Violence In Persepolis

Miguel Soto

Dr. Clifford

English 2309

4 December 2015

Religion and Violence Throughout history, religion has gained religious believers, but likewise has lost them. The ability to have faith in something is a characteristic that is unique in humans. But, likewise, people have the unique characteristic of stop believing, specially, when certain events challenge their faith. In Marjane’s narrative story, Persepolis, Marjane slowly lost faith in religion. Religious fundamentalist harmed her love ones, violently, which made her realize that religion was always connected with violent acts. Marjane narrates that a lot of people have accepted the new religious government, she said, “it wasn’t only the people that changed. Ordinary people changed

Iran’s society became more fundamentalist, which made Marji more disillusioned of her religion. At the beginning of the story, when the westernized dictator Shah governs Iran, Marji defines herself as a “very religious” (6) person, although she and her family think of themselves as being “very modern and Avant-Garde”(6). Religion, and its many stories and traditions perspectives allowed Marji to think of herself as “the last prophet”. Thinking of herself as a prophet somehow made her to escape to an imaginary religious glory where there were not violent atrocities. But, ironically, that religious imaginary boundary was only a façade that blocked her to see the violent reality. However, in the story “The Sheep” she began to see the cruel reality. In the story “The Sheep” Marji’s uncle Anoosh got executed by the so-called “Divine Justice”. Although the

In the story “The Shabbat” Marji’s Jewish neighbor’s home gets destroyed by a missile, at first Marji thought that her own house was bombed. But in reality, her neighbor home was the one that got hit. In this scene Marji is traumatized when she sees the arm of her dead friend Neda. She said, “ No scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger”(142). Neda’s family were Jewish and getting hit by missile, it proves that not matter where you go, there will be always violent crimes related with religion. This scene represents one of the most important moments in Marjane’s life. The scars, grief and anger emotions that she felt, made her stop romanticize about religion. Indeed, the brutal image of her dead friend traumatized her, and those images made her to act more rebellious. According to Hillary Chute, the technique of using black and white colors in Persepolis clearly emphasizes the traumatic stage of Marjane. Hillary Chute States, “ Satrapi’s drawings and the infinitely complicated traumatic event, they depict: harassment, torture, execution, bonbings, mass murder”(99). The technique of using only black and white colors helped the drawings to illustrate its main goal, which was fundamentalist religion. The use of black and white colors in the drawing show the traumatic events that Satrapi acquired after witnessing violent