Persepolis By Marjane Satrapi

The interviews of Marjane Satrapi greatly developed my sense for her as an author, artist, and graphic novelist. The interviews didn’t quite change my understanding of the novel but they definitely gave me a better understanding of it by giving me more insight into the author. For instance, in the beginning of the book there is a page in which Marjane and the girls she is in school with are playing with their chadors as if they are toys. Although I knew this was in fact a true story I never really thought hard about how serious of an offense this was to those that supported the revolution. Additionally, in an interview Marjane explains how she and her friends would throw parties but something I didn’t realize was that, even though they were

Take Persepolis for example, by looking deeply into the story itself and gaining understanding of Marjane, one can draw conclusions as to what the intent was for writing it. The intent of Persepolis seems to be the basic idea of projecting this real-life story of a young woman, that was extremely tough and heartbreaking, out into the world so that everyone can gain a better understanding of what happened. Similarly, when writing a story, a writer usually has a hope to give the reader a take away. A take away is hugely important because it is sort of the most memorable part of a story, it is the information that the reader will hold onto and remember for much longer than the exact details of a story. Although this is usually a writer’s goal, to give all its readers an idea that will stick with them, it is not always how the reception of a story goes. For instance, due to the basic subjective nature of humans, one person could love the story of Persepolis while another could find it boring or uninteresting. The take away that someone has from an art piece, whether that be a graphic novel or a painting, is highly important but it is personal to each

One of the ones that was spoken about more than others was the fact that Persepolis was a graphic novel. She spoke about how in her childhood she read a graphic novel called Maus and how it forever stuck with her because she loved it so much. The idea of a graphic novel for her first book was simply because she thinks with images and visualization. Another theme that was spoken about in the interviews was her parents. What I found so interesting was that Marjane said that in her childhood her mother was like a dictator, which contrasted with how I thought she viewed her mother in the novel. The interviews were very interesting and helpful and allowing for me to better understand Marjane. One of the very intriguing questions that the interviewer asked was what Marjane would have been doing if she did not write her graphic novel at the time. Her answer left me and the audience laughing because she said she would either be a personal detective, a headhunter (with a gun), or a fur saleswoman. A more serious question that I found so powerful was the one about how the bombing and killing of her neighbor, and how that affected her. Her answer left me with chills because she said that it gave her absolute courage, which is insane because if I were in that position I would have been scared out of my