Persepolis Marjane Quotes

Marjane locks onto grocery stores—and detergent—as symbols of Western safety. In Iran, they can barely find bread sometimes because people hoard food due to the constant threat of war. Detergent is a sign of both safety and a little bit of Western excess. Just how many good scents can there really be though?

Do you think Marjane is being too hard on herself? After all, pretty much any place she goes is going to have different rules than Iran. She has to compromise a little in order to fit in, right? Or does she compromise too much?

Today, this would be akin to shouting that you have a bomb in an airport. While it wasn't as dangerous back in Vienna in the 1980s, it still doesn't win Marjane any friends. Most people, even then, look upon Iranians with disdain and fear.

This is a huge change for Marjane because, as you may or may not know, there are no homosexuals in Iran. At least, that's what Iran wants you to think.

Marjane has a hard time being an Iranian anywhere in the world. Even outside Iran, she's constantly having to explain Iran. It must be exhausting. She has a good time just relating to her mother on a person-to-person level. Maybe this is why when people from other countries get together, they prefer speaking their culture's language instead of English.

This isn't TV… it's not HBO, either… it's ridiculous censorship. The director didn't make any effort to change the context, he just changed one word and assumed his viewers would swallow it without question. Sadly, most of them probably did. That's how Iran is the place it is: many people swallow what those in power tell them without questioning it. Heck—it's how all sorts of places operate.

That repressive air is heightened by the fact that all the woman, including Marjane, have to wear the veil. It's hard to read.

Standing up and peeing like a man is a purely symbolic act for Marjane to recognize her independence. It doesn't actually do anything except get her leg all wet. It does, however, help her to realize that she needs to take concrete actions to assert herself.

Marji really wants to be independent, even if—like Marie Curie —she does so at the expense of her health. As we've said a few times, freedom always comes at a price, even if we're talking about the freedom that comes with gender equality.

After listening to a conversation between her parents and her grandparents, Marji realizes that she's simply too young to understand the adults' conversation. She decides to read, but we have to wonder if that's an adequate replacement for life experience.

Marji is at an awkward social stage where she understands that her parents are kind of lying to her, but she still doesn't understand that it isn't socially acceptable to tell a friend that her dad is dead. Emily Post would not approve.

Marji has reached an age where she wants to have older friends. The problem is that she's not mature enough to pretend to act like a fourteen-year-old, and she ends up making a lot of mistakes. Though maybe that's what growing up is about.

Marji tells herself this in the mirror at age fourteen, and she grapples with this for the rest of the book… and probably for the rest of her life. We say this a lot, but maybe this is what growing up is about: learning who you are, and staying true to that. That's what it's like for Marjane, at least.

This is the first thing Marjane does after she finds herself in the boarding school in Vienna. Does buying groceries on one's own make you a woman? She also starts going by Marjane instead of Marji at this time, so there's that to factor in, too.

This statement is accompanied by an image of Marjane looking like the hulk, ripping through clothing. It's an appropriate comparison, seeing how she grows seven inches in a year and totally changes. Maybe the Hulk was secretly designed by a hormone-addled teenage girl. You wouldn't like them when they're angry, either.

And she doesn't mean beginning to look a lot like Christmas either. She's talking about finding her personal style, which is very important as a teenager. Marjane spends a lot of time crafting her unique look, and the fact that her character stands out on every page shows that she succeeded.

Marjane returns home to her room, including a too-small desk and punk rock posters she's not into anymore. When she looks for her tapes, she can't find them—turns out her mom gave them away. Marjane decides to throw away all the stuff from her childhood and move on. We think this might mark the last step on her journey to adulthood. She's found her identity, and she doesn't need things around that symbolize her struggle for it anymore. Or maybe she just had to make room for a Marky Mark poster.

It's pretty morbid to remember the year of your marriage by thinking about what war happened then, but in Iran, there's always a war happening. So it might be morbid, but it's not unusual for an Iranian to do this. Especially since this war in the Middle East will likely directly impact Marjane's life in Iran.

Well, you can take the girl out of Iran but you can't take Iran out of the girl. Marji believes that all Iranians should be concerned about the war in Iran, and gets mad when Shirin, Zozo's daughter, is not. Does she have a point? Should Shirin shut up about gloves and be more politically active? What can she do all the way in Vienna?

Marji gets a little wrapped up in Iranian nationalism, which isn't exactly a bad thing. She also has to grapple with the fact that her father can be a hero without going to war. In fact, fighting wouldn't even be the best place for her father since he's an intellectual. He shows us that there's room for more than just brute force even when a country is at war.