Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

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Structuring a memoir as a comic book to tell her life story in Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi gives a compelling account of what it was like to grow up in revolutionary Iran. Throughout the work, Satrapi focuses on herself as Marjane as she accounts for the violence that is inflicted upon the people of her community as a regime takes over her home country. At the age of 6, Marjane finds herself dreaming of becoming a prophet to save the world of the violence that threatens it. Aging out of childhood optimism, into adolescence, Marjane’s idea of social innovation is modified as she becomes aware of the violent forces that control her community—the forces that ultimately control her. As an older-aged teen, this violent reality pulls Marjane away from her dream of becoming a changemaker and more towards a lifestyle of violence. In direct response to the regime’s governing power over her thoughts, her attitude, and appearance, Marjane’s identity gradually shifts as she loses a war that rages on between her own wishes and the desires of the regulating government above her. Pairing Marjane’s anger and pain with the regime’s controlling forces, Satrapi depicts the violent nature of war and shows how the bullets are not always tangible. …show more content…

It is these fundamental rules that will grant vehicles to the inhabitants of Marjane’s fantasy society and what will allow maids to eat dinner with the families they

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