Summary The Complete Persepolis 1 PDF

Preview

Summary

Persépolis summary ...

Description

PERSEPOLIS SUMMARY ● ●

BACK NEXT

How It All Goes Down

It's 1980 in Iran, and Marjane Satrapi isn't rocking out to Michael Jackson or watching Dallas; she's being forced to wear a veil at her school, which is now segregated. The boys and girls are separated. This marks the beginning of years of political and religious turmoil in Iran. Marjane's mother and father often attend political protests, kind of like a more violent Occupy Wall Street, and support revolutionaries when they can, including many of Marjane's relatives, like Uncle Anoosh. Uncle Anoosh had fled to the U.S.S.R., because the Iranian regime believed him to be a spy. Uncle Anoosh teaches Marjane much about the world. He also gives her a swan carved out of bread, which is a lot nicer than a swan made from origami paper (because you can probably eat it). Marji grows very close to Uncle Anoosh, and she takes it very hard when he is executed. Because of her mother, father, Grandma, and uncle, Marjane's passions lie in social activism. At a young age, she wants to fix social inequalities and make the world into a place where old people don't have to suffer. That's kind of hard to do when there are bombs falling on Tehran and killing Marjane's friends and family members. Eventually, Marjane's parents decide that Iran is not the place for the daughter they've raised. Marjane is a girl who is headstrong, independent, and outspoken. Her behavior gets her expelled from school, and mom and pop are afraid that a worse punishment will befall her as the regime gets stricter. They ship Marjane to Vienna, where she ends up in a boarding house run by nuns. It's no Viennese Sister Act, though. Marjane gets along with the nuns about as well as she gets along with authority in Iran. Over the next few years, she finds herself in a variety of living situations: with her sexually liberated friend Julie, in an apartment with

eight homosexuals (no, she's not on Vienna's version of Project Runway), and renting a room from a horse-faced woman with a foul attitude and an incontinent dog… just to name a few. Marjane misses her family, who she left back in Iran and are her only support system. She gets depressed, and becomes homeless. Living on the streets makes her so sick she coughs up blood. She survives, and moves back home to Iran. Giving up her freedoms is hard, but living with her family is what she needs. Her mom and dad treat her as an equal, and her grandmother gives her the reality check she needs: Marjane has to always be true to herself in order to be happy. Back in Iran, she continues doing what social activism she can (like designing a new uniform with a shorter veil), gets married, parties, and then gets divorced. All these things are steps on her way to finding her identity. After a couple of years, Marjane realizes (again) that Iran is not for her, and she moves back to Europe, letting us know that she only got to see her beloved Grandma once more before she died. Freedom has a price...

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Veil ● We're introduced to young Marji, age ten. The year is 1980. She's not wearing acid-washed jeans and rocking out to Michael Jackson, though: she's in school, wearing a veil, just like all the other girls. ● They don't want to wear it.

● In 1980, the new regime in Iran made it mandatory for women to wear the veil. They also segregated the schools between male and female. ● Marji tells us that she wanted to be a prophet when she was a girl. "I was born with religion" (1.20), she says. ● The school thinks it's weird that prophesizing is Marji's career choice, so they call her parents. ● Even though she tells her parents she wants to be a doctor, she still really wants to be a prophet. ●

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Bicycle ● After a brief Iran history lesson (here's how it's summed up: "2500 years of tyranny and submission" (2.7)) we learn that the regime burned down a movie theater with a bunch of people in it. ● Marji wants to participate in the protest that's being organized against the police. "For a revolution to succeed, the entire population must support it" (2.39). ● But her parents won't let her come. ● That night, she tries to talk to God, but he doesn't respond. ● BACK ● NEXT

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Water Cell ● Marji's parents go to protest demonstrations against the king every day. ● Young Marji has trouble rationalizing this because her schoolbook says that God chose the king. Who is the king of Iran? George W. Bush? ● Her dad tells her how it the king actually came to power: the British put him there to try and take control of Iran's oil. ● Also, the ruler that was deposed was Marji's grandfather, who was a prince. (Not the little one.) ● Her grandpa briefly served as prime minister, but he opposed the new regime and was sent to prison. ● Prison was painful, to say the least. One night, he was in a water-filled cell for hours. ● That night, Marji stays in the bath a long time to try and understand what her grandfather went through. She probably didn't even use any Mr. Bubble that night. ●

