Oppression in Novel "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi

In times throughout the world, people who are put down more tend to speak through text. This novel shows how people who want to split religion and government, kids, nationalists and also Muslims were marginalized and silenced in Iran during their problems in the 80s. Marjane Satrapi shows us, the readers, this fact in her novel and personal life story Persepolis. In the book her words are a form of voice for those who were also put down.

In her life story, Marjane Satrapi goes on to use the theme of oppression.

Not only focusing on her struggles with growing up during the fighting, she also touches up on the light of her parent’s struggle with the people in charge of the Islamic Party. While her parents drink alcohol, read higher up books, throw parties and ease in a sort of rich life, the protectors of the Revolution mandate this behavior, end such people and hate any people of wealth.

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She begins to come to notice that her parents’ beliefs are not the same as everyone else’s beliefs. In one part, Marjane’s mom puts tape on the windows, as protection against the Iraq bombings, and black curtains over the windows, to stop the neighbors from seeing their parties (p.105). She shares this story of her parents living in worry through very dark, black and white drawings, which let us see the difference between the evil and her good parents. In another section Marjane helps her mom put alcohol down the toilet to hide it, as the police say they will search their apartment (p.

110). This difference shows up to the final page of the novel, when her parents send her to Austria to save the life of their only child from the terrors of war and the dangerous vibes of the Islamic. In one part a guard is looking through her suitcase. In the next her mom faints from sadness as she says bye to her Marjane (p.153). This shows the sacrifices that people of their beliefs had to take in the hands of fundamental Muslims.

As you read, you begin to get how so many people in Iran, not only Marjane and her parents were made silent. When they overthrew the Shah in 1979, they imprisoned nationalists and the Shah’s military, along with the pilots who were needed during the Iraq attacks (p.83). This is just one of many stories that Satrapi tells of people who were hurt, killed or locked up by the people in government. These stories are signs of the times in which she lives, which she can simply tell through other voices, jumps between cartoon frames, speech bubbles and famous pictures. She shows how even the Muslim were put down by their beliefs, as one section shows a man flogging himself and another part shows a group of veiled women hitting their chests and making up words about martyrs (p.96). Through these systems she can give the reader an overview of the terrible things that everyone suffered in something they called a society. A person will feel sorry for the kids who brag to each other about how they pray every day (p.75).

The common theme of oppression begins all the way from the start of the novel. The veil, a covering over a woman’s head, is introduced as her first argument. They use the pictures to show her lack of emotion when wearing it and not having her own identity. The caption reads, ‘This is me when I was ten years old. This was in 1980’ (p. 3). Satrapi gets right to the point in this section with not a bit of confusion. The reader is introduced to Marjane’s ‘sound’ if you will in this part, showing when she was young, displaying a drawn picture of her, veiled and saddened with life. For the next section, you can not see the difference from Marjane and the others in her group class photo, because they are all covered and in the same exact saddened state. Through this form of drawing, the writer can emphasize their features and make less of crazy situations. More so, the novel lets her use this theme in the smaller part at the bottom of page 3, where the person reading sees a lot of kids on the playground, jumping rope with many veils connected, using the veil as a monster mask, and removing the veil because it was too hot. In such a matter of fun Satrapi still was able to add a huge depiction of what it was really like by showing that one of the girls chokes another without a veil on and says ‘execution in the name of freedom.’ She wanted others to see how light a subject could be, but turn into something way more rough. From here, anyone knows that Satrapi will mix the innocence of younger life with the seriousness of the Islamic Revolution to show how put down the Iranian were.

Overall, Marjane Satrapi tells how not only her, but her parents and others were extremely silenced and oppressed in the 80s of Iran. The novel allows her to depict black and white, deep images that exaggerate the conflict. It makes such horrible times very understandable, and it lets the reader simply know the writer and star character. For a person not apart of it, Satrapi’s pictures of Iran and the stories she tells are very surprising, because they can see how such unfairness can happen in the freedom and religion, which is usually unlikely.