“When we’re afraid, we lose all sense of analysis or reflection”

On page 148, after detailing the myriad issues that she ran into with regards to how she was dressed under the regime Marjane Satrapi recounts, “The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: Are my trousers long enough? Is my veil in place?...No longer asks herself: Where is my freedom of thought? Where is my freedom of speech?..” The panel shows a worried Marjane leaving her house. This, for me, summed up the message of Persepolis 2; how is a cultured, intellectual and independent young woman supposed to return to her country to live normally when a horrific regime has taken over that continually enforces asinine rules to distract women from their loss of basic rights?

Being born in America, I’ve definitely become familiar with the argument that in the West we put too much emphasis on the superficial, making us a vapid and shallow culture focused on aesthetics. Even though there are those that hold that opinion, it doesn’t affect me. I can choose to present myself however I want to, be affectionate however I want to, wear make up or not wear make up. Reading Marjane’s story enlightens one to the inner landscape of someone who is not just told what to wear, but hounded endlessly about her appearance. The psychological impact of that kind of oppression must be immeasurable. Satrapi does a clear contrast between her adolescence abroad and her eventual return to Iran. Satrapi endures teenage rights of passage abroad (her first romance, illict partying, etc.) before returning to a home where her contemporaries have not even had those experiences, being too busy with war, violence, and especially for women, an incredible vigilant and oppressive eye from the government.

 Also what struck me about the second installment of Persepolis was when Marjane is at university and she helps the administration design new headscarves. It’s like to keep any sort of normalcy from her previous European life she has to barter for freedom in the form of inches of the headscarves they have to wear. It must feel strange to have your education run be fundamentalist wack jobs, and she has to pander to them every step of the way, from admission to graduation.

Satrapi is correct in saying that a context of fear cancels out any other thoughts one may have about one’s own liberty. The women surrounding Marjane after her return from Europe have gotten swept up in finding husbands and conforming to the regime, because after all the browbeating and policing there is nothing left to focus on but those things; I’m not saying there aren’t other cultural cues at play, but to eliminate basic rights can drastically narrow one’s focus.

The staging of Marjane’s return is effective in part because the reader finds out in with Marjane what has happened in Iran while she was abroad. Marjane’s experiences abroad with the kids in her school (and even the nuns!) gives insight into how outsiders feel about Iran, and when Marjane returns to find Iran in the state it is, war torn and dramatically oppressed, we are as shocked as she is because she has not heard anything specific from her parents. I know we’re not supposed to talk about whether we like the book or not, but I didn’t want Persepolis 2 to end. I love Satrapi’s voice and fearlessness.