Marjane Satrapi In Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi is a young girl living out her childhood in Iran. She is lively, good spirited, and highly opinionated. The government in Iran is always trying to control how people think, act, and dress. Marji is constantly trying to make sense of the world around her, and is always listening to her parents talk about current events. She picked up on what was going on, and made decisions and inferences based on the information that was flying at her. This means that she based her likes or dislikes, and opinions on what she saw and heard in the media. Culture plays a major role in the character development in Persepolis in many ways, like religion, arts and technology, and government. The events that Marji experienced in her childhood helped mold her into an intelligent war survivor.
One of the ways culture impacts Marji is by forcing her to wear the veil at school even though she wasn't a practicing muslim and went to a non-religious school. It came as a surprise …show more content…
Turkey was greatly influenced by the West, mainly America, and so they had all sorts of "hip" things for sale there, like clothes, shoes, and posters. "Listen Marji, where do you think all the hip stuff comes from?" Marji's mother asks. Marji then starts listing off things that she wants, because she is almost trained to want them from America's cultural influence. "A denim jacket, chocolate, a poster, no two posters” (Satrapi, 126). Marji just has to have all the latest American products, and her parents agree to fulfill her requests, even if they don't understand why she likes them. This demonstrates arts and technology because Marji is living through what is popular in the modern media, instead of being stuck in the customs of her society. She fights to break free of the norm, and be unique. By expressing herself through her tastes, she is showing that she has opinions and