Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: An Analysis

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel that encompasses the struggles of a child coming to age. An autobiographical piece depicting the life of a girl who is living through the Iranian revolution. Throughout the novel, Marjane has personal conversations with an autonomous god. She shares everything with him, her expectations of the world and her purpose in life. However, the relationship between them evolves over time as she grows older. When Satrapi introduces god in the novel she explains that “Every night I had a discussion with God.” (8) She believed that he had bestowed the gift of being the last prophet onto her. She feels guilty for telling her parents that she wants to become a doctor because this conflicts with her promise to god. Eventually, leading to an internal conflict between the expectations of herself and others. Although, she still as a strong belief attached to her god. “My faith was not unshakable.” (10) As Marjane ages, she
“I didn’t know what justice was. Now that the revolution was finally over once and for all, I abandoned the dialectic materialism of my comic book strips. The only place I felt safe was in the arm of my friend.” (53) Nevertheless, Marjane had come to realize that god could not protect her from the evils of the world. When Anoosh, her uncle had been captured and executed she despised god. She found self-comfort. “Everything will be alright.” (70) Now, she deserts the idea of god altogether. “Shut up, you! Get out of my life! I never want to see you again. Get out!” (70) And so, God never shows up thereafter. “I was lost, without any bearings…what could be worse than that?” (71) Satrapi uses the scenes with god in her novel to show the coming of age of herself as a child. She addresses the evolution of faith in her god that had begun in the beginning and the redirection of that faith onto herself as she had become more aware of the