The Difficulties of Moving Back

          When Marjane first moved back to Iran on page 246 of Persepolis, she found it very difficult to fit in. On page 272, she said, "I was a westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the west. I had no identity." I think that there are several factors that played into this feeling of being an outsider wherever she went. First was the fact that she refused to tell anyone about her time in Austria besides what they already knew. I think that she was ashamed of what she did there, especially towards the end of her stay, and, like she said on page 257, she did not want to burden her parents with the information about what she did in Europe. But keeping everything from her family and friends only further alienated her from them because it gave them nothing to connect with her on, and it left her feeling alone and depressed. A second part, that did seem to fade after a while, was that, naturally, she felt very restricted in Iran. And after she had lived so many years with so much freedom in Austria, moving back to a place with such restricted freedoms, especially for women, would be very difficult to adjust to, and would create a lot more difficulty in getting used to Iran again. An additional problem with adjusting to the restricted freedom, was that she had had a lot of freedom in Europe, and had been able to do and experience a lot of things that most Iranian girls hadn't. This further distanced her from her friends. For example, on page 270, when she went on a ski trip with her friends, she told them that she was not a virgin, and they responded with bitterness and aggression.  All of these factors, along with several others, would make it hard for anyone to adjust to a new place, but especially Marjane, who had a stubborn streak throughout the book, and did not seem to really be trying that hard to adjust.