A Great Coming of Age Story "The Complete Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi

Those of us lucky enough to do so will spend the beginning of our lives swimming though a deep, ever changing ocean, looking for land where we may rest our heads with confidence and self-acceptance. To come of age is to swim through this sea, some days floating, some drowning, but always being manipulated by its power as we search for our true selves. Like Ralph Ellison said, “When I discover who I am, I will be free”.

Marjane Satrapi’s book, The Complete Persepolis, is an incredible coming of age autobiography revealing the immense struggles a young and rebellious Iranian girl endures as she too desperately searches her identity. The book opens to Satrapi as a 10-year-old girl facing the beginning of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. At this pivotal age she is faced with extreme change as the government forces religious fundamentalism onto its people. Laws are made that test her faith and identity. Her, relatively liberal parents eventually send her to Vienna so she may continue school without religious intervention. In this new western environment she tries to be many things including her true self but fails to do so. No closer to find her place in the world she makes her way home four years later guilty and ashamed for leaving her struggling family and country. At home she continues to try and force her changing rebellious personality into an excessively strict religious society. After some college and a failed marriage she comes to the conclusion that must leave Iran, while accepting her love for her culture and country, and move to France to live the life she is meant for.

The Complete Persepolis is a raw and truthful coming of age story of a rebellious girl growing into a rebellious and educated woman as she searches for her identity along the way. As a young girl living through the Islamic Revolution, Marji is faced with adversity early on and finds herself posed with questions meant for a much older mind. At the beginning she is a girl of deep faith but as the religious fundamentalist take hold and the veils are forced unto the women she began to expand her thinking. “I really didn’t know what to think about the veil. Deep down I was very religious…”. Marji’s inherent curiosity and drive to learn accelerated her knowledge of things much bigger than herself, however the Iranian regime manipulated the information being taught at schools. Luckily, despite her young age, Satrapi’s parents would always try and convey the truth. “As for me, I love the king, he was chosen by God”. “Come sit on my lap. I’ll try and explain it all to you”. This directness from her parents played a big role in her development. Some of her coming of age lessons were similar. Learning right from wrong through trial and error and support from her parents. However, like the imprisonment and execution of her beloved uncle Anoosh, some childhood events rested the heaviness of reality on her much too young shoulders forcing her take steps in maturity while leaving behind bits of her old self. “And so I was lost, without any bearings… what could be worse than that”. She had identified with her uncle who she viewed as a rebel and a hero, which pulled her away from her religious side. When he was taken from her she lost both a loved one and her faith in God. As Marji grew older she identified more and more as a rebel determined to live and learn as she chooses.

At the dramatic age of fourteen, Marji is sent to Vienna to continue the elite French schooling she had lost since the Islamic Fundamentalist gained power. “Nothing is worse than saying goodbye. It’s a little like dying”. Up to this point, Marji’s parents had been a guiding compass as she navigated her childhood. This was a life-changing move that drastically altered her path to maturity. “Now I had a real independent adult life. I was going to feed myself, do my own laundry… I headed straight for the supermarket to buy groceries like a woman”. For a teenager, or child if you will, independence and responsibly is a major stepping-stone to maturity. Marji’s excitement and determination to be self-sufficient is a testament to her early development precipitated by events of a country in turmoil. Marji’s continued to grow and develop as she navigated not only newfound freedom (from parents and an oppressive government), but also intensely different social environments. “An eccentric, a punk, tow orphans and a third-worlder, we made quite a group of friends…”. Through her new group of friends, Marji found herself in various social situations of the western nature. These new experiences allowed Satrapi to grow and experiment but also brought to the surface her inner identity crisis. “The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I had the feeling that I was distancing myself from my culture, betraying my parents and my origins, that I was playing a game by somebody else’s rules”. This type of suffering, questioning ones place in the world, is imperative for development and growth. Marji’s next stage in life began shortly after hitting her lowest point yet in Vienna. “I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone… The shame of having become a mediocre nihilist”. This was a very important moment for Marji. Finding oneself at the very bottom gives one perspective and can highlight the various paths that lead out of the pit. For Marji it was accepting failure and returning home. “I spent a good part of the night in the emptiness, just happy to be there”. Another pivotal point in Satrapi’s development was her failed suicide attempt. “I inferred from this that I was not made to die. From now on I am taking myself in hand”. She conquered her existential crisis and built herself with confidence into a woman for the first time. “Strong and invincible like this, I was going to meet my new destiny”. From this point Marji began to develop into her true self. She started college, rebelled against the oppressive regime with secret parties and lipstick, she protested ridiculous sexist rules, and she found love. Though her marriage failed, she found clarity in the path ahead, which was to continue her life and studies in France. “The goodbyes were much less painful than ten years before when I embarked for Austria: there was no longer a war, I was no longer a child, my mother didn’t faint and my grandma was there…”.

Like any great coming of age story, Marjane Satrapi’s was full of all the appropriate details as well as many unique to that of a young Iranian girl living through the Islamic Revolution. The dramatic changes in her life like the sudden enforcement of the veil, the violent loss of friends and family, her exile to Vienna, her near death experiences (by sickness and her own hand), and her failed marriage became important stepping stones that created the woman she became. Her identity crisis stemmed from her inability to conform to a life in Vienna and the suffocating sensation from trying to build one in Iran. However it was from these experiences that she was able to discover her true self, which lit the path to France. To come of age is to accept ones past present and future and to witness ones identity come to life.