Persepolis

Persepolis is a book by Marjane Satrapi about herself as a little girl growing up in Iran. It takes place shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. During this book, many different events happen to Marji and Iran.

In the beginning in 1980 she becomes separated from her friends who were boys because of the cultural revolution. Their school was not a secular school. The Shah's father was picked to be a Shah and became a puppet of the west. They had to be clandestine about controlling the Shah. Cyrus the Great ruled over the ancient world. On Black Friday many people who were demonstrating were massacred. Many of these people were proletarians. After the Shah was exiled that only Egypt welcomed him into their country. Later political prisoners were freed but later murdered. The U.S. Embassy was occupied by extremist fundamentalist students. After that, the Iran Iraq started. Young boys were being drafted in the Iraq army, becoming martyrs and dieing. But Iran had a reservoir of potential soldiers waiting. The Iranian government decadently denied peace with Iraq many times. Also to smuggle things into Iran because of an embargo, Marji's parents had to not be veritable and discreetly get things into Iran. But finally they send her to France to further her education.

Marjane Satrapi matures throughout this book from age 9 to 14. She goes through many struggles which shapes her as a person as well as the book as a whole. She starts off the book as a 9 year old who seems kind of cocky not realizing the seriousness of the time. As the book progresses, you can easily see that she matures and comes to an understanding of how the world is in her own time period. She then comes to realize that the Iran-Iraq war could easily take her life at any time. She smokes a cigarette thus ending her childhood officially. The country though loses their economy because when war happens the economy plummets. Her family also has to toughen up to get through hard times in Iran. Otherwise they would crumble under the pressure of the war and their government's crisis.

After she heads to Vienna I think many interesting things happen to her. I think that when she first got there, she saw a person waiting by the incoming airline terminal holding a sign that said, "Marjane Satrapi" on it. She went over to it and they took her to a boarding school. There she learned many things and found herself liking art more then her other subjects. She then moved to Strasbourg where she enhanced her ability to sketch and draw. She became head of her class and passed illustration with flying colors. She studied here for many years before she moved to Paris in 1997. There, she much discrimination from the French. But within a few months she made many new friends and started to fit in. One night, she was talking to one of her best and most trusted friends. "So I know you lived in Tehran for many years." "Yes, I had many... interesting experiences there" "But I only know where you lived, I would love to learn about your past and what happened to you..." Thus spawned an idea to create an autobiography about her life. This was my idea of what happened to Marjane Satrapi after she left Tehran for Vienna after the book Persepolis ended up to writing it.