Persepolis Marjane's Mother Quotes

The implications of this are insane. It further illustrates how much women are considered property, objects to be used by the men of Iran. It also helps explain why Marji's mother is super-protective of her daughter. As women, Marji and her mom have more to fear in Iran than men do. It's a dangerous place for women.

Marji gets a lot of her feminist nature from her mother. If her mother was the type of person to wear the veil and force Marji into wearing it also, without having a discussion about how wrong she felt it was, Marji would be a different person. Heck, we probably wouldn't have this book were it not for her mother's influence.

This is important advice from Mom that young Marji is getting old enough to understand. She had just bullied a boy because of something his father did, but as she gets older, she's starting to gain some perspective. She even does the Big Girl thing and apologizes.

Oh, Mom. Here she is again calling attention to the general ignorance of children—they repeat what their parents tell them. We're not sure if this ever changes, because let's face it: as Marji gets older, she becomes a combination of both her parents' ideals. Even as an adult, she's still repeating what her parents say, to some extent. It's just filtered.

Marjane's mother says the second line here, and Marjane calls her mother "disillusioned" (29.47). Is she disillusioned or realistic? Iran has been at war for over 2000 years it seems. She's right that there will be another one eventually. Does that mean they shouldn't rebuild?

We wonder when the last time was that Marjane's mother got to walk around in public without a veil. It's freeing to be able to do this on the streets of Vienna. Can you imagine being required to wear something when you go out, especially something you don't want to wear? What if we all had to wear Bieber shirts every time we left the house? What if he had to wear a shirt, any shirt? There would be riots in the street either way.

Paranoia and fear are at an all-time high in Tehran at this time, because enemies come from all sides. Marji's mom has to try to protect the family against Iraqi bombers and neighbors, who might turn the family in because of their non-Fundamentalist lifestyle. No wonder they're so paranoid: they can't trust anyone.