Persepolis

Throughout this week my Humanities class endured on an adventure of reading a graphic novel on Persepolis. This graphic novel is is a memoir of the author Marjane Satrapi. Its a story based on four years of her childhood. She came from a family far from being proletariat to being decadent. Her childhood is during the Islamic Revolution. Marji goes through so many things and different epidemics throughout this whole book it shows how she changes and how she is more interested in what’s going on in her country. At this time the biggest was the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. 1978 was the beginning of the book when Marji was ten, the revolution started. The revolution was between the people of Iran and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the king of Iran, the revolution was later named the Islamic revolution. The following year in 1980, Reza said the girls had to wear veils(head scarf) to school, and that bilingual schools had to be shut down, because it was a symbol of capitalism. (girls and boys could no longer go to the same school together. The girls did not like to wear the veil, because they never understood why they had to, and because the year before they attended a French non-religious school were the veil was mandatory. These new laws from the king put children at a depressive state because they were separated from their friends.

Iranians didn't like the new laws he put in place so they demonstrated to make him leave office. Iranians who were protesting were either Islamic fundamentalists or people with different views but were still in to take down the king. Because of these demonstrations people were either ended up dead or severely injured by the king’s army and secret police. The King locked 400 people in a cinema and burned it down; he would not let anyone help them. The fire department arrived forty minutes later and he told everybody it was some religious fanatics that did this horrific crime, truth be told it was actually him. Iranians then wanted their protest to be far from being clandestine. They were veritably set on having the King leave office. Towards the end of the beginning of the book Marjane Satrapi Brings up the day of "Black Friday". Black Friday was the day of the most killings in a demonstration. Thousands secular of protesters died by the kings men. Some of these protesters were martyrs. The King had a monarchy which the people wanted to take down and replace with an Islamic Republic. After Mohammad Reza Pahlavi then tries to have a bit more of a democracy but citizens were taking down his statue and burning his pictures. So finally, he left his rein, that’s when the people had the biggest celebration in the history of Iran. Marjane brings it up because that was the day she did not want to listen to her parents when they said to stay and not go protesting. Later towards the end of the book, the Iranian fundamentalist tried to have their Iraqi Shiite allies to turns against Saddam. Saddam did not like this so he invaded Iran to start the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war. In 1982 this international war became a much bigger deal. Anyone who showed resistance to the regime was executed. Iraq attacked Iran and used their reservoir of scud missiles to bomb the city of Tehran. Iran later struck back with 140 F-145 fighter planes to bomb Baghdad. The war had become worse that Iran had started recruiting children into battle. They put into the minds of the fourteen year olds boys that were recruited that life after death is a better place and that they will get 72 virgins. Just to defend their country. When Marji learned that the city of Tehran was bombed she became furious. She started to gain more knowledge and she wanted revenge. This grew in Marji throughout the whole book. Her knowledge grew every time some thing bad would happen to her country. Marji starts to be rebellious by skipping school and hanging out with older kids, smoking, dressing like a little punk rocker. Since Iraq has been bombing Iran this whole time it was getting to the time were one of the bombs came close to where she lived. And it did. The bomb hit Marji's neighbors house, the Baba-levy's. Marji's friend Neda was in the house while the bomb landed. After the incident, Marji became more rebellious than she had ever been. She started talking back to one of her teachers and gets expelled for hitting her later on. Her mother found out and started yelling at her saying what they do to young girls when they get arrested. At her new school, she had to mourn two times a day for the soldiers who had died in battle. All these events in her life shaped her perception of things. He didn't really have a perception of things in the beginning but towards the end her understanding of things changed. She viewed her family as people that cared about their country, and strongly believe in freedom. She viewed her country as a place that is strict, and a place that had a lot of problems. She viewed herself as someone different than the rest, and someone that cares about their country.

What I think happens next after Marji goes to France is that she becomes more out there and doesn't hide from every one. She will eventually make a friend that will encourage her to write a novel of her childhood and that’s how I got to read this book.

This graphic novel was one of the best I have read. It shows that with the slightest picture you can put so much emotion into your book or story. If this book was written like any other it would had not an excitement for me because it’s just like a history book. Marjane wrote it in the best way possible for kids to learn while they see what she means. Now that I am finished with the book i now want to read the sequel Persepolis: The Story of a Return.