Structure of Persepolis and Its Effects on Illustrating Marjane’s Coming-of-Age Anonymous 11th Grade

The graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a bildungsroman, a novel that deals with the coming-of-age of the protagonist which happens to be the author herself. Marjane develops from an ignorant child to a mature adult as she struggles with who she is regarding political beliefs, national identity, and her stance on relationships. In order to show how Marjane matures from these experiences, Satrapi structures Persepolis in a unique way by presenting Marjane’s struggles in her quest for identity as lessons arranged in three chronological stages.

In the initial stage of Persepolis, Satrapi describes Marjane’s struggles while living under a suppressive regime to explain her critical views towards political and societal rules. The first stage of Persepolis is marked by the time period during which Marjane was still a child living in Iran. At a very young age, Marjane has already lived through several coup d'etat and changes in political power. However, these changes did not ameliorate standards of living but made regimes more suppressive. Initially, Marjane was unconcerned due to her innocence. When her parents returned home from a full day of demonstrations, she approached them happily and yelled, “Hey mom, dad, let’s play...