Persepolis Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 - The Veil

Introduced to Marji, age 10. It's 1980, in Iran. She is in school. The government tells the girls they have to start wearing a veil when in public. The girls don't want to. Marji wants to be a prophet when she grows up. She believes she speaks to God in her bedroom.

Chapter 2 - The Bicycle

There is a brief history of Iran: "2500 years of tyranny and submission." The government burns a movie theater down with many people in it. Marji wants to participate in a protest against the police, but her parents won't let her. She tries to talk to God, but he doesn't hear her.

Chapter 3 - The Water Cell

Marji's parents protest against the king every day. She is told to forget old lessons about Iran, particularly about the King. Her father tells her that the British put the King in power to get Iran's oil. The ruler before him was Marji's grandfather, who became Prime Minister for a while, but was sent to prison. He was tortured there, sitting in a water-filled cell for hours. Marji tries and understand what he went through.

Chapter 4 - Persepolis

Grandma comes to visit. She tells Marji about her life. Says that when her husband was arrested, the family lost all their money. She would pretend to cook at night so people wouldn't know how poor they were. Marji's father is late coming home from a demonstration, and Marji fears he is dead. He comes home to tell a story about someone who died at the demonstration, but Marji understand how adults can find violence and death funny. She starts to read a lot of books to understand revolution.

Chapter 5 - The Letter

Marji reads about past revolutions and comes to believe that the main problem with the world is the divide between social classes. She realizes this most with her maid, Mehri, who has fallen in love with the boy next door. She helps Mehri write letters to the boy, but her father finds out. He tells the boy that Mehri is a maid, and the boy decides he does not want to date her - shows how important it is that people stay in their own social class. Marji and Mehri go to a demonstration against the government. When they return, mother is angry at them because they could have been killed.

Chapter 6 - The Party

There is a regime change in Iran. Marji's parents aren't excited, but everyone else is. Marji bullies a kid in school because his father was supposedly in the government's secret police and killed a lot of people. Her mother stops her because, even if the boy's father did those things, it was not the boy's fault. Marji realizes she has to learn to forgive.

Chapter 7 - The Heroes

3000 political prisoners are released from jail, 2 of which are friends with Marji's parents. Mohsen tells everyone about the torture he endured while in jail. Marji, being a child, makes a game out of these stories, but later that night she gets overwhelmed by how horrible the stories were and tries to find comfort by talking to her mom and God.

Chapter 8 - Moscow

Marji is sad because her dad never went to prison, so to her he is not a "hero". Her uncle Anoosh, who comes to visit them after being released from prison, in her eyes, is a hero. He tells to story about how he and his uncle Fereydoon proclaimed that a part of Iran was now independent. The government had not been happy about this. His uncle is killed by the government and Anoosh flees to the USSR where he gets married. When he returns to Iran, he gets put in prison for 9 years, which Marji thinks makes him a hero.

Chapter 9 - The Sheep

Uncle Anoosh stays with the family, and Marji tries to listen to his stories as much as possible. As the Islamic Revolution (the revolution everyone except Marji's parents were excited about) takes hold, people start to flee. Her family stays, even though it is no longer safe for Anoosh. One day Marji comes home and Anoosh is gone. Her parents say he had to leave in a hurry, but later tell her he was arrested. Anoosh is allowed to talk to one person, and he chooses Marji. He tells her she is "the little girl I always wanted to have." He is later executed. She tells God, "get out of my life." She feels lost.

Chapter 10 - The Trip

Iran starts shutting down. They shut down the US embassy and the universities. All women are FORCED to wear the veil. Marji is told to tell anyone who asks that she prays all day. She goes with her parents to a demonstration and sees someone stabbed in the leg. They take a vacation to Spain. When they return, Grandma tells them there is a new war starting, this time with Saddam Hussein.

Chapter 11 - The F-14s

Marji is at her dad's office when Iraqi fighter jets bomb Iran. Marji learns that her friend's dad is a fighter pilot in Iran and has died in battle. Marji tells her friend that her father is a hero and she should be proud. Her friend says "I wish he were alive and in jail rather than dead and a hero."

Chapter 12 - The Jewels

Everyone is stockpiling food and goods because of the war. People are fighting over food. Marji's mother's friend's house is destroyed in a bombing, so she and her family come to stay with Marji. The friend's name is Mali. One day, they hear two women talking about "refugees" (which Mali's family is). They way all refugees are whores, and Mali's family is humiliated and ashamed.

