Violence In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

In Persepolis, a fictional graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, Marji grows up in war-torn Iran. Being a young child, the violence and events around her influence her views and ideals as she matures. Event after event, Marji develops her own thoughts and ideas as she grows. The development of her own beliefs including the events that contribute to them convey the theme that violence is too deplorable to respond with more violence or lose innocent lives Satrapi develops the theme through the foil characters, Laly and Pardisse. Both Laly’s and Pardisse’s fathers have been imprisoned and named “heroes”, but that seems to be the only similarity between them. Visually, however, the panel size and the presence of sweat emanata (panel 4, 52; panel 8, 86) indicating Marji’s consternation make the panels
Satrapi makes it evidently clear with her stance against social classes and social injustice that all lives have value. Because of people’s worth, people should not suffer through that “diabolical feeling of power” (52). As a result, Satrapi promotes forgiveness and passiveness in her story. Significantly, she does this by having Marji’s mother and grandmother teach Marji life lessons about “reacting to [jerk’s] cruelty” (150). The impact of these life lessons on the reader makes Satrapi’s anti-war ideals more important to the reader. Satrapi also accentuates that the lives that suffer “in prisons defending freedom,… in the war in Iraq,… [or] under repressive regimes” should never be forgotten. This theme relates to the world today because there are many political and religious conflicts that lead to oppression and violence within communities. As a woman who has lived through a dictatorship, an internal war, and a war against another country, Satrapi expresses the need to recognize the cost of violence and respond to it