As young children, our social beliefs are direct reflections of the elderly influence imposed upon us. These reflections can cause dilemmas because ideals exist that may be extremely controversial to society as a whole. Controversial reflective ideologies were represented in Persepolis, a book narrated by a young girl during the Islamic Revolution. Reflected beliefs are not the true reflections of someone’s beliefs, but rather they represent the influence of a culture or an elder upon another person.
Marjane Satrapi, the young girl growing up during the Islamic revolution, narrates the majority of her story during the revolution. This memoir of her childhood in Iran during the revolution, brings attention to the political uprising and disputes among the children, a story missed by most news networks. Satrapi effectively describes one such dispute when she writes “The battle was over for our parents but not for us. ‘My father says Ramin’s father was in the Savak. He killed a million people.’ A million? In the name of the dead million, we’ll teach Ramin a good lesson. I have an idea… My idea was to bup nails between our fingers like American brass knuckles and to attack Ramin.” (p. 45) Given little information, Satrapi believed that Ramin, a young boy, deserved extremely harsh punishment for the actions of his father. By Satrapi sharing this concept as a story, it envelops the idea that the beliefs her parents had were interpreted by Marjane in a way that was very extreme. She applied the knowledge that she interpreted to a situation of her own which may not have followed the original belief of her parents.
Interpretation plays a key role in reflected beliefs and the knowledge that is presented to us on a day to day basis. As a society that spends much of our day surfing the web or the television to hear the opinions and views of popular people and mediums, we directly see different representations of information. Each website that we would look at may have similar outlooks on a concept, but each may be presented in a way that causes different interpretations. From two separate sources reporting on a very controversial topic in America, whether it was right to wrong to make changes to Colorado gun laws, would be indecipherable. From an article called Colorado Republicans are Trying to Undo Recent Gun Control Measures published by the Huffington Post, Ivan Moreno writes “Monday's debates are the start of what is expected to be a session-long push by GOP leaders seeking to flex their new Senate muscle and pick up enough Democratic support in the House to make several changes.The Senate repeal bill advanced on a 3-2 vote, and it now goes to another panel. ‘This is a very dysfunctional law,’” said Republican Sen. Kent Lambert, the bill's sponsor.” Moreno presents this information from the perspective of a Republican. In comparison, Colorado Republicans to Reignite Gun Control, an article published by Summit Daily, Joe Moylan writes “Considering two of her her party colleagues were ousted from office due to their gun control stance last session, Hamner said there may be a desire among Democrats to hear the Republicans out, even though she believes lawmakers passed good legislation a year ago. [...] ‘if things are proposed that make the bills we passed last year better, then I think it’s our job as legislators to build those collaborative relationships.’” The Huffington Post and The Summit Daily present the same information extremely differently from each other. After reading each of the articles, whether the new gun laws were politically correct were up to the interpretation of the reader.
This interpretation was represented by the children in Persepolis. From the book, the Children represent the things that they hear, these become the things that they know. Satrapi displays her ‘knowledge’ when she has a different opinion than the rest of her family, “Sometimes I even told them [Anoosh and Father] my opinion… On TV they say that 99.99% of the population voted for the Islamic Republic. ‘Did you hear that Anoosh? Do you realize how ignorant our people are? The elections were faked and they believe the results: 99.99%!! As for me, I don’t know a single person who voted for the Islamic Republic. Where did that figure come from? From their asses, that’s where.’ ‘Calm down Eby, [father] she’s just a child who repeats what she hears!’” (p. 62) Satrapi holds a conflicting belief from her father because she hears a fact that is against her father’s belief. Persepolis continues to emphasize the concept of the children’s story and the children’s differing beliefs because of the influence of their families and the single-sided information that they hear on the television or radio.
Suddenly, childhood relationships soon became based upon the differing beliefs of the children’s families. Before the revolution, children were allowed to play and to develop their own opinions of right and wrong. Following the beginning of the revolution, they experience a drastic change in their lifestyle. This is represented through many of their interchanges. This is exemplified in a conversation between Satrapi and two boys, “Hey, want to play? ‘He’s going to the United States.’ To the United States? Why? ‘My parents say it’s impossible to live under an islamic regime, it’s better to leave.’ But the religious leaders are very stupid, they won’t last. ‘Yeah!’ ‘My dad says nobody realizes the danger.’” (p. 63) The time period of playing was overruled by fighting over whether one’s family’s beliefs were right or wrong. Rather than spending time on age appropriate activities, it became more important that one’s parents were correct.
Satrapi portrayed the conflicting ideals of children beautifully as she encased a politically challenging regime into the intermind and experiences of a child. Through her usage of storytelling and illustrated displays of emotion, readers are directly able to know how each of the characters truly feels at any point in time. Persepolis encased Satrapi’s childhood in a manner that represented her force to mature at a young age. Through the stories that she told, it is undeniable that each child was forced to interpret the beliefs of their parents, the beliefs of the government, and the beliefs of popular forms of communication to create an underdeveloped overall belief of their own. The format utilized in Persepolis allowed harsh topics to be understood by readers through the eye of a child.
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