Persepolis Essay Example

The Reality of Growing Up While growing up I was influenced by everything around me. The media, my peers, my family etc. surrounded me and constantly guided the decisions I made. Although influenced by many outside forces, I still held on to my morals and values that my parents had always taught me while growing up. The book, The Complete Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, is about Satrapi’s difficulties of her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, the teenage years in Vienna, and her return back to Iran. The book shows the difficulties and joys of growing up in a completely different environment in where she doesn’t fit in. As a child Satrapi grew up around a corrupt regime and was always taught to stand of for what she believed in. As a child she would rebel against the regime and even try to join demonstrations with her parents. Satrapi tries her best to stay true to herself while in Vienna but is being exposed to Western culture. She has a hard time assimilating into Western culture but stays true to her old rebellious side. Her grandmother, the sassy and clever woman, told Satrapi to stay true to herself before she left for Vienna. When Satrapi returns back home she finds it difficult to assimilate back into Iranian life but soon adapts to the culture again. Although Satrapi has difficulty assimilating into Western culture and then back into Iranian life, she stays true to herself even through the most difficult experiences of her adolescence and adulthood. Satrapi moved to Vienna during her adolescence and faced the hardships of assimilating into Western culture. She faces small and big changes during her time in Vienna. The first sign of assimilating is when she changes her appearance by using make-up. Satrapi says, “She did my hair and drew on a thick line of black eyeliner that, from then on, became my usual makeup. I thought I looked very beautiful” (184). Satrapi assimilates to fit in with her first new group of friends. Due to the