Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

For the second time, Marjane speaks directly to the reader. The artwork depicts Marjane, wide-eyed, looking directly at the reader. She admits that she is depressed and unable to find a way out of her depression. She craves comfort and recognition for the suffering she endured in exile, yet she feels unable to communicate her needs because she understands that those in Iran have suffered far greater pains. She asserts that European culture is uncaring.

A retreat to the ski slopes allows her to connect with old friends, but when she admits to having premarital sex, her friends are unable to reconcile their traditional views with Marjane’s choices, and they rebuke her. She returns home more depressed than ever. After seeing several therapists, she is given an antidepressant that puts her in a state of trance. She says, “I was a westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the west. I had no identity. I didn’t even know anymore why I was living” (118).

She decides to kill herself, and after several attempts, first by slitting her wrist and then by overdosing, she awakes in a hallucination and seeks out her doctor. The doctor tells her she should have died and that God intervened.