Most Influential People

Persepolis 2: Most Influential People

Persepolis 2 is filled with vibrant secondary characters. Describe some of them. Describe the men in Marjane’s life and her relationships with them. Who stands out as the most memorable and influential person on Marjane?

I believe that every person Marjane met had an influence on her. Most of the people weren't a good influence on her, many Momo and the other 'anarchists'. Her boyfriend, Jean-Paul, also was a negative influence on her in the sense that she just always ended up agreeing with everything that he said. A quote from an article about peer pressure states "Say you're sitting around with some friends playing video games and someone mentions a particular game that happens to be one of your favorites. "Oh, that game's easy. So not worth the time," one of your friends says dismissively. The others agree. Inwardly, you know that it is a game you happen to enjoy quite a lot but, outwardly, not wanting to debate the issue, you go along with the crowd.". So this may be considered peer pressure because she definitely doesn't actually agree with everything he's saying but she acts like she does in order to not ruin the relationship that she clings to. I think that people who had the most positive and strongest impact on her were her family, especially her grandmother. 

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She has such a close relationship with her grandmother and even though Marjane is growing up and getting older her grandmother still continues to teach her new things.   An example of this would be the time when Marjane got the old man arrested on the street by lying and reporting him to the guards for 'harassing' her. She thinks that this is just such a funny story and just such a huge joke but her grandmother is just disgusted at her behavior and makes it obvious. Marjane kind of learns from this experience and tries to be better to please her grandma. I think that her grandmother makes her realize that what she's actually done to this man may cause him to face death. Out of all of the positive influences she has I think that her grandmother in one of the most special. I think that another positive influences is her Uncle Anoosh. She seems to love him very much and know that he has been accused of being a spy, gets arrested, and plays a part in the war.

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 I think that this causes her to look up to him and she knows he's making a difference. He seems to be more of an influence on her when she's younger but that just might be because she isn't really around him that much anymore when she grows up. I think that she wants to make a difference too throughout this book but is just too scared and overwhelmed by being moved to another country.