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

Persepolis ● Grandma comes to visit. ● She tells Marji that when her husband was arrested, they lost all their wealth. She still took every effort to make sure her family looked nice despite being in poverty. ● That night, the family waits a long time for Marji's father to come home from a protest. Marji fears he is dead. ● He makes it home alive and uninjured. He tells the story of what happened at the demonstration, but Marji is too young to understand. ● She decides to educate herself to better understand, and she starts reading lots of books. Too bad there was no Shmoop in Iran in 1980. ● Wait, why is this chapter called Persepolis? (Check out our "What's Up With the Title?" section if you're curious.) ●

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Letter ● Marji reads and reads and reads and realizes that the biggest problem with the world is the divide between social classes. ● She recognizes the divide firsthand when her maid, Mehri, falls in love with the boy next door, but is forbidden to pursue him because she is a much lower class than he. ● He wears a Bee Gees shirt, so maybe this is for the best? ● Later, Marji gets Mehri to take her to a demonstration. ● Afterward, Marji's mother is angry. They had demonstrated on "Black Friday"—not the hellish shopping day, but a day when many Iranians were killed by their own country's soldiers.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Party ● Time for another regime change in Iran. It feels like they change regimes as much as American Idol changes judges. ● People are excited, but Marji's parents know better than to expect any peace. ● Marji bullies a kid in school because his father was in the Shah's secret police and killed people. ● Her mom sets her straight: "His father did it. But it's not Ramin's fault" (6.34). ● After this, Marji realizes that she has to learn to forgive.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY

● BACK ● NEXT

The Heroes ● The political prisoners are liberated, and two of the freed prisoners are friends of the family. ● They invite Mohsen and Siamak over, and Mohsen tells them about the painful torture he endured. ● At first, Marji takes the horrific torture methods and turns it into a game to play with her friends. Whatever happened to good ol' hide and seek? ● But later that night, she feels overwhelmed and tries to find comfort with her mom and with God.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 8 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

Moscow ● Marji is sad that her dad never went to prison. "My father was not a hero" (8.1), she says. ● Luckily for her though, her Uncle Anoosh was. ● His story is pretty scary: He was loyal to his uncle Fereydoon, who proclaimed the independence of Azerbaijan; naturally, the Shah was not happy. ● Anoosh has a dream: "dead people, blood" (8.13). Um, at least he wasn't in his underwear in front of all the dead people, right? ● The next morning, his uncle is assassinated, and Anoosh flees.

● He gains asylum in the U.S.S.R, and even marries. He hates his wife, though he never says why. ● When he returns to Iran, he is captured and imprisoned for nine years. Marji thinks that is awesome.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 9 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Sheep ● While Uncle Anoosh stays with the family, Marji listens to all the political discussion and tries to follow along. It's a little like watching foreign television without the subtitles: she can get the gist of things, but not the specifics. ● As the Islamic Revolution takes power, people flee Iran in droves, including Marji's friends and many of her family members. ● Her family stays, even though all the former revolutionaries who were freed, including Uncle Anoosh, are enemies of the government again. ● One day, Marji comes home from school to find Anoosh gone. Her parents tell her that Anoosh had to leave in a hurry. ● Then Marji's dad comes clean: Anoosh was arrested. ● He's allowed to talk to one person in prison, and he wants to talk to Marji. ● He tells her, "You are the little girl I always wanted to have" (9.52), and he gives her a swan he made to match one he gave her earlier. He then calls her the "star of [his] life" (9.55). It's a really sweet exchange, which is good, because it's the last time she sees him. ● He is later executed. ● She tells God, "get out of my life" (9.59). She's so lost, she feels like she's lost in space.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 10 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Trip ● Iran starts shutting down faster than the mall on Christmas Eve. They shut down the U.S. embassy and the universities. ● Soon, all women are forced to wear the veil. ● Marji's mother tells Marji that if she's ever asked what she does during the day, she should say she prays. ● One day, she accompanies her parents to a demonstration, where she sees someone stabbed in the leg. ● That's the last demonstration they go to. ● They take a vacation to Spain. It's nice, but when they return, Grandma tells them that a new war is starting, this time with Saddam Hussein.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 11 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The F-14s ● Marji is at her dad's office when Iraqi fighter jets bomb Tehran. ● At school, Marji learns that a friend's dad is a fighter pilot for Iran. He dies in battle. ● Marji tells her friend that her father is a hero, and she should be proud. ● The friend responds: "I wish he were alive and in jail rather than dead and a hero" (11.53). ●

