ELA Blog Post for 29 September, 2017

     In the autobiographical graphic novel "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi, the protagonist's personality is largely a product of both her family's teachings and her concept of what family is. It is because of them that she learned not to allow hate, authority, or tradition to drive her, but rather love, self respect, and moral righteousness.

     As we learn very early on in the book, Marjane's parents are revolutionaries. They instill her with a distrust and disrespect for authority, and an attitude of questioning any rules or regulations she doesn't understand. This rebellious attitude later leads her to speak up against them, questioning their decisions and seeking to get her way against their authority (pages 39 and 113, for example). Through it all, though, she still cares for them in time of need (pg. 74) and loves them very much. On rare occasions, such as their reason for lying to her about being able to come to Europe with her, she decides not to question them in spite of her usual attitude, seemingly because she understands this isn't a matter of their authority over her, but a secret they cannot tell her for her own or their own sake. We get the idea that Marjane treats her parents well not because she must, but because she truly loves them, and her love compels her to do good by them and trust them. This is further solidified on page 172 when her shared love with Lucia's parents' shared love with her lead her to consider them a family of sorts and call them her "new set of parents", showing that she to some extent sees love as a more powerful and unifying factor in family than actual biological connection.

     This attitude of love before authority, of morality before tradition, is one that Marjane carries into the rest of her life, meaning her family and understanding of such has been one of the driving factors in the creation of her sense of the world and interactions with it.