Merial Boschung's Blog

In 2003, Iranian-born author Marjane Satrapi published Persepolis, a graphic narrative of her childhood experience of war-torn Iran throughout the 80s. Through clear, minimalist sketches which often reflect ancient Persian art, Satrapi challenges the impossible feat of expressing the many traumas of her past – one of which is a ruptured relationship with her nation. Assuming that one’s nation is a primary source of one’s identity, it seems therefore that Satrapi is attempting to deal with the traumatic effects of being cut off from her nation by reflecting traditional national art in her graphics. She is reconnecting herself with her nation pre-revolution, or redefining her identity as Iranian, in order to move forward into her future.

In Hillary Chute’s article “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis”, the author discusses Satrapi’s style of drawing, noting that Satrapi “specifically references ancient Persian miniatures, murals, and friezes” in its simplicity and symmetry (98). Satrapi’s artistic reference is intriguing: she reflects her ancestry in a story which depicts the complete detonation of this very concept – of the Iran that she once knew. The juxtaposition of the act of creation (i.e. drawing traditional sketches, or creating art) and the story of destruction seems to suggest that Satrapi is attempting to reconnect herself with her national roots. This reconnection is an endeavor that would most likely only be challenged by one who feels deeply affected by a ruptured relationship with their sense of identity.

Sociologist Ross Bond explains that “residence, birth and ancestry” are the main components of national identity and that if one has a strong connection with all three markers, their sense of identity will most likely be significantly stronger (611). Would it not, then, be traumatic for one who may have started out with a firm hold on these three areas to then have them redefined against one’s will by the use of force and law? This forceful redefinition is what happened to Marji. She was born into an Iran that was not initially as violent as it grew to be over the course of her childhood.  If, as Ross explains, the interconnection, and the knowledge, of one’s residence, birth, and ancestry is essential to one’s sense of identity, then Marji must have thus, in a way, lost sight of her identity by means of the brutish redefining of her residence and history. I want to suggest that, in reflecting ancient Persian art in her sketches of the story of Iran’s turmoil, Satrapi is taking a defiant stance as a member of a nation. She communicates that war-torn Iran may be a present ordeal, but no attempt at the redefinition of the Iranian nation can override the ancestral identity that unites them all.

Satrapi herself comments on the ties she feels between her identity and her nation. In an interview conducted by Asia Society’s Nermeen Shaikh, Satrapi discusses her relationship to the West and to Iran. “I am not made with [the European] culture,” she says. “I will always be Iranian; I was made in Iran, if you see what I mean” (Satrapi). Satrapi goes on to explain that her past was “stolen” from her, and that, as an exiled person, she must go back to her past in order for her to secure her own future (Satrapi). In an effort to deal with her own trauma, Satrapi recognizes that when the entirety of one’s life is so brutally ruptured, it is vital that one has a sense of deeply rooted identity upon which to fall back. Without a sense of one’s beginnings – of one’s “residence, birth, and ancestry” (Ross 611) – there will be no apparent trajectory of one’s life. In her reflection of traditional Persian art, therefore, Satrapi reconnects herself to, and relocates herself in, the culture in which she was made. She rebuilds her knowledge of ancient Iran and, in the process, rebuilds her identity as an exiled member of a nation.

Works Cited

Bond, Ross. “Belonging and Becoming: National Identity and Exclusion.” Sociology, vol. 40, no. 4, 2006, pp. 609–626. www.jstor.org/stable/42856885.

Chute, Hillary. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis”.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1/2, Witness (2008): 92-110. Print.

“Marjane Satrapi: ‘I Will Always Be Iranian’.” Interview by Nermeen Shaikh. Asia Society. AsiaSociety.org, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.