Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return: The Joke Summary & Analysis

After 10 days, Marjane’s entire extended family shows up to visit her. Marjane is terrified that everyone knows how badly she failed in Vienna. Everyone is kind, but Marjane soon grows tired of being the center of attention. When the visits taper off, Marjane’s grandmother finally visits. She’s the one person Marjane really wants to talk to. Then, Marjane’s friends arrive. Marjane isn’t as worried about seeing her them, since she figures they’re the same age and they’ll be able to connect. But her friends are all very made-up and want to get married as soon as possible. They also want to hear about Vienna’s nightclubs, which Marjane didn’t enjoy. Marjane realizes later that getting made up and wanting to go to nightclubs was her friends’ way of resisting. She still feels very alone.

About a week later, Marjane moans to Mom that all her friends are unbearable. Mom points out that no one is asking young Iranian women to be intelligent these days. She suggests Marjane cut her friends some slack. When Marjane’s grandmother says that there must be someone Marjane wants to see, Marjane realizes there is. She wants to see Kia, whom she played with in the streets. Mom has never liked Kia and starts to protest. After Marjane assures Mom that they won’t get into trouble now that they’re adults, Mom shares what happened to Kia. He was arrested for trying to evade his military service and sent to the front. Now, he’s “almost dead”—he’s disabled. Marjane is nervous but not dissuaded. She tracks down his phone number and schedules a visit.

On the way to Kia’s apartment, Marjane worries about what she’ll find. One of Kia’s neighbors seems thrilled that someone is visiting Kia, and his reaction calms Marjane down enough to ring the doorbell. Kia answers the door from his wheelchair and lets Marjane in. It’s awkward at first and Marjane tries to only look at her friend’s eyes. She only notices that Kia only has the use of one arm when he goes to fetch sodas from the kitchen. After Marjane helps Kia get his soda open, Kia explains that he hopes to go to the U.S. to be fitted for prostheses.

When another awkward silence falls, Kia tells Marjane a joke: A grenade lands on the head of a young soldier at the front, blasting him into pieces. The medics gather up the young man’s body parts and rush him to Tehran, where the doctors stitch him together. Then, when he’s healed, the young man’s family finds him a wife. On their wedding night, the bride is aghast: the doctors reattached the man’s penis to his hip. Despite the man’s insistence that his penis still works, the bride demands a divorce. The man is so fed up that he points to his armpit and tells his wife to kiss his butt.

Kia laughs so hard that he falls out of his wheelchair. He and Marjane spend the rest of the afternoon laughing. Marjane visits Kia several more times before Kia leaves for the U.S. After this day, Marjane learns that people can only wallow in their miseries for so long before they have to laugh.