Tag: Persepolis

I think that the most important panel in this selection of the reading is: “I couldn’t bear looking at them there behind the glass. Nothing’s worse than saying goodbye. It’s a little like dying”. This panel exposes the theme of the separation between the main character and her parents, which is the main theme being explored in these few chapters. Satrapi has realized that this situation is not temporary, that she will probably never  live with her parents again. This few lines also set the mood for the upcoming chapters and represent a growth in the character of the protagonist.

The most important panel from the section of Persepolis that was due today, in my opinion, is found at the bottom of page 153. This image depicts how difficult it was for Marjane’s parents to decide to let their 14 year old daughter go live in Austria, even though they understood it was safer and allowed for more freedom of expression. Marjane turns around one final time to watch her parents leave, as she recognizes that she will most likely never live with them again, while the reader is left looking at her parents’ empty, somber faces. In the background, I notice Marjane through a glass panel, saddened and helpless. This represents how great of a sacrifice this tight-knit family was willing to make for sake of their child. It helps me, as an audience member, empathize with the struggle that families such as Marjane’s in the Middle East had to make during this war-torn era.

“It would have been better to just go.”

Marjane is now at a point in her life where she is out of choices. With her scathing tongue and Islamic fundamentalism sweeping war-torn Iran, the Satrapi family makes a decision to get Marjane safely away from Iran and place her temporarily in Vienna, Austria with a family friend. Her parents seemed positive throughout her move, but Marjane had a creeping suspicion that this would be the last time she lived with her parents, even through endless reassurances that they would see her in six months time. In this turning point of the book, her parents tear up as she boards for Vienna, but seem strong and supportive with the decision they’ve made. One look back and Marjane’s mother has fainted, limp in the arms of her father and carried away like a child. This moment of weakness by her parents– who had seemed to be fearless protectors all her life– has shocked Marjane, leaving her with a terrible last image of her parents. This seems like the most climatic part of the book in the chapters we’ve read, acting as Marjane’s final exit from childhood and into a very adult adolescence.