Concept Of Religion In Persepolis

When the movie starts in 1978, Marjane is represented as a little girl who is intellectually awake and open to the world. She is already aware of her parents’ political convictions. However, she is not sure, she seems curious to test everything like the revolutionaries. Unsure of the end, they have the means. Transported by what they discover; they implement the ideals presented to them. The revolutionaries of 1978 and Marjane are similar. Thus the narrative correlation of the film explains the many visual metaphors of life/war and vice versa. The coming of age stories are either stories that are told in an initiatory context, or stories that tell the story of a character’s initiation. Thus, this genre of a tale balances its message between initiating the spectator or simply of telling him/her about the character’s initiatory journey. Through her conscious odyssey, Marjane teaches the spectator tolerance, in that she is making us aware of the conflict. It is a first-hand testimony that allows us to oppose the fear of the other, the fear of the stranger. The lessons given to her by her family are also addressed to us and resonate with the spectators. This also takes the form of the revolutionary initiatory journey. From initiating a rebellion to overthrowing the regime and constructing political institutions amidst the chaos. Each step seems unstable and unconfident. The Iranian people want to overthrow the shah, but the crowd movement is not united and everyone has their own ideology. They are searching for themselves much like Marjane tries to find herself. The analogy between Marjane growing up, and the Iranian emancipatory movement can be furthered because her family also acts as her first political experience. She is introduced to what politics are and forms her own convictions at a very young age, and this, because of the Persepolis ongoing climate in 1979.

Ebi, the father, is a strong influence. He is an engineer, he decided not to leave his country because he was not sure that the family would find the same social status outside Iran. It should be noted that his profession is not mentioned in the film, the interest does indeed revolve around the political commitment of this open, progressive, modern family. His first appearances show the character’s political commitment: at a party, he talks about a friend in prison and, overexcited, he runs to his wife to tell her that the revolution has begun. Ebi helps, supports, manifests, takes pictures of historical events. He is in charge of Marji’s political education, he explains the ins and outs of contemporary Iranian history. Tadji is a protective mother, young and is hardly shown wearing the veil, accentuating her modernism. She is a housewife, yet angers when she hears some macho remarks. When she cries at Marjane’s wedding, accusing her of not having remained a free woman, Tadji suggests that she does not want her daughter to follow her journey as a housewife, a spectator rather than an actor in her life. Tadji’s modernism comes strongly from the education she received from her own mother. The grandmother was married to a communist prince Kadjar and deprived of her property. Wise, educated, she experienced poverty and even divorced. She smokes the pipe and does not wear the hijab and remains Marji’s privileged confidant, she her consciousness and experience. Marji’s uncle is the person who has most influenced her commitments. Released after the fall of the Shah, he was executed under the ayatollah. In his youth, he participated in the creation of an independent republic in Iraqi Azerbaijan. He allowed her to grow by questioning herself about good and evil. She puts a lot of hope in him that flies away with the swans made of bread crumbs when he dies. His death provoked a spiritual revolt in Marjane that called into question the existence of God.

Through her youth, Marjane turned to God. God is not a religious God, but rather a spiritual presence that allows her to look back at who she is and to find her bearings. Religion does not hold a pre-weighting place in Persepolis, because it has become a social fact, which enacts laws to follow. Thus, no prayer, no mosque, no Ramadan but wearing the veil, prohibition of alcohol, holidays. If her family is her first political experience, God is her first moral experience, appearing after mental conflicts. God exists only in her mind and allows autobiographical insertion into the story, allowing the viewer not to get lost in narrative illusions. When she accuses and bully the son of a supposed torturer of the regime, God appears and explains that she has nothing to worry about and that justice will be done. He also explains that the boy cannot be held accountable for his father’s crimes. God allows Marjane to maintain her mental balance and beliefs. God reappears after Anouche’s death but this time he pleads weakness and says there is nothing he can do. It symbolizes the defeated revolution, Marjane rejects it and locks herself away, disillusioned, but this rejection is not permanent, no decision is insensitive to hesitations. Realities outside our minds bring about changes and challenges in the process of developing our lives and thinking.

After a rejection of religion with the death of Anouche, God morphed into Karl Marx, also symbolizing the civic affinities of the heroine. Coming of age becomes inseparable of ideological affinities. Marjane abandons the simple God in favor of Marx who appears in Vienna. God personifies himself more precisely, in accordance with Marjane’s awareness and experience. ‘Religion is the opium of the people,’ said Marx. Thus, Lenin, Bakunin, but also communism (classless society) and anarchism are words that replace Jesus, Mohammed, Koran and Bible; they accompany Marjane during her training. If she doubts God and her good people, she never questions the foundations of her political education. Visually, the film links religious extremism to war, to horror. With nuns and threatening women blaming her for ‘punk is not ded’, the film’s female religious figures are monstrous and terrifying because of their intolerance. There is a fine line between satire and horror. Marjane never ceases to touch both, counterbalanced by historical events and their repercussions on daily life.