Mitchell 1

Lorenzo Mitchell

Professor Kane

English 113A TTh

4 December 2018

E2:2: Persepolis: The Story of Changing Views

All of my life, I was unknowingly taught the different stereotypes we associate with

cultures and peoples from around the world. For instance I was born a year before the attack on

the World Trade Center, and because of that, what I was taught about the Middle East was

mostly fueled by ignorance. I was taught that everyone from the Middle East was a radical

Muslim terrorist, they hated the United States, and that they all came from poor nations in the

desert. An Iranian writer by the name of Marjane Satrapi realized that this was how the world

viewed the Middle East as well, and wanted to change that. Satrapi wrote the book ​Persepolis 2:

The Story of a Return​ to change our preconceived notion about the Middle East, but more

specifically, Iran and Iranians. Her book follows her from childhood to adulthood and the

adversities she faces while living in Iran, Austria, and France. After reading the book, and being

educated on Iran, and the people, I can say that my views have changed. I no longer view Iran as

a poor nation full of terrorist that hates America. I now view Iran as a beautiful country with a

rich culture and religion that goes back thousands of years. Although Iran is a conservative

country controlled by religion, Satrapi challenges the reader’s perceptions of Iran by showing the

complexities of her country’s politics, religious culture, and daily life; It is not a nation full of

terrorist, but a nation full of people like you and I.

 Mitchell 2

Similarly to us Americans, the Iranian people also had a revolution in which they had to

fight for their country. The Iran Revolution in 1979, overthrew two thousand, five hundred years

of Persian Monarchy, or as Marjane’s father puts it “2500 years of tyranny and submission” (15).

Due to the Revolution, the world became more dangerous for Marjane, and she leads the reader

on a tale of gradual violence in her country as she grows up. At the beginning of the book, she

explains how her parents would participate in demonstrations that would turn violent “My

parents demonstrated every day. Things started to degenerate. The army shot at them, and they

threw stones at the army” (22). The people of Iran were starting to rise up because they were not

happy with the current state of the country. Eventually, war broke out and with that began

killings and bombings. In order for the reader to understand the complexity of Iran, Marjane had

to explain the gradual violence that begins when she is a child. During this time, she is also

forced to start wearing a veil and gets separated from her male friends at school. The politics of

Iran are very different from the ones we have in America. Before I read the book I never would

have thought that there was retaliation. I always assumed that the country was a deeply religious

country, and although it is, I never would have thought there was a time before veils, and

segregation. This one phase of Iran’s history is the image that we have in our heads when we

think about them.

We have our stereotypes about Iran,but some countries have stereotypes about us, the

main one being that we’re fat Christians who carry guns everywhere. These stereotypes hold

some truth, but the vast majority of Americans are not like this, except for the Christianity part.

In America, according to Pew Research Center, 70.2% of Americans are Christian, compared to

Iran which is approximately 80% Islamic. Like a majority of Americans, I was raised in a
 Mitchell 3

Christian household and taught that other religions were lesser than the one my family was

practicing. Growing up, I was taught that all Muslims were oppressive terrorists who want to

bomb America. This was in part due to 9/11. However ass I grew up I realized this stereotype

was not true but continued to be a joke among friends, families, and even in TV shows and

movies. In Satrapi’s book, she shows the truth of her religion, and the good and bad that comes

with it. Throughout the book, Satrapi shows her love for her religion “I was born with

religion...At the age of six, I was already sure I was the last prophet.”(10), but also the bad that

comes with it, like the extremists that enact the moral codes of Iran. In ​Persepolis,​ Marjane

shows the reader her religious culture and the problems she faced while living in Iran because of

it. While Marjane was in high school, she enjoyed throwing parties, as many high schoolers do,

but to do so in Iran is illegal. One night while Marjane was throwing a party, the police found her

and her friends and they get in trouble. There were boys at the party, and it is illegal for boy and

girls to be together, and in order for them to escape, they had to jump over rooftops.

Unfortunately, one of the boys does not make it and fell to his death. The police officer responds

to the women by saying “Your pal is going to hell... let's load up the whores.”(313) and

proceeds to take Marjane and her friends to jail. There is even a moment in the book when

Marjane is running and she gets stopped by the police because “when you run, your behind

makes movements that are...obscene.” Whenever I would think about Iran, I always wondered if

the people there were content with the moral code. After reading ​Persepolis​, I now know that

they are not. Imagining having to deal with the things they have to deal with created a lot of

sympathy from me as I read. Although the west isn’t a perfect place, we at least have most of our
 Mitchell 4

individualism and are rarely told how to dress or who we can associate ourselves with by our

government.

Due to the revolution, and the moral police, the daily lives of the Iranians changed. They

began asking women to start wearing veils, and schools become segregated by gender, they also

began nightly bombings. There was also a law against leaving the country. Marjane shows even

through these hard time, they fight for what they believe in. While Marjane is in art school, she

goes to an assembly where the headmaster states that “We cannot allow ourselves to behave so

loosely...To allow oneself to behave indecently is to trample on the blood of those who gave

their lives for our freedom.”(298) Marjane challenges these ideas by explaining that the men of

the school are allowed to dress however they would like, but the women are being criticized for

they headscarves being too short and their pants for being indecent. Before I read ​Persepolis​, I

assumed that no one liked wearing headscarves, but that it was just a headscarf. I never realized

that women were criticized for everything they wore. The length of their headscarf, the way their

pants fit, and how loose their clothing was. It was compelling to read how different women

reacted to their clothing policies. Some didn’t mind it and wore it with pride, while some

despised it.

In Marjane Satrapi's book, ​Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return​, Marjane shows us the

realities of growing up in her country during the Iranian Revolution, and the aftermath of it. She

gives us a tale of her life and the adversities she faced while living in a conservative country, as

well as insight into Iranian politics, religious culture, and the daily lives of the Iranian people.

Persepolis i​ t not only was an entertaining read, but a book that educates the reader by showing

them the truth about Iran, and the similarities that we all have.
 Mitchell 5

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane, Satrapi, Marjane, The Complete Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi. New York :

Pantheon Books, 2007. Print.

Hackett, Conrad. "World's Largest Religion by Population Is Still Christianity." ​Pew Research

Center.​ Pew Research Center, 05 Apr. 2017. Web. 04 Dec. 2018.