Marjane Chapter 1 Summary

Marjane is a headstrong, independent, and outspoken woman who was born in Iran, on the edge of the Caspian Sea. She grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the Lycée Français, before leaving for Vienna. In the book Marjane plays the role of a very curious and smart child. Marjane follows her parents’ footsteps and their views on the revolution taking place in Iran, but as she gets older her view on life changes a lot.
Marjane is a character who gets herself into trouble with some of her various actions, it doesn’t seem to stop her true feelings and ideas of what life should be like. Marjane’s purpose in the book was to inform the readers that Iran is not a country full of fundamentalists and terrorists, and that characterizations of the
Marjane thinks that since people are in different social classes, they can’t agree on what will make their people happy. For example, Marjane encounters differences in social classes in her own home. She has a maid named Mehri who cannot live with her family because her parents cannot afford to take care of her. Mehri falls in love with a man of a higher social class and is quickly broken up with him because it is believed you can only have a relationship with a person of your own class. Marji thought that if the two classes of people have the same opinion on things and destroyed the class system, Iran would be a peaceful country.

I think if Marjane had lived in Iran all her life, she would have fulfilled her purpose. As her dad said when she was leaving to go to Austria “Never forget who you are and what your purpose is”, Marjane would have completed the task that she thinks she was put in this world to do, which was create change and make Iran more