Finding Your Identity

Reading Persepolis, I have noticed one of the biggest challenges faced by Marjane is finding who she is. She underwent many hardships as a young girl, pushing her to become an adult more rapidly. With becoming an adult, she had to find her identity by realizing what she was about and what she stood up for.

I believe for Marjane, the moment she truly understood herself was when she left for France the second time. The scene was set as the same to when she left the first time as a young girl, with her parents walking away and Marjane looking through the window. This was the perfect representation of her journey. When she left home the first time, she felt along. Marjane was not leaving by will, and was a young teenager. In the end, she makes the decision to leave on her own, she seems happy with that decision, and she looks confident-- as if she is starting a new chapter in her life.


There were many other moments throughout the novel where she discovered a little about herself. After getting married, she felt restricted. I think she succumbed to her failure in the end. I do not believe, however, that succumbing to her failure was necessarily a bad thing. By doing so, it made her understand herself a little better. After she sacrificed another man for herself in order to avoid being arrested, she suffers self-conflict. She was forced to question her integrity and her dignity.

In an article about failure and how it helps us grow, it was said that with ever failure experience you have, your potential increases. It is because the most painful events in life often give us the most valuable experiences and dramatic growth. Marjane was able to experience growth after her failures; which ultimately lead her to finding her identity.