The Second Persepolis

S =Shirin M =Marjane --> =New Panel * =thought R =Random person
N =Nun

It is November of 1984. Marjane is in Austria and living with her mother's best friend, Zozo.

M:It's going to be cool to go to school without a veil, to not have to beat one self everyday for the war martyrs...
S: ?
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S: Have you seen these? They're really fashionable. They're to protect your ears from teh cold. Do you want to try them on?
M: No thanks!
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S: This is my raspberry scented pen, but I have strawberry and blackberry, too.
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S: Do you want to put on some lupstick? I love peraly pink it's very in!!!
M: (angry) HMPHH...
*What a traitor! WHile people were dying in our country, she was talking to me about trivial things.* Page 156
I found these four panels to be very itneresting because it illustrates the culture clash between Marjane, just coming from Iran, to Shirin, having lived in Austria now for quite sometime.


Marjane is now living in a boarding house run by Nuns. Zozo has kicked Marjane out of her house because "there wasn't enough room". She is pretty much living on her own: doing her own laundry and grocery shopping for herself. Right now she is grocery shopping.

*It had been years since I'd seen such a well-stocked store.*
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*The first aisle i headed for was the one with scented detergents.*
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*We couldn't find them in Iran anywhere.*
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*I filled the cart with all kinds of products. Even today, after all this time, you can always find at least a dozen boxes of good-smelling laundry powder in my house.*
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*Given my restricted budget, I took two boxes of pasta. I didn't know yet that this would be my only food during the four years to come.* Page 160
This set of panels (5) struck me because simple things such as the "good-smelling laundry powder" was a HUGE thing for Marjane to have. As she stated/thought "good-smelly laundry powder" was no where to be found in Iran. The detergant is such a trivial thing that I know I would never think about missing. Another thing I found very interesting was when she said she would be living off of pasta for the next four years.

Marjane has made new friends, Julie, Momo, Thierry, and Oliver, at school and has just finished having a conversation with them where she herself was "out of the loop".

*This cretin Momo wasn't altogether wrong. I needed to fit in, and for that I needed to educate myself.*
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*So, I created a reason.*
R: Where are you going on vacation?
M: Nowhere. I'm going to read. I love reading.
*In fact, it was a useful answer to the perennial question "Hwere are you going?" All the while giving me a role.* Page 173
Marjane find the need to prove herself worthy of friendship. In this case Marjane believes that in order to proove her worth she needs to "educate" herself so that she can part-take in the conversation.

Marjane has taken a break from her reading and has gone down stairs to watch television with a pot of pasta.

*When suddenly the mother superior blocked my line of vision.*
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N: A little restraint MADEMOISELLE!
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M: But here, everyone eats while watching TV.
N: But not in a pot! What kind of manners are these?
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N: It's true what they say about Iranians. They have no education.
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M: It's true what they say about you, too. You were all prostitutes before becoming nuns! Page 177
I found this to be very interesting because the Nun, supposedly a holy and kind woman, verbally abuses Marjane with a racial stereotype. However, I am not suprised at Marjane's outburst because not only was the Nun's comment uncalled for and very inappropriate, the reader also knows that Marjane has a temper, noted from The First Persepolis.

Naturally Marjane was expelled from the boarding house for her verbal attack against the Nun. Now Marjane is staying with her best friend Julie. Julie's mom has just left for some 6 day "trip". Julie calls friends to invite them to a party seconds after her mom leaves the house.

*And the part ywas not what I imagined. In Iran, at parties, everyone would dance and eat. In Vienna, people preferred to lie around and smoke.*
* And then, I was turned off by all these public displays of affection. What do you espect, I cam from a traditionalist country.* Page 185
This panel is a clear representation of the culture clash between Iran and Vienna. This also illustrates Marjane's feelings of being out of place.

Since the party Julie threw at her home, Marjane has cut her hair very short. Marjane is being haunted / feeling guilty for her actions and the ways her parents brought her up. The Second panel is her reaction after she hung up from a call from her parents.

*The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I had the feeling that I was distancing myself from my culure, betraying my parents and my origins, that I was playing a game by someone else's rules.*
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* If only they (her parents)knew... If they knew that their daughter was made up like a punk, that she smoked joints to make a good impression, that she had seen men in their underwear while they were being bombed every day, they wouldn't call me their dream child.* Page 193
Marjane is giving in to the peer pressures of her new "friends" and is conforming to the Austrian way of life and disregarding the Iranian way of life of which she was brought up in. I found this important because before Marjane leaves Iran her father says "Don't ever forget who you are" page 148. And she herself looks in a mirror and tells herself "I will always be true to myself" page 151.