Marjane Satrapi's Book "The Complete Persepolis"

Those of us lucky enough to do so will spend the beginning of our lives swimming though a deep, ever changing ocean, looking for land where we may rest our heads with confidence and self-acceptance. To come of age is to swim through this sea, some days floating, some drowning, but always being manipulated by its power as we search for our true selves. Like Ralph Ellison said, “When I discover who I am, I will be free”.

Marjane Satrapi’s book, The Complete Persepolis, is an incredible coming of age autobiography revealing the immense struggles a young and rebellious Iranian girl endures as she too desperately searches her identity. The book opens to Satrapi as a 10-year-old girl facing the beginning of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. At this pivotal age she is faced with extreme change as the government forces religious fundamentalism onto its people. Laws are made that test her faith and identity. Her, relatively liberal parents eventually send her to Vienna so she may continue school without religious intervention. In this new western environment she tries to be many things including her true self but fails to do so. No closer to find her place in the world she makes her way home four years later guilty and ashamed for leaving her struggling family and country. At home she continues to try and force her changing rebellious personality into an excessively strict religious society.

After some college and a failed marriage she comes to the conclusion that must leave Iran, while accepting her love for her culture and country, and move to France to live the life she is meant for. The Complete Persepolis is a raw and truthful coming of age story of a rebellious girl growing into a rebellious and educated woman as she searches for her identity along the way. As a young girl living through the Islamic Revolution, Marji is faced with adversity early on and finds herself posed with questions meant for a much older mind. At the beginning she is a girl of deep faith but as the religious fundamentalist take hold and the veils are forced unto the women she began to expand her thinking. “I really didn’t know what to think about the veil. Deep down I was very religious…” (Marji 6). Marji’s inherent curiosity and drive to learn accelerated her knowledge of things much bigger than herself, however the Iranian regime manipulated the information being taught at schools.

Luckily, despite her young age, Satrapi’s parents would always try and convey the truth. “As for me, I love the king, he was chosen by God” (Marji 19). “Come sit on my lap. I’ll try and explain it all to you” (Ebi 19). This directness from her parents played a big role in her development. Some of her coming of age lessons were similar. Learning right from wrong through trial and error and support from her parents. However, like the imprisonment and execution of her beloved uncle Anoosh, some childhood events rested the heaviness of reality on her much too young shoulders forcing her take steps in maturity while leaving behind bits of her old self. “And so I was lost, without any bearings… what could be worse than that” (Satrapi 71). She had identified with her uncle who she viewed as a rebel and a hero, which pulled her away from her religious side.