Descending Into Chaos

"The Complete Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi is rich with design choices that add new dimensions to the story as a whole. In particular, I want to talk about the moment when Marji's narrative style changes for three pages in order to show a moment of growth in her character amidst the chaos of war.

This narrative change takes place in the chapter "The Cigarette," and starts as Marji descends into the basement. In this moment, we see that her caricature begins to address the reader directly, essentially breaking the fourth wall. At the same time, we see Marji walking down the basement steps in what feels like a continuous descent; the stairs stretch up and away from her in a distorted, escalator-esque image.

These stairs act a symbol for what Marji is talking about: the war, and Marji's increasing knowledge of what is going on. It symbolizes Marji coming down from a detached perspective or her childlike parroting of other people's ideas. But where the symbolism really blows up (for lack of a better word) is on the third page, where we can see Marji descending into an actual battle scene, and finally reaching a door on the other side. This full page image can be looked at either as Marji passing through the actual chaos, or as her simply appearing on the other side unscathed. This alone could be commentary on her class influencing how she's affected by the war.

The symbolism of Marji growing up by descending these basement stairs into chaos continues onto the last page of the chapter, where she shows us the first time she tried smoking a cigarette. "With this first cigarette, I kissed childhood goodbye." (117). Smoking a cigarette doesn't automatically make you a grown-up, and neither does becoming aware of a heated political situation like war. However, both situations can get you, or in this case, Marji, to start viewing the world differently.