Persepolis is a historical book yet an entertaining story of a girl during a frightening time in an important era in her country. Author, Marjane Satrapi writes about her experience in Iran as a child. She includes humor as well as sentimentality in this book to express her view on how times were. As a reader of this book it helped me understand the dark times that the Iranian people faced. With this book being a memoir it further helped understand the Islamic Revolution and the actions taken by the people of Islam in their efforts to stay safe during the war with Iraq.
Marjane Strapi brought her experience to life as she wrote this book. It starts of as Marjane expresses her view on the Shah’s beliefs and attempts to act as an adult by wanting to join the protest. The Shah required for girls and women to wear the Veal and that there shall be no more bilingual schools. Later Marjane talks about her family and friends to illustrate how the revolution changed their lives. Mehri, for example grew up with Marjane’s family as a maid and when she fell in love it was taken away because they were in different social classes.
The next chapter the Shah’s reign ended and the people received their freedom, but Marjane believed her friend Ramin should be punished because of what his father had done (kill millions of communists). When Marjane later spoke to Ramin he believed it was the right thing to do because communists are evil. As political prisoners are released from prison, Marjane meets her uncle Anoosh and most of her family leaves the country to move to the US she finally realizes that the regime is not so great after all.
Marjane starts growing up and soon starts to understand more of what is really going on in her country. She even joins a demonstration against fundamentalism. At this point of the book, as the reader you understand Marjane’s life was like as a child growing up. But, the difficult times were not over yet. A war started because Iraq wanted to invade Iran. As there were bombings during the war you can see the emotion of Marjane’s family whether they were disturbed when the Iraqis bombed them or excited when they bombed Iraq back.
This war had changed even the schools where they made children hit themselves, but that just made students rebel. That wasn’t it people had their own secret parties because it was forbidden to have them. As the war continued a home near Marji’s had exploded, but a bracelet was left in the damage, so Marji decided to keep it. She ends up expelled and finds a new school where she from the start makes a bad impression. Marji ends up being sent to Austria for a better life and education.
Persepolis brings out the life of what really happened in Iran during this time. It is a first person point of view of living there. In this novel Marjane is portrayed as someone who wants to a hero, this element makes takes this book to the next step where there is all this historical content of a critical era with a first person’s view of a girl who is portrayed as a hero in the war. The quote, “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
This quote by Christopher Reeve brings out who Marjane really is with all the challenges she faced, such as how the war affected her family and friends. Students and adults who read this book will be hooked on to it from the start because of how the story is brought to life with the historical element that is transformed into a story. After reading this book I would give a 2 star rating out of 2 because this is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. Marjane Strapi includes insight of the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq from her view as someone who was actually there.
