Relating Persepolis to Our Lives

As I was reading Persepolis, I found myself engrossed in what was happening and how everything was unfolding. Realizing on a new level of how certain events affect certain people and how they deal with situations like death, government and social class. After reading the first part of the book, I began to think about how we could relate to the young girl’s life. How we, the audience, could put on Marji’s shoes and see things how she did. While thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that we are living in a similar world, of course not to the same extremities. We are just like Marji, thirsty for knowledge about everything around us. Marji, at a young age became very curious and wanted to be treated like an adult. Although, when things did not seem to go her way, she did regress to her own age by sobbing.

Her curiosity about social class and why her maid was not able to be with the neighbor (Satrapi 36-37) was misunderstanding to her and at that point she began to wonder why everyone wasn’t treated equally. This can be related to today’s society by the shear fact that everyone isn’t treated equally. There are differences in race, education and class and in these areas people are discriminated against. Is this because life just isn’t fair or is it because there is always supposed to be a superior over the inferior?

After Marji had been told many stories of torture, this began to be something she thought of frequently (Satrapi 52-53). After being told several stories about multiple people being tortured, Marji began to have fun with this. As Marji thinks, “Those stories had given me new ideas for games,” following this thought explaining a game saying, “The one who loses will be tortured” (Satrapi 53). Although this is an extreme case, this is a prime example that whatever you are exposed to a lot, it will have an effect on your life and how you think. With this being said, it is fair to say that this can be related to peer pressure in today’s society. If you are told one thing over and over or pressured over and over, you will eventually become that or be consumed in the event, if you do not have a strong foundation in what you believe. Another question raised, is it like this because of how we are raised or our personalities?

Although this may seem a little askew to the narration theories or how we react as the audience but I think that it is also important to relate literature or anything you are reading to real life or your own life. I may be wrong but that’s the beauty of opinion.