42 pages • 1 hour read
Marjane Satrapi, Transl. Anjali SinghPersepolis 2: The Story of a Return
Nonfiction | Graphic Memoir | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Veil”
After beginning school, the students are called into a lecture hall. After a moral lesson, Marjane speaks up, demanding to know why the women’s required uniform is so stifling while the men may wear whatever they like. She is called before the head office to meet the man who admitted her to the school. He asks her to design a better uniform, one that meets her needs as a student but also follows the teachings of the Koran. She designs a uniform that is a bit baggier, with a shorter headscarf. Later, Marjane’s grandmother forgives her for her moral impropriety.
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Socks”
The situation at university is stifling, and Marjane finds herself in constant petty conflict with the regime. She is asked not to run because it makes her rear move in a way that the guards find seductive. She is chastised for wearing red socks. The students no longer protest, because so many have died. Instead, they rebel in little ways and Marjane adopts these as well. By wearing makeup, showing their wrists, or listening to music, they feel freer. Slowly, Marjane finds community among the more rebellious students.
They are arrested time after time at late-night parties, and their parents pay the fine for immorality. At one raid, a man runs across the rooftops to escape the Guardians of the Revolution and falls to his death. The others are arrested again, then freed by their parents. After this, they party even harder, their quiet rebellion continued behind closed doors and covered windows. There is no mourning of the dead student, and again Marjane escapes unscathed.
Chapters 15-16 Analysis
Marjane finds her footing in university among the more outspoken and westernized students, but this soon leads to a somewhat conflicted existence. Satrapi uses secondary characters to generate indirect characterization for Marjane: She does not so much as find a moral footing as find others willing to bend morality. She has found a group of quiet rebels whose parents are wealthy or well connected, and they take advantage of their position to enjoy the secret counterculture of Iran while also participating in day-to-day culture. Her life during this phase is not that different from her life in Europe, except for the daytime subterfuge. With her long string of poor choices, few consequences, and little or no concern for those around her, Satrapi characterizes her younger self as selfish and confused by portraying her interactions with others.
Marjane’s reliability as a narrator shifts throughout the memoir. She is an unreliable narrator as a young 14-year-old alone in Europe, scared and trying to fit in. After her climactic moment of realization, she became more honest with herself and readers. In this section, her sense of self is also destabilizing. The fact that so many secondary characters quickly appear and disappear further emphasizes her unreliability at this point; her view of events is limited and she does not follow up on major events such as deaths and arrests.
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