Over the past week in our Arts Studies class, we’ve read and analyzed Persepolis, by author Marjane Satrapi. The introduction to this graphic narrative deals with the issue of misinformation and confusion surrounding the world’s, and more specifically the West’s, view of Iran and the Iranian people. In writing this introduction, Satrapi directs her readers to this increasingly prominent topic. As a person who has seen these stereotypes in action, I personally found it fascinating to see how Satrapi incorporated this issue into her narrative writing, and how she uses individual characters to represent the mentality of a nation.
Satrapi tackles a number of misconceptions, generalizations, and stereotypes about Iran in Persepolis, primarily the association of the country with “fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism.” Satrapi seeks to inform us about Iran by humanizing the Iranian people, providing a detailed explanation and reasoning behind their actions. Satrapi, throughout Persepolis, gives the reader fine details about Marji and her life. Eccentricities like her punk phase, or moments of childish naivete such as when Marji claims that “99% of the population voted for the Islamic Republic,” are not excluded from the story, but rather included, and this fleshed-out and complete characterization that appears to leave nothing out encourages the reader to empathize with her and draw parallels between themselves and the character.
More importantly than simply including them in her character development, however, Satrapi repeatedly explains Marji’s actions and why she does them, allowing for a greater understanding of the actions of the Iranian people as a whole. When Marji’s father explains that “The elections were faked and [the Iranian people] believe the results,” Satrapi provides the reader with information and allows them to understand why not only Marji but the Iranian people as a whole might support an apparently corrupt regime. A similar effect is generated when Marji and her friends decide to lynch another child, Ramin, to punish him for his father’s actions as a member of the Iranian Secret Police. The act itself is savage and cruel, and on the surface appears to be almost a twisted game. By digging deeper into the motivations of the kids, however, Satrapi allows the reader to experience the power of mob mentality and the blindness to sympathy that can occur in difficult times. Instead of seeing cruel and immature children, the reader can envision the fear, confusion, and desperation that drove some of the Iranian people into the arms of fundamentalism and religious rule, and the more moderate (and more accurately portrayed) Iranians out of the global spotlight.
Satrapi uses both the characterization of Marji and the opportunities provided by her development to shed light on the mindsets and perspectives of the Iranian people. The reader is able to associate themselves with Marji and the honest, apparently exclusion-free, depiction of her, and are able to better understand and sympathize with the Iranian people by extension. Satrapi also uses Marji to represent the extreme examples of Iranians that the readers draw their stereotypes from: videos of violence and reports of widespread fundamentalism are terrifying without context, but when Marji, a character the reader can relate to, is seen performing these activities, and her thoughts, feelings, and motivations are clearly laid out, the reader can understand that the issues facing Iran and its people are much more complicated than a simple stereotype can express.