Persepolis – A Story of the Loss of Innocence

            I was listening to music today while finishing a paper for a different class, and I came across this song.  Now, I realize the lyrics don’t all match up, but it kind of reminded me of Marji in Persepolis.  There are several lines that seem to mirror her own life (which I will leave you to find for yourselves), but one in particular caught my attention.  The line “When you’re older, you will understand,” made me think of several scenes in the novel.  Marji led a sheltered life as much as her parents could provide her one.  Several times things were hidden from her because she wasn’t old enough, or she was “old enough to understand certain things” (p. 22).  As she got older, and the situations in her country got worse she was spared less and less.  She had a youthful innocence and ignorance before times changed, but as the novel progressed she began to understand and know more.  Before, Marji thought it was fun and games to play things like torture, and claim she was a rebel.  By the end of the novel, she was older and understood.  “After the death of Neda Baba-Levy, my life took a new turn.  In 1984 I was fourteen and a rebel.  Nothing scared me more.” (p. 145).  For all she did understand, she didn’t know everything.  Her parents explained how her innocence would be taken in the literal sense if she were arrested.  Due to circumstances in Iran, Marji was finally sent to live in Austria to attend a French school.  She was for all intents and purposes alone in a place she didn’t know (^hint hint), and if she didn’t understand why then, she understood as she got older