While in Austria, Marji experiences all of the freedoms, rights, and opportunities which she would have never had were she to stay in Iran. At first she is fascinated and intrigued by the people in Austria, and felt like she was where she belongs. She belonged in a country where a woman could become the next Marie Curie, wear all the clothes that she wants and speak her mind freely with no inhibitions whatsoever. She goes to a local college near where she lives, and gets caught in the crowds of people. The punk era is in full swing in Austria, and Marji goes along for the ride. Marji then becomes a part of a crowd of young Austrians who are fascinated about her past. Marji willingly shares her experiences with them, and the group becomes close. While at school Marji get’s a lot of discrimination because of her Iranian heritage. Many people look at her and the Iranians as people from the stone age, people who are almost like savages. Marji becomes very upset about this, but even worse, embarrassed. During this time, she starts calling her parents less and less, and soon doesn’t call or write to them at all.
Years pass by and Marji almost removes her Iranian from her body. Whenever asked what nationality she is, her mouth begins to form the letter “I”, but what comes out of her mouth is “French”. She strays away from her former radical and politically driven friends and becomes a part of a new group of people. Soon she falls in love with one of the people in the group and they both become love-stricken and move in together. However, the guy soon finds out that Marji has been lying to him the whole time about who she was and they break off their relationship with haste. Marji is incredibly hurt because of this, but not because of the break up, but of what she has become. She realizes how much she has changed and how much of a horrible person she was. She was doing her country an injustice by pretending to be someone that she wasn’t. After this startling revelation Marji finally calls home. When she dialed home, she came to find that the number was disconnected. So she went back to the first house she lived in when she came to Austria, and found that her parents have been setting her letters for the past few years. In the most recent letter, Marji discovers that her grandmother has died. She clutched the letter in her hands as tears fell onto the paper and ink slowly dripped down. Enclosed in the letter is the new telephone number of her parents. She calls the number and her parents finally speak for the first time years. During their conversation, Marji pleads her parents for her to come back home. However, her parents refuse the proposal saying that it would just be best if Marji stayed where she was. Marji feels incredibly saddened by this, but she realized her parents concerns and obeyed. From then on whenever someone asked her ethnicity, she always quickly responded and said, “I am Iranian”.
A few more years pass by and Marji moves to France, where she goes back for more schooling and learns the art of graphic novels. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, there became an incredible amount of prejudice against Muslims and the religion of Islam. Marji becomes deeply affected by this, and thought that it was time to enlighten the people of the world. So, she told her story.
Persepolis was a truly moving and gratifying story of tragedy and triumph told with such unique style. The story itself has enlightened me and opened my eyes to see and learn about the true history of Iran. I was able to gain an understanding about how much the world today is biased and one-sided about the Islamic culture and the Islamic Revolution, and then actually being able to negate those perceptions. I love this book and I love this movie as well. I will take the knowledge obtained from reading this incredible book and remember that, “One can forgive. But one cannot forget”.
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