Persepolis + White

What does religion seem to represent when looking at it's role within Persepolis? I began to question this pretty much as soon as I opened the book. On page six there is a picture of Persepolis as a baby, and it reads "I was born with religion." Then she proceeds to go into great detail about how she wants to be a prophet. This didn't seem like an active choice to me. It seemed more like an effect of environment. So, if it is an effect of the environment she is in (parents, etc.), and not necessarily a driving force in her life, then why would it be important for her to include this part of her childhood? I would like to suppose that really religion in Persepolis works to show her sort of developing her own identity. She is born with religion, but then on page 70 chooses to reject God. It works to develop Persepolis as an individual, and sort of guage where she is on her quest towards finding her identity.

I also wondered when listening to her interview and reading the book: what role does fear play in the development of that identity? Her interview stated the answer to this question explicitly whereas in the book it was based more on implication. In the interview on NPR she said (and I'm paraphrasing) "When you see your 13-year-old friend die you see also that you can die. Then you see also that your death does not matter. The moment your death does not matter you stop being scared." From a young age, Persepolis is confronted with death. On page 3 she is ten years old and girls on the playground are playing with their veils, one girl says, "Execution in the name of freedom," and is pretending to choke a classmate. She hears of the Rex Cinema being burned down with people still inside, and she is the last person to see her uncle before he is executed. She sees her mother try to hide her identity by dying her hair because she is afraid of being recognized. (5) At this point in the book, it seems she is simply absorbing everything around her and trying to make sense of it all. The point when her fear is most obvious is when she runs home because of the bombings. She is afraid her parents have died. She finds that her friend has died. Instead of hiding herself in fear (as she saw her mother do) she begins to speak out. She is no longer afraid. It seems that intense emotion brings about the creation of her newly forming identity. It is the sadness of losing Anoosh that causes her to denounce God, and the loss of fear from the bombing that allow her to build her new fearless, outspoken self. Really, the loss of fear is more important to the novel than the actual emotion of fear itself. It is also important that her fear does not cause her to hide the way her mother did. This is Persepolis coming into her own and responding to her environment in the way that she (not anyone else) sees fit.

Finally, I am curious as to the significance of these emotions and their relation to the history within the story. White writes that narrativization (and therefore moralization) and history are basically impossible to separate. I think that the narrativization of Persepolis happens through the emotions that in turn create Persepolis' identity. The emotions (fear, sadness, rebellion) give readers the ability to relate to Persepolis and also give Persepolis the ability to create herself. Identity, history, and narrative are all braided together to give the story of Persepolis.