Persepolis

Satrapi draws in stark black and white with no gray tones. This is a deliberate choice. What does the absence of gray do to the story — and is the world she's depicting actually black and white?

Marji wants to be a prophet at the start of the memoir. How does the revolution — and specifically Anoosh's death — change her relationship with God and religion?

The Islamic Revolution claimed to liberate Iran from Western imperialism. How does Satrapi's family experience the revolution — and what does that tell us about who the revolution was actually for?

Marji's parents maintain a secret social life — parties, alcohol, Western music — behind closed doors while publicly complying with regime rules. Is this hypocrisy, survival, or resistance? Is there a difference?

Compare Persepolis to Maus. Both use the graphic novel form to tell stories of political violence and survival. What can images do in these stories that prose cannot?

Satrapi is a woman writing in French about an Iranian childhood. She drew the book in her adopted language. How might the memoir have been different if written in Farsi, for an Iranian audience?

Marji's encounter with the morality police over her shoes and jacket is both comic and terrifying. How does Satrapi balance humor and horror throughout the memoir?

Anoosh was a communist who fought for a revolution that then executed him. What does his story say about the relationship between revolution and ideology?

The bread swan that Anoosh makes for Marji in prison becomes one of the memoir's most powerful images. Why does Satrapi choose this object to represent their relationship?

Marji watches boys being sent to the front with plastic keys 'to paradise.' The Iranian government genuinely did this. How does Satrapi render this documented historical fact — and what does her choice to include it say about her aims?

The memoir ends with a black panel and no text. Why does Satrapi refuse to caption the departure? What would a caption have done that the black panel doesn't?

Persepolis has been banned in Iran and challenged in American school districts. What do you think each set of censors found threatening — and are they threatened by the same thing?

Marji's family is secular, middle-class, and well-connected — they have more protection than most Iranians. Does the memoir acknowledge this privilege? Should it do more with it?

How does Satrapi's visual style — simple, childlike, icon-like figures — prevent or enable reader identification? Could a more realistic style tell the same story?

Grandmother's advice — 'keep your dignity and be true to yourself' — is the memoir's ethical foundation. What does 'dignity' mean in a country that systematically tries to deny it to women?

Persepolis is frequently taught as a window onto Iranian culture. What are the risks of a single memoir serving as the primary representation of an entire country for Western readers?

Marji's first cigarette on the roof is described as the moment she 'kissed childhood goodbye.' Compare this to a moment in your own experience when a small act felt like a large threshold. What makes ordinary actions feel like transformations?

The Islamic Revolution presented itself as a liberation from Western imperialism and the Shah's corruption. Satrapi's family, who also opposed the Shah, ends up as the revolution's victims. How does the memoir explain this paradox?

Compare Marji's experience of adolescence to the typical American teenage experience you know. What is she navigating that American teenagers are not? What is she missing that American teenagers have?

In 2022, Iranian women began publicly removing their veils in protest after Mahsa Amini's death. How does Persepolis help you understand that protest movement — and what does it tell you that the same argument is still happening forty years later?

Satrapi's parents decide to send her away. Some readers see this as a loving sacrifice; others see it as a failure of resistance — leaving when staying might have mattered. What do you think? Is leaving Iran a political act?

The regime in Persepolis never appears as a single named villain. How does depicting totalitarianism as a system rather than a person change the memoir's political argument?

Marji frequently imagines herself as brave and defiant — and frequently is. But she also shops at the black market, makes jokes at school, and tries to fit in. Is she a resistor or an adapter? Can you be both?

Persepolis was adapted into an animated film in 2007. The film uses the same black-and-white style as the graphic novel. Why would a film adaptation maintain a black-and-white aesthetic in an era of color animation?

Marji's grandmother keeps jasmine flowers in her bra every day of her life 'so that her body would always be fragrant.' What does this detail tell you about how she has survived and what survival looks like?

Satrapi describes meeting 'heroes of the revolution' who are now its prisoners. How does the Islamic Revolution's treatment of its own leftist supporters illuminate the nature of ideological power?

The graphic novel is sometimes considered a 'lesser' literary form than prose. Persepolis is frequently cited as evidence that this hierarchy is false. Make the argument: what does Satrapi's story gain from being a graphic novel that it would lose as prose memoir?

Satrapi's family opposed both the Shah's regime and the Islamic Republic. What does it mean politically and personally to oppose every available government? Is there a word for that position?

What would Marji's story look like told by the Iranian government? By an American diplomat? By a religious conservative who supported the revolution? How does point of view shape which story gets told?

Persepolis ends before Marji reaches Vienna. Persepolis 2 picks up there. What expectations does the ending of Persepolis create for its sequel — and does ending on departure rather than arrival change the meaning of the story you've just read?