Persepolis begins with the author’s internal adjustments to wearing the veil, as
well as others around her. For the western audience that enjoys the graphic novel and the
film adaptation, this struggle is usually framed in sweeping criticism of women’s loss of
freedoms and rights, and what professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi calls an attempt to
“deamonize and “orientalize” [sic] Iran” (DePaul, “Man With a Country“). I recall one
beautiful spring day while I was working at a recreation center. My boss came frantically
running up to me, and I thought someone must be injured. Instead, two young Russian
women were sunbathing without their tops. While they did not risk having acid poured
on them, they were risking, unbeknownst to them, unwanted leering from men and
imprisonment (deportation?) for indecent exposure. Here, they were faced with the same
dilemma as Marjane Satrapi: embrace cultural mores or risk consequences.
In 1979, Ayatolla Khomeini required that women wear the veil, whereas before
that it was optional. Satrapi chooses to deal with the covering of her face by becoming a
revolutionary and prophet in her mind and soul. Those around her in 1980, when
wearing the veil became “obligatory” chose to make it into a horse’s bridle or a jump
rope, and there is no indication that such irreverence met with any more distain or
punitive action than a Western child unable to sit still in church. Cohen and Peery point
out that many women living under increasing conservatism in the Middle East discover
that this is a way to retain strength, identity, and power (24). One of Muhammad’s
greatest foes was a woman, Hind bint Utbah, and conversely, one of his greatest military
assets, Nusaybah bint Haab, was also a woman (ibid). Satrapi therefore finds no
contradiction in wanting to espouse God’s characteristics of justice and wrath.
Given the subjectivity of religious interpretation, one can only conclude that such
well as others around her. For the western audience that enjoys the graphic novel and the
film adaptation, this struggle is usually framed in sweeping criticism of women’s loss of
freedoms and rights, and what professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi calls an attempt to
“deamonize and “orientalize” [sic] Iran” (DePaul, “Man With a Country“). I recall one
beautiful spring day while I was working at a recreation center. My boss came frantically
running up to me, and I thought someone must be injured. Instead, two young Russian
women were sunbathing without their tops. While they did not risk having acid poured
on them, they were risking, unbeknownst to them, unwanted leering from men and
imprisonment (deportation?) for indecent exposure. Here, they were faced with the same
dilemma as Marjane Satrapi: embrace cultural mores or risk consequences.
In 1979, Ayatolla Khomeini required that women wear the veil, whereas before
that it was optional. Satrapi chooses to deal with the covering of her face by becoming a
revolutionary and prophet in her mind and soul. Those around her in 1980, when
wearing the veil became “obligatory” chose to make it into a horse’s bridle or a jump
rope, and there is no indication that such irreverence met with any more distain or
punitive action than a Western child unable to sit still in church. Cohen and Peery point
out that many women living under increasing conservatism in the Middle East discover
that this is a way to retain strength, identity, and power (24). One of Muhammad’s
greatest foes was a woman, Hind bint Utbah, and conversely, one of his greatest military
assets, Nusaybah bint Haab, was also a woman (ibid). Satrapi therefore finds no
contradiction in wanting to espouse God’s characteristics of justice and wrath.
Given the subjectivity of religious interpretation, one can only conclude that such