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 12 SUMMARY

● BACK ● NEXT

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).

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 13 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Key ● At school, mourning the war dead becomes part of the daily routine; to do so, they listen to a song and pound their chests. ● Marji decides to make fun of the routine of the students flagellating themselves to honor the dead. She cracks her friends up. ● She and her friends become quite the pranksters, even garlanding the room with toilet paper, which gets them suspended for a week.

● Their parents get called in to school, and end up pretty much yelling at the principal. They're not happy with the state of education in Iran either. ● Later, their maid (Ms. Nasrine, a different maid than Mehri) is upset because the school gave her son a plastic key painted gold. ● They told him it would be his key to heaven if he died in battle. It's propaganda used by the government to recruit child soldiers. ● Meanwhile, Marji really gets into punk rock. Guess you have to get your mind off of war somehow.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 14 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Wine ● As bombs continue falling, Marji's family starts going to secret parties. ● On the way home, they get stopped by the patrol, who follow them home to sweep their apartment for contraband. ● When they get to the building, Grandma says she has diabetes and needs to get upstairs immediately. ● She and Marji race upstairs and they dump all the wine down the toilet. ● It turns out to be an unnecessary precaution: downstairs, Marji's dad bribes them to go away. He needs a drink. Too bad it all got flushed…

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 15 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Cigarette ● Marji makes some fourteen-year-old friends who like to sneak out and ogle boys. ● One day, after cutting class, Marji is busted by her mom. They get into a huge fight. ● Marji sneaks into the basement, thinks about the martyrs, and secretly smokes her first cigarette. She feels like a grown-up.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 16 SUMMARY

● BACK ● NEXT

The Passport ● Uncle Taher has a heart attack, and the family rushes to the hospital. ● He needs open heart surgery, but in order to get that, he needs a passport to get to England. Getting a passport in Iran is harder than getting to the front of the line at the It's a Small World ride at Disney World. ● Marji's dad has connections, however, and knows a man named Khosro, who makes fake passports. ● Unfortunately, a refugee girl, Niloufar, that Khosro is keeping, gets caught and executed, prompting Khosro to flee to Sweden. He never makes the passport. ● Uncle Taher dies, is buried, and his real passport arrives the same day.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 17 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

Kim Wilde ● A year later, the borders are reopened and Marji's parents get their passports. ● They go to Turkey. Marji doesn't want to go, but she gives them a list of things she wants them to bring back. ● They get everything on her list, including the rock music posters, but they don't know how to get the posters past customs. ● Then mom has a great idea: sew them into the lining of dad's coat. ● He looks like he's rocking some serious shoulder pads, but that's the style, so they pass through without issue.

