Persepolis Paper Rough Draft

Jaspal Dosanjh
Professor Knapp
Rough Draft #1
Due Date: 21 October 2011

Marjane is a young girl who lives in Iran. She has a very unique perspective that develops as the graphic novel progresses. She lived in Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution during the reign Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, simply known as the Shah. She lived in Iran during the Islamic Revolution when the Shah was sent into exile. And she lived in Iran in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. The progression of her perspective as she gets older can be broken down into those three events.
Prior to the Islamic Revolution, Iran was a lot more secular. Schools were also secular. Female students were not required to wear the hijab. Male and female students were allowed to study together. And the schools were not religious. The school that Marjane went to was a French school. During this time of pre-religious upheaval, Marjane saw herself as very religious; “[she] was born with it” (6). She was so religious at this time that she saw herself as the last prophet. She originally wanted to become a prophet her family’s maid, and good friend Mehri, ate separately from the rest of the family, her father owned a Cadillac when many other people could not afford one, and because her grandmother was always in constant pain. Marjane also has her own holy book (which only her grandmother knows about). She also had many conversations with God in the middle of the night. I found this to be extremely interesting because of her relatively young age; she is only six years old. “[She] wanted to be Justice, Love, and the Wrath of God all in one” (9). It is very astonishing that she had that type of devotion to any cause, let alone religion, at that young age. It is also astonishing that she has such a deep understanding of God and her place in the religion in general.
During the Islamic Revolution, Marjane starts to progress away from her religious side and more to her revolutionary side. She states “the year of the Revolution I had to take action. So I put my prophetic destiny aside for a while” (10). She felt the need to act, yet she was still very young. Again, I find it extremely astonishing that she has such a sense of responsibility and also such a vast comprehension of the enormity of the moment in which she is living. It is around this time that her conversations with God were fewer and fewer. She starts reading more about different revolutionaries throughout history such as Karl Marx and Descartes, Fidel Castro and the children of Palestine, the Vietnamese killed by the Americans and the different revolutionaries of her own country. Her last conversation with God, He asks her why she does not want to be a prophet anymore to which she says that she does not want to talk about that. She then overhears her parents talking about an incident where the police locked some patrons inside of a movie theater and burned it to the ground. Her parents discuss their desire to go to the demonstration the following day. After begging her parents to let her go to the demonstration, she finally begrudgingly accepts her parent’s decision not to let her demonstrate. But when she asks for God that night, he does not come.
Finally, after the Islamic Revolution is successful, she fully progresses into her revolutionary ways leaving her religious self behind. She becomes more and more rebellious. She rebels against her school. She rebels against her parents. She rebels against the suppressive nature of the new theocracy. She does not like to wear the veil. She argues with her teachers. She wears jeans. She does not accept the fact that Mehri is not seen as her equal. She does not accept the fact that there is a social class system. She does not understand why Mehri and her love cannot be together. She does not accept the fact that her father observes and lives by the class system. She does not accept the fact that she is restricted in what she can or cannot listen to or wear in public.