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Summary: The Letter
Marji reads books by Ali Ashraf Darvishian, whom she describes as a “local Charles Dickens.” She talks about how his books portray working-class children being forced into labor, which suddenly reminds Marji that her household includes a young live-in maid. The maid, Mehri, was eight years old when she came to live with Marji’s family, and she was ten when Marji was born. Marji, who shares very close feelings with Mehri, realizes that Mehri’s experience was just like the children in Davishian’s books.
Marji tells the sad story of Mehri falling in love with the neighbor’s son, and as she (like most poor Iraninas) can’t read or write, Marji writes out Mehri’s love letters to him. When Marji’s father learns of Mehri’s letters, he tells the young man that Mehri is his maid, not his daughter. The young man gives all of Mehri’s love letters to Marji’s father and tells him that he’s no longer interested in Mehri. When Marji’s father realizes that the letters feature Marji’s handwriting, not Mehri’s, he tells Marji that Mehri’s low social class prevents her from having a relationship with the young man. Upset with this reality and by this latest example of her father’s inconsistent political views, Marji decides to take Mehri to a protest. The protests turn extremely violent, and the day is given the name “Black Friday” because of the many deaths that occur. When Marji and Mehri finally return home, Marji’s furious mother slaps both girls.
Summary: The Party
After many more massacres, there is a sense that the Shah’s regime is coming to an end. The Shah appears on television to pledge that Iran will become a democracy, but these efforts are not successful and the Shah finally departs. There is widespread rejoicing among the people. It is announced that President Carter has refused to grant the Shah exile in the U.S., but President Sadat of Egypt has allowed him to stay in his country. The schools are closed for a period, and when they open again Marji’s teacher instructs the students to rip out the Shah’s picture from their books. Marji points out the same teacher had previously told them that the Shah had been chosen by God and is told to stand in the corner as punishment.
Marji’s neighbors change too. One neighbor claims that the mark on his wife’s cheek is from a bullet wound from attending a demonstration, but Marji’s mother knows the mark existed well before the protests. Marji later learns that her friend Ramin’s father was a member of the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, and killed many, many people. Enraged, Marji gathers some friends to attack Ramin, but her mother stops them. She tells Marji that it isn’t her place to serve justice and that she’d be better off to learn how to forgive. Marji finds Ramin and tells him that she forgives him even though his father is a murderer. Ramin rejects her gesture, saying that the people his father killed were communists, who are evil. Nevertheless, Marji later reflects on the incident looking in the mirror, noting that she feels like a good person.
Summary: The Heroes
After the Shah falls from power, 3000 political prisoners are released. Marji explains that her family knows two of them: Siamak Jari and Mohsen Shakiba. Marji recalls an event before involving one of them before the Shah’s departure, when they were still imprisoned. Marji overheared her mother talking to Siamak’s wife, who is Marji’s mother’s best friend. Her mother invites Siamak’s wife over along with her daughter, Laly, who is Marji’s friend. Laly tells Marji that her father is on a trip and Marji tells Laly that that is just something people say when someone is dead. Laly, now distressed, refuses to speak to Marji. Marji feels confused, believing that she did the right thing by telling the truth.
Marji is proven wrong, however, when both Siamak and Mohsen arrive in their home. During the visit, Siamak and Mohsen describe the horrifying torture they suffered while imprisoned. Marji parents are too shocked to send her away, so Marji is able to listen to their tales in fascination. After Laly declares her father a hero, Marji feels upset that her father isn’t a hero too. When Marji hears her mother condone the murder of torturers, Marji becomes confused about what justice really is—forgiving people or punishing them. She privately abandons her comic strips about dialectical materialism and collapses into the imaginary hands of God, the only place she feels safe.
Analysis
This section is vitally important to the story and reveals an Iranian society in serious trouble. Satrapi uses Marji’s self-education and growing awareness of her country’s problems to educate and to help explain the coming breakdown in Iranian society. The story of Mehri, the Satrapis’ maid, illuminates specifically the issue of class. Mehri’s parents send her to live with and work for the Satrapi family because they cannot afford to keep her. This dynamic reveals a society that is strictly divided by class. On the one hand, taking in Mehri is a kindness because it provides some financial relief to Mehri’s family and Mehri no longer has to live in poverty. On the other hand, a society that necessitates the poor giving their child up to the rich, who then benefit from the child’s unpaid labor, is cruelly unfair and sure to inflame class resentment. Marji is right to conclude that the Revolution resulted from this built-up resentment. But this also causes Marji to face her family’s complicity in the class divide. The complexity of this situation also reveals a sharp contrast between ideals and reality. Though Marji’s father claims to fight for justice, he compromises his ideals in the face of social and economic reality. He wants change, but he accepts the reality of Iran’s strict class hierarchy and does not want to risk his family’s prosperity.
Mehri’s brief dalliance with the next-door neighbor further illuminates the class divide and also serves as an allegory for the Revolution and its aftermath. Mehri is optimistic about pursuing a relationship with a man of a higher class. For Marji, it is an idealistic pursuit in the name of love and justice. This idealism and the way two girls of different classes work together to pursue it mirrors the unity and idealism of the early days of the revolution. All is possibility and cooperation. But when Mehri’s sister becomes jealous and tells on her, things unravel. The scenario represents the infighting and betrayal among the Iranian people that follows the Revolution’s initial success. The fact that Marji’s father puts an end to the relationship once and for all and the young man casually accepts it foreshadows the way that people will look after their own interests once the feelings of optimism and idealism subside. In the end, Mehri and Marji are crushed with disappointment, suggesting society-wide disappointment with the Revolution that is to come.
The immediate aftermath of the Shah’s removal is a bewildering time for Marji and suggests that the troubles are only beginning for her, her family, and her country. Marji observes odd changes in people. Her teacher, who previously told her God had chosen the Shah to rule Iran, tells the children to tear pictures of the Shah out of their textbooks. The neighbor claims to have been grazed by a bullet during the protests, but Marji’s mother points out that the mark on her cheek had always been there. These incidents show that people are anxious to show their loyalty to the winning side in the revolution, regardless of the truth. To drive the point home, Ramin is shunned and threatened because his father fought for the losing side. Marji even wants to punish Ramin for his father’s crimes. This reveals not only that the threat of retribution hangs over everyone in Iranian society but that even someone as thoughtful and kind as Marji can be provoked to senseless cruelty.
When Marji learns about Siamak and Moshen’s experience being tortured, she experiences a range of emotions, including shock, disgust, fascination, admiration, and ultimately shame at her parent’s safety. Marji feels a sense of meaninglessness and inaction in her life, and she feels ashamed of her family’s privilege. She reacts to these feelings by trying to assert her power, first by pointing out to Laly that she was technically correct when she said Laly’s father was not on a trip. When Laly makes Marji feel small by saying her father is a hero, Marji looks to assert her power elsewhere. Playing torture with her friends gives Marji the sense of power and control she craves, but she later feels guilty over it. Marji’s experience suggests that the cycle of shame, seeking power, violence, and guilt is playing out all over Iran at the broadest and most intimate levels. In the end, Marji is overwhelmed. She turns to God for a comforting embrace. The moment is significant because it shows the human tendency to seek simple answers in times of great upheaval and confusion. This tendency will manifest itself in the new regime’s ideology and the people’s reactions as the Revolution wears on in future chapters.
