Filed under: Religion
Persepolis is an autobiographical novel depicting Marjane Satrapi’s early life against the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution. As a coming of age novel, Persepolis deals with childhood issues as nationalistic, religious, and cultural forces mold Satrapi’s identity. Marji is ten years old at the beginning of the novel when it became obligatory for girls to wear veils at school after the Islamic Revolution. She writes: “I really didn’t know what to think about the veil. Deep down I was very religious, but as a family we were very modern and avant-garde” (6). Although Marji becomes comfortable with wearing the veil despite her obligation to do so, the meaning of the veil becomes a point of contention as it carries multiple meanings for the author. While Marji’s mother was an early public activist against the obligatory veil law, Marji becomes comfortable with wearing the veil, while rebelling against other forms of government restrictions on self-expression.
The introductory chapter highlights the mixed messages that children receive from the school and the home. As a Mexican immigrant, Marji’s experience reminded me of a cultural tension that I experienced early on in my schooling. I never experienced having to attach myself to a symbol that signaled my Mexicanness, but my dark complexion distinguished me from my American classmates and I was obliged to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school as a symbol of my Americanness. I created a snippet of my autobiographical novel, inspired by Persopolis, in the form of a comic. Like Persopolis, the form of the novel expresses the simplistic nature of the experience as a child would experience it and interpret it.
I attended school in the U.S. for all of my life, but I was an undocumented immigrant throughout grade school. All of the students were required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. I juxtapose this experience to a particular event that happened when I was in third grade. My birthday was coming up in the month of December and the teacher asked for my city of birth to post on her bulletin board. Previously, I had noticed that the teacher responded favorably to another student who said he was born in Chicago. To gain the same praise, I said that I was also born in Chicago, to which she responded favorably. Moments later, she said that my school record showed that I was born in Mexico. The meaning of nationality had never struck me so deeply until that day.