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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Satrapi’s father explain the persecution of individuals in Iran?

2. How did Siamak ultimately flee Iran?

3. How do Satrapi and her family oppose the Islamic Revolution?

4. What did the king test out in the months after Black Friday?

5. Why did Satrapi’s mother dye her hair?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Satrapi get in trouble for what she told Siamak’s daughter?

2. How does Satrapi’s status as a child create humor in Persepolis?

3. Why does Satrapi say she wanted to write Persepolis?

4. How is Satrapi’s idea of the Iranian revolution different from her father’s?

5. What is it that causes Satrapi to realize that she doesn’t know anything, and what is her response to it?

6. Describe Satrapi’s experience of her first protest.

7. What changes did the Shah make in Iran when he was installed in the 1950s?

8. What naïve view of Satrapi’s do Anoosh and her parents disabuse her of at the beginning of Chapter 9: The Sheep?

9. What did Satrapi learn from Ashraf Darvishian?

10. Describe the events that led up the Shah’s fall.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When is Persepolis most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 2

What morals does Satrapi’s graphic novel teach? Which characters are the best teachers? How does Satrapi herself learn different lessons? Which lessons demand the most from her?

Essay Topic 3

Use this book as a meditation on the value of a five-star rating system. Is a five-star system sufficient to a book like this? Would you need to have sub-topics for the rating system, for plot, characterization, language, etc? What other sub-topics would you need? What value or importance gets lost in a five-star scale? Design a scale that would be better for this book.

(see the answer keys)

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