Marjane understands how fear fuels despotism. Fear prompts people to act in spite of great personal risk or else repress their true will and even sacrifice their integrity. Wise from a young age, Marjane pinpoints the deeper motivations in human nature to either conform or to rebel, understanding systems of political power and the motivations for social movements. Even prior to the Revolution, Persian people experienced systematic oppression through pressures to conform to their traditions. As her father says, “We Iranians, we’re crushed not only by the government but by the weight of our traditions!” (Satrapi, 342). The Revolution brought with it a far more intense mechanism of social and political control than in generations before, though, leading to the internalization of intense fear and also behavioral externalizations of repression and anger. Marjane’s views are often dichotomous, perhaps owing to her youth, and yet she also exhibits a striking mixture of cynicism and idealism that belies her age. Ultimately, Marjane comes to understand most poignantly the role gender plays in systematic oppression in Iran and elsewhere. She finally decides to leave Iran out of tremendous frustration at the inability to transform her intelligence and passion into meaningful change. The Revolution was in many ways a culmination of oppression, as even during the days of the Shah political dissidents were treated harshly. Marjane devotes a considerable portion of the first part of Persepolis to her uncle Anoosh for this reason: to convey the various ways political regimes use mechanisms of fear and physical oppression...

It is not the nature of the political philosophy—communist or theocratic as it may be—but the mechanisms of social control and the means by which fear is used as a means of social control. Through her uncle’s story, Marjane learns how one either preserves personal integrity, as Anoosh did, or sacrifices their beliefs out of fear of persecution, imprisonment, or death. Marjane contends with the realization that, even within the intellectual social milieu in which she finds herself, that not everyone possesses the courage or personal integrity to work for political ideals and social justice. “The regime had absolute power...and most people, in search of a cloud of happiness, had forgotten their political conscience,” (Satrapi, 326). Even when Marjane’s father points out that half the country is illiterate and vulnerable for manipulation by the government, it becomes apparent that the religious authorities coming to power capitalize on the mechanisms of fear that drive not only the illiterate but the intellectuals as well (Satrapi, 66). Also through Anoosh’s tale, Marjane learns how and why some of her country’s greatest minds end up fleeing. By the time Marjane is in college, the regime has thoroughly succeeded in that the majority of dissidents were either dead or had fled the country.
Young people within the regime are repressed in numerous ways, primarily through restrictions on freedom of expression. Repression initially comes in the form of a ban on higher education, which the government claims is a tool of imperialism. Thus,…