Discovering Identity in Persepolis

Taken From: The Chapter- "The Letter"

-Class distinctions are imposed by the society in which one lives

-Not prevalent in America or other western cultures

-Being put into a social class or a "box with a label" can sometimes force society to define our identities

-Has significant impact on education and even employment

-Marji knows the maid, but is confused why different social classes make two people incompatible for something as basically human as love

-Therefore, class distinctions are an imposed identity

Taken from: Entire Novel

-Marji was born into a liberal, upper-class family, that has been largely westernized.

-Being born to this family, as opposed to another.

-Family has the most significant impact on ones identity

-Our family shapes our religious, ideological, political, and societal preferences, because they teach us, and surround us for the first few decades of our lives

-We are the image our family molds us to be

Discovering Identity in Persepolis

Conclusion

-Identity is essentially ones character or personality, it has, however, the power to determine how we act, think, and make important decisions

-A unique aspect of identity is that it must be found by every individual, and is unique to every individual

-There is our personal identity, which can not be altered or changed, or there is an identity crisis

-There is our social identity, often changed, and often built upon the perceptions of others

Influences of Family Continued...

-Another large aspect of the family dynamic is marital harmony

-Parents who get divorced negatively affect children

-Marji's parents love each other and her (Of all the problems they have this isn't one)

-Young children tend to mimick the behavior of adults

-Will influence gender roles

-Self confidence

-Influences cultural identity

-Religious and political identity, intertwined in the novel

Influence of Family on Identity

Point of View

Influence of State on Identity

Influence of Class on Identity

Taken from: Article- Wartime Cosmopolitanism: Cosmofeminism in Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis by Susan Friedman

-The use of a child narrator

-Not much thinking/discovering of their own

-Children are generally innocent and free from a lifetime of accumulating a bias or opinions

-Creates a starting point for the identity discovery process

-Black and White of Graphic Novel

-Being young, Marji oscillates between passion for her country, and outright disgust

Taken From: Wartime Cosmopolitanism: Cosmofeminism in Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis by Susan Friedman

-Passion for ones country does have an effect on how we define ourselves.

-Marji has an immense desire throughout the text to join her parents in protesting, she cries when the national anthem plays on TV

-She also is upset by many of the imposed inequalities that the government has done nothing to stop.

Research

Three Articles:

1- Wartime Cosmopolitanism: Cosmofeminism in Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis by Susan Friedman

2- Crossing cultures/ crossing genres: the re-invention of the graphic memoir in Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Lopamudra Basu

3- The Experience of marginalization in the process of discovering identity in Out of Place and Persepolis by Magdelena Stola

Influence of Gender on Identity Continued...

-Environmental factors are a major aspect of gender identity

-Boys shamed for liking pink, girls shamed for liking video games

-Internalized by children

-Gender role are discovered by imitating what they see around them

Influence of Gender on Identity

Purpose

Taken From: Article- Crossing cultures/ crossing genres: the re-invention of the graphic memoir in Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Lopamudra Basu

-Marji is a woman.

-Struggles with societal expectations of women (Wearing the veil, not being allowed to go to coed school).

-Misconceptions about Women in Iran and other Middle-Eastern Cultures.

-Many women abhor the veil and its implications of submission to men.

-In the end, children gain a desire to look like, act like, and represent their individual gender, and these differences are largely, but not all, imposed on people.

-The Purpose of Persepolis is to illustrate the process of discovering ones identity, and examine several external influences on the discovery process.

-Many factors of identity are not even necessarily genetic, or predisposed, but are imposed by society.