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1-Page Summary of Persepolis

Overview

In Persepolis, the author gives a brief history of Iran. She tells about the first people to occupy that area and how they established an empire there. Then she explains what happened after 1979 when Islamic fundamentalists took over.

As a ten-year old girl, the author is forced to wear a veil to school by those that called for a cultural revolution in Iran. There are many protests both for and against this cultural revolution. Her French non-religious school is abolished and boys and girls are separated for education. Her mother protests against the changes and her picture appears in newspapers across Europe. She believes one day she will be the last prophet, but her classmates ridicule her plan because they think it’s ridiculous.

She and her friends play pretend a lot, pretending to be famous revolutionaries. She knows about world history because of the books that her parents give her, especially Dialectic Materialism, which is an argument between Marx and Descartes about whether or not the material world exists. One night while talking to God she overhears her parents talking about a fire at a local theater in which 400 people died. The fire was ordered by the Shah, who has since left Iran for Egypt after protesters demonstrated against him.

People have tried to overthrow the king in order to institute a republic. The British supported this plan, and Reza Shah became the Emperor of Iran. He was not from an aristocratic family but had been a soldier who fought against the King during World War I. His Prime Minister was Marjane’s grandfather, who later became a communist and ended up imprisoned by Reza Shah because he opposed his policies.

The grandmother visits and talks more about the Shah. He’s a very big deal in Iran. She tells Marjane that he sees himself as a comparable ruler to Cyrus the Great, another famous leader from Persia. The grandfather was imprisoned when Marjane’s mother and grandmother were young, they weren’t allowed to own any appliances except stoves or other things that suggest food is involved such as tablecloths made of plastic because people feared this would let authorities know how poor their family was. Her father doesn’t come home one day and she believes him dead because he had been talking against the Shah before leaving that morning. He returns late showing up on top of a truck preaching through a megaphone at thousands of protesters who had captured it for use during an anti-Shah ceremony proclaiming freedom from tyranny.

Marjane has a maid named Mehri. When Mehri was younger, her parents were so poor that they gave her to Marjane’s family as a gift. Now she and the neighbor boy are in love with each other, but Mr. Satrapi finds out about their relationship and explains to the boy that because Mehri is not his daughter but rather their maid, he cannot see her anymore. Defiant of her father’s wishes, Marjane takes Mehri along to demonstrate at rallies against the government. Her mother slaps both of them for putting themselves into such a difficult situation by disobeying their parents’ orders like this.

In the revolution, people are dying. The Shah sees that it is too dangerous to stay in Iran and leaves for America. In school, Marjane fights with a boy whose father was a member of the secret police. He tells her that he is proud of his father’s actions and doesn’t feel bad about what they did to punish communists. She tries to forgive those who tortured others but cannot find peace because she does not agree with their actions; she feels guilty for forgiving them when she knows that they should be punished instead.