● Later, Marji heads out on her own to buy some rock music tapes from a guy in a trench coat on the street. ● On the way back, an adult stops her and shames her for the clothes she's wearing. The adult threatens to take her to the committee, "the HQ of the guardians of the revolution" (17.53). ● Marji lies, saying that her stepmother will burn her with an iron if she gets in trouble, and the woman lets her go. ● Marji goes home and rocks out to get her mind off things.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 18 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Shabbat ● One day, Marji is out shopping with her friend when she hears that her neighborhood has been bombed. ● She grabs a taxi and races home. It's not just her neighborhood that's been hit: it's her street. ● Freaking out, she finds her mom. Their house is safe, but the next door neighbor's house was obliterated. ● Mom tries to tell Marji that the neighbors are okay, but Marji spots her neighbor Neda's bracelet… and it's still attached to a part of Neda that is no longer attached to the rest of her. ● Marji practically blacks out from the trauma.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 19 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Dowry ● After Neda's death, Marji becomes even more rebellious. ● She hits the principal and gets expelled; and then she gets into trouble at her new school. ● Afraid for their daughter's safety, her parents decide to send her to stay with her mom's friend in Vienna. ● Marji gives away a bunch of her stuff to her friends and says goodbye. ● Her parents take her to the airport. When Marji turns around to watch them leave, she sees that her mother has fainted, and that her dad is carrying her from the airport. ● All Marji can do is watch them go from behind the glass.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 20 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Soup [Note: This is the beginning of Persepolis 2] ● It's November 1984 and Marjane is in Austria in a boarding house with nuns. Wait, what? Wasn't she staying with Zozo, a friend of her mom's? ● Quick flashback: She was, but Zozo fought with her husband a lot and ended up kicking Marjane out. ● She kind of likes her independence at the boarding house, though, and she tries to make friends with her roommate, Lucia, even though they don't speak the same language.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 21 SUMMARY

● BACK ● NEXT

Tyrol ● Marjane wakes up every morning to the sound of Lucia's hairdryer. The dulcet tones of Steve Innskeep, it ain't. ● At school, Marjane is teased for her less-than-expert French: one of the kids tells her the word for "dick" instead of "ruler," prompting her to ask a boy "can you lend me your dick?" (21.17), much to the delight of her peers. ● She does make friends, though: Momo, Julie, Thierry, and Oliver. ● Soon it's Christmas break and everyone goes home for the holidays… except Marjane. They don't celebrate Christmas in Iran. ● Lucia invites Marjane to the Tyrol, in the southwest of Austria, to spend time with her family. ● Marjane really likes it there, except for the midnight Mass that lasts until 3 a.m. ● After the trip, Marjane feels, "I had a new set of parents [and] Lucia was my sister" (21.51-21.52).

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 22 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

Pasta ● Marjane starts reading again to bone up on her friends' interests: Bakunin and Marx.

● She even tries to pee standing up as recommended by Simone de Beauvoir, but she makes a mess. Maybe she should put Cheerios in the toilet to improve her aim… ● One night, she makes a pot of pasta and watches TV in the common room with the nuns. ● A nun yells at her for eating out of a pot. The nun has the audacity to say, "[Iranians] have no education" (22.32). ● Marjane responds, "You were all prostitutes before becoming nuns" (22.33)… ● And that's how Marjane gets expelled from yet another school. ● She's lucky enough to get to move in with Julie, but she never sees Lucia again.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 23 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Pill ● Marjane enjoys the time she spends with Julie and her mother. ● When Julie's mother goes away, Julie throws a party. The parties in Vienna are different to Marjane: "In Iran, at parties, everyone would dance and eat. In Vienna, people preferred to lie around and smoke" (23.42). And by lie around she means in the Biblical sense (translation: naked). ● That night holds a few firsts for Marjane: her first time seeing a half-naked man, realizing that Julie is having sex before marriage, and her first contact high.

PERSEPOLIS CHAPTER 24 SUMMARY ● BACK ● NEXT

The Vegetable ● It's puberty time, but Marjane blows through her awkward teen growth spurt and adopts a new punk-rock hairstyle. ● She's still trying to find herself, though. Her friends smoke a lot of hash, but Marjane only pretends to. ● She feels like she's betraying her parents, who sent her away to give her the freedom to be herself. ● When she tells someone she's French, she feels extra guilty for betraying her Iranian heritage. ● It all comes to a head when she overhears people talking about how weird and ugly she is. They see through her lies. ● She stands up and yells at them, "I AM IRANIAN AND PROUD OF IT" (24.47). You go, girl. ● Embarrassed, she cries at first, but then she feels good because she just stood up for herself. "If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable" (24.52), she says, which is a really good point.

PERSEPOLIS CH...