook into Iran
other than from negative and false media.
 ◦ https://library.scotch.wa.edu.au/english/year12/pers
REFERENCE epolis/context#:~:text=Historical%20context,politi
cal%20landscapes%20of%20the%20nation

S .