RR #2 Persepolis

In the book Persepolis, Satrapi tells a story of how war broke out in the 80’s in Iran. People fear of being bombarded from oncoming missiles from another nation. In Iran, rules were set out to people to keep Iran’s believes intact. Clothing should be appropriate to the public and has to be bought within the town of Iran. Any other type of non-cultural clothing will be place in disciplinary action. One of the concerns were with women’s clothing, women in general had to wear a black cloth over themselves and not show anything else but there eyes out in the public. If a piece of hair or part of clothing is shown, disciplinary action may take place. Men had to be conservative and wear a black top and jeans, they may have their facial hair but it is not required. As for music, it has to be kept quiet if being played in the homes. Reason for being playing low volume is to not attract attention and confiscated.

That wasn’t one of the problems Satrapi had to face in Iran. Satrapi had issues with her parent’s as she didn’t like, nor want to participate in Iran’s beliefs. But Satrapi would always hear her mother yelling at her and fighting with her. Satrapi could think of herself listening to the dictatorship of her mom running her mouth off to her. She wanted to be different amongst everyone else and didn’t want to wear a clothing over her head and covering just about everything about her body. She wore cloths from other countries and sneakers but was accused of not following the rules of Iran, she listened to music and had trouble listening to the teachers at school. She received a warning but she repeated wearing jewelry the next day. Satrapi was expelled for refusing to not wear jewelry. Satrapi even argued with one of the teachers because of the topic the teacher said wasn’t true to what Satrapi had been through on that topic. (Example) The teacher said “Since the Islamic republic was founded, we no longer have political prisoners.” Satrapy’s argument was “You say we don’t have political prisoners anymore. But we’ve gone from 3,000 prisoners to 300,000 under your regime.” (Marjane 144). At the end of all the complaints from Satrapy’s schools. The parents had no choice but to send her out of country to another school where she could be safe from the war and she would have a good education at a foreign school living with her mom’s friend. The family said it’s for her own good and would eventually see her again in six months.

Satrapy’s life was hard living the way she was supposed to be raised in a proper way in Iran, Everyone was forced to dress in a cultural style and no other. Women and men should be free of what to wear regardless of what culture you live on or what beliefs must be promised outside of their house, be able to listen to any genre of music, and be able to be open minded. In Iran, no one should be judge if they want to be different than everyone.