Children, War, and Growing Up Theme Analysis

The memoir follows its protagonist, Marjane, from childhood to young adulthood, and as such it traces the effects of war and politics on her psyche and development. By her own admission, Marjane thinks that the moment she comes of age occurs when she smokes a cigarette she stole from her uncle. However, by this point Marjane has encountered so much sorrow, death, and disaster, with enough grace, dignity, and sympathy, that her tiny act of rebellion against her mother’s prohibition of cigarettes comes across as hopelessly childish—as more of a defense mechanism against the repression enacted by the state than an act of maturity. What might have, during peaceful times, been seen as a rite of passage into adulthood becomes muddied by the heightened stakes of the war, and Marjane must grapple with growing up quickly even as she still retains many of her immature instincts. War both stunts and quickens her growth, and brings out both the weepy and sensitive child and the strong and willful adult in her.

Persepolis shows children to be extremely malleable ideologically and behaviorally during war precisely because children do not yet have the capacity to understand the complexity of the situations around them. For example, we see how many boys easily become radicalized and come to believe in the heavenly benefits of martyrdom because they are naturally trusting of authority. In fact, the graphic novel opens with Marjane professing the fact that she and her friends did not understand the meaning of the veil newly imposed by the Islamic Republic; they only knew it as a change from the time before, when they did not need to cover their hair. This alerts us to the fact that for a child born into this new rule, the rule will seem perfectly normal, just as not wearing a veil felt normal for Marjane before the Revolution. Children, thus, take their cues about what is normal in the world from the adults around them, and Marjane and her friends throughout Persepolis emulate in reality or imagination the roles of soldiers, torturers, demonstrators, prophets, heroes, and political leaders. Rather than thinking rationally or sophisticatedly about all the different players in this societal moment of crisis, Marjane at first follows or reveres anyone with power and popular appeal.

However, the graphic novel literally illustrates her growth into young adulthood as she becomes continually confronted with the contradictions and confusions of life. Marjane’s growing up is complicated by the fact that the Iranian government understands that the children of today are the adults of tomorrow, and so wants to influence children to become adults who will support the Islamic Republic. Marjane’s school thus becomes a microcosm of the wider world in which the government’s ideology gets thrust onto the populace. Not only must the girls wear veils, whereas once they did not, but after the Revolution they must also tear out the photo of the Shah—a man whom they were once told to adore. This confusion leads Marjane to understand that she cannot simply follow the opinions of others—she must make up her own mind about the political realities and questions surrounding her. She must grow up.