Death Of Innocence In The Shabat By Marjane Satrapi

Death of Innocence “Coming of age” is a popular term for stories about children becoming adults. They illustrate to the children reading them that their life could be worse and imparts “worldy wisdom” and morals to them in order to inspire them to grow up. The Shabat by Marjane Satrapi is not one of these stories. This story, told as graphic fiction, reflects a naive girl’s exposure to war and the detrimental effect it has on her life. Eventually, this story becomes about the death of Marji’s innocence. Her life transforms from that of a typical teenage girl to a victim of war. When the story begins, Marji is sitting in the living room with her parents and their friends. She’s mostly a silent observer, speaking only to point out her parent’s tendency to gossip. The conversation is light-hearted, despite the heavy subject matter. Marji still believes-rather naively-that war is far off. She understands the abstract of it, but it still seems far off.
During this event, Marji’s idea of combat becomes a little more concrete. Her family, despite the bombings, decide to stay in the city for Marji’s education. As the bombings calm down, Marji becomes more calm, even allowing herself to shop for clothes with her friend Shadi. This relaxation almost makes it seem like Marji is allowing herself to believe that it was all just a fluke. She even described it as “shopping euphoria”, which is very telling as euphoria is defined as the state of intense happiness; generally speaking, people usually don’t feel euphoric when their city is under