Chapter 13 - The Key

At school, mourning the war dead becomes part of the daily routine. Marji decides to make fun of the routine of the students whipping themselves to honor the dead, which makes her friends laugh. She and her friends get into minor trouble for pranks. Due to the trouble, Marji's parents are called to the school, but they yell at the school because they aren't happy with the state of education in Iran. Their maid, Ms. Nasrine (not Mehri) is upset because the school gave her son a plastic key painted gold and told him it would be the key to heaven if he died in battle. She recognizes it as propaganda aimed at children to recruit soldiers. Marji gets into punk rock.

Chapter 14 - The Wine

Bombs keep falling, and Marji's family starts going to secret parties. On the way home, they get stopped by the patrol, who follow them home to sweep their apartment for contraband. Grandma tricks the patrol into letting her and Marji go upstairs before them, and they dump all the wine down the toilet. Marji's dad bribes the patrol and they go away.

Chapter 15 - The Cigarette

Marji makes some new friends (14 year olds) who sneak out and look at boys. She cuts class with these girls, and her mother finds out and they get into a fight. Marji sneaks downstairs and smokes her first cigarette, which makes her feel grown up.

Chapter 16 - The Passport

Uncle Taher has a heart attack, and the family rushes to the hospital. He needs open heart surgery, and to get that he needs a passport to get him to England. Getting a passport is very difficult in Iran. Marji's dad has a connection named Khosro, who fakes passports. Khosro is going to make the passport, but a refugee girl he is keeping gets caught and executed, which causes him to flee to Sweden. Uncle Taher dies, is buried, and a real passport arrives on that day.

Chapter 17 - Kim Wilde

A year later, the borders are reopened and Marji's parents get their passports. They go to Turkey. Marji doesn't go, but her parents get her some things she asked for, including rock music posters. They don't know how to get the posters past customs. Mom sews them into the shoulders of dad's coat. Marji buys some rock music tapes from a guy on the street, and on the way home someone threatens to take her to the "committee" because of the clothes she is wearing. Marji tells the woman that her stepmother will burn her with an iron if she gets in trouble and the woman lets her go.

Chapter 18 - The Shabbat

One day, Marji is out shopping with her friend when she hears that her neighborhood has been bombed. She rushes home to find her mom. Their house is safe, but the next door neighbor's was destroyed. Marji finds out that her friend next door, Neda, died, because she sees the girl's severed arm. Marji blacks out.

Chapter 19 - The Dowry

After Neda's death, Marji becomes even more rebellious. She hits the principal and gets expelled; and then gets into trouble at her new school. Her parents decide to send her to Vienna. Her parents take her to the airport. When Marji turns around to watch them leave, she sees that her mother has fainted, and that her dad is carrying her from the airport. Marji watches them go from behind the glass.

Uncle Anoosh

Marji's Uncle. Executed. Gives her a bread swan, one when he met her, one before he was executed. Ebi's Brother. Marji very inspired by him looks up to him as a hero.

Mehri

Maid to the Satrapi's, fell in love with neighbor, but rejected due to her social class, marji wrote letters for her to talk to the neighbor. She got caught and isnt seen again

Ramin

Son of a man who was part of the secret police (savak), tormented by Marji and friends

Uncle Fereydoon

Anoosh's uncle, elected himself minister of justice of Azerbaijan, arrested by Shah and executed

Mohsen Shakiba

One of the Satrapi's family friends who was a political prisoner, drowned by the Islamic regime but they make it look like a suicide

Reza Khan

The father of the Shah, British helped him overthrow the government and become king in exchange for oil; everything was eventually passed on to his son (mohammed reza)

Khosro

A friend of Marji's family that is asked to make Uncle Taher a fake passport but has to flee the country before then

Mossadeq

The democratically elected Prime minister of Iran, who was overthrown by the American and British in order to gain oil. (1951)

Siamak Jari

A political prisoner, Laly's father, able to escape the country before he is killed by the Islamic regime

Laly

Siamak's daughter, Marji tells her that her father is probably dead rather than on "vacation"

Mrs. Nasrine

The maid of Uncle Anoosh and then Marji's family, comes to Taji after her son is given a key to heaven for when he goes to war. She is repressed because she puts on her headscarf when Ebi walks into the room.

Taher

Marjane's Uncle, he dies from his fourth heart attack after being frightened by an exploded grenade. Before he dies, knowing of his ill-health, Marjane's family tries to get him a fake passport through Khosro

Mali

Taji's childhood friend, her family stays with the Satrapis when their family is bombed. Family is more materialistic.

Neda Baba-Levy

A friend of Marji's whose house is bombed by a ballistic missile, killing her and her whole family

Marjane (Marji)

The protagonist. The book is a narrative of her life in Iran under the shahs reign.