Answer to Garrett's Question

Through my reading, I have noticed a similarity in the characters in Persepolis and the people living in the cave in Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  In my book, the Iranian people are suppressed and held back by their government, like the chains keeping the people in the cave.  The information that Marjane and the people in her country receive is sugar coated by the news, the government, and the conforming civilians as they are not allowed to see the full picture of what is going on.  This can also be represented the shadows seen by the cave people because they are just seeing part of a bigger picture and not the whole reality.  But some of the Iranians act like the philosophers Plato was describing by seeing past the cover ups and being able to see the news as more than "shadows on the wall".  They stood up and acted, breaking the chains and not settling for being prisoners of their own homes and country.  Marjane is living a split life between believing the bigger picture and allowing her young mind to carry her naive thoughts.  She learns the facts from her parents, family members, and other activists, but comes up with some fantastical ideas of her own along the way, such as believing in some friends being bad people when they aren't and others young, uneducated thoughts.  She is partially a philosopher that Plato elaborates about and partially one of the persons in the cave.

I recall when I had always believed in my last name. I had been born and raised with the last name of Terrill. This was the name that was written on my school papers, driver's license, and even my birth certificate.  I had lived with it for so long, that it never came to me as a possibility that it was not, in essence, my true name.  Several years back, I had found out that the name I should have inherited was Robertson. This was a strange and somewhat devastating revelation.  There was a feeling of total identity loss that came over me as it felt I had been living a lie for long.  It sounds crazy now, but this left me truly upset at the time.