Persepolis: A Bildungsroman Anonymous 11th Grade

Persepolis is a bildungsroman that tells the story of Marji, a young Iranian girl growing up during a time of revolution, turmoil, and war. Her path of growth and development changes direction at a single moment, and she begins to grow up into a young adult with her own views and opinions. Marjane Satrapi reveals the moral development of Marji in her bildungsroman Persepolis through the theme of coming of age.

In the beginning of the novel, Marji was innocent and naïve about everything going on in Iran. All she understood was there was turmoil in her country; however, she did not fully grasp the severity of the situation. Marji was in her own bubble with her unrealistic ideas of the world. For example, Marji does not understand how bad torture is and what it was really used for, and she makes a fun game out of torture: “Those stories had given me new ideas for games. I have imagination too…the moustache-on-fire torture consists of pulling on the two sides of the upper lip” (Satrapi 53). This shows how Marji really knows little about what is going on because if she did, she would know that torture is not really a funny thing to joke about or a fun game to play. However, this quote does give insight into the benefit of a child...