Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

Marjane’s roommates and friends remain static throughout the narrative. Most friends remain unnamed, save for a few key figures who enter and exit without much fanfare on Marjane’s part.

Marjane goes through several roommates in the four years she spends in Austria, starting with Zozo, her mother’s friend. Her next roommate is Lucia. When Lucia invited her to spend a holiday with her family, Marjane immediately demands more, telling her that she’ll only go if Lucia stops drying her hair loudly each morning. Satrapi reveals nothing much of Lucia. When Marjane is expelled, she moves in with Julie and her mother, and Lucia never appears again. Marjane connects with Julie’s mother, but her perspective is limited, and Satrapi hence portrays little about her character.

Marjane’s friends in school consist of Julie, Momo, and twin orphans, Thierry and Oliver. Satrapi portrays nothing about Momo and the twins save a few scenes of dialogue about philosophy. Later, when Marjane dates Markus, she befriends some of his friends, including Ingrid, a lover of drugs and meditation, who fills a few panels before disappearing without mention.

By the time she leaves Europe, Satrapi has portrayed a slew of friends who have all disappeared between panels. In Iran, the situation is little changed. Old friends stop by, their faces barely distinguishable from one another and their names listed briefly, if at all. They disappear as quickly as they emerge. Among them is Kia, a man disabled by the war, and Roxana, who invites her to a party.

When she leaves Iran after six years, no friend, roommate, classmate, or peer comes to the airport to bid her farewell. The transience of these characters in the memoir both highlights Marjane’s development and evokes pathos for the experience of immigration during war and oppression, as these relationships do not last.

Marjane’s teachers in the Catholic boarding school are nameless, vaguely sketched figures who look strikingly similar to the teachers she endured in fundamentalist Iran in Persepolis 1. These teachers represent the extreme forms of religious ideology. By representing this in both Catholicism and Islam, Satrapi suggests that Authority’s Use of Religion to Control Populations is a problem that affects the West as well as Iran.

When the Catholic school principal warns her to stop dealing drugs or she’ll be expelled, Marjane accepts the offer, understanding the consequences that might befall her. In Iran years later, she is brought to the office for speaking out about the uniform. In both instances she is given leniency and as a result portrays these authority figures with grace and wisdom.

When figures of authority are not kind to Marjane, she portrays them as ugly, senselessly cruel figures. The Horse, a landlord who accuses her of theft, is drawn as a raving person with an ugly face. In University in Iran the leadership consists of bearded men under the regime. She portrays them all nearly the same, without much character or distinction. She understands that these people act on behalf of the regime and does little to separate them from the government that they serve.