Persepolis Chapter 12 Summary

The Jewels

  • War in Iran is like a chance of snow in Boston: everyone clears out the supermarket shelves. Gotta stock up on Wonder Bread.
  • People fight over food like they're fighting over toys on the day after Thanksgiving. (A different Black Friday than the people in Iran are used to.)
  • Marji's mother's friend's house is destroyed in a bombing, so she and her family come to stay with Marji's family.
  • They go out shopping one day, and they overhear two women talking about "the refugees," which Mali (Marji's mom's friend) and her family are. These women say, "Southern women are all whores" (12.43). Marji and her family are humiliated and ashamed to be "spat upon by [their] own kind" (12.44).