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The Iraqi army makes headway in its bid to conquer Iran. The Iraqis have quality weapons and troops; Iran's only asset is a seemingly endless supply of soldiers destined for the field. Many are poor teenagers, such as the son of Mrs. Nasrine, the Satrapis' maid. At only 14, he believes the "made-up stories" about martyrdom promising young men food, women, and riches in the afterlife. He and the other boys in his school were given plastic keys painted gold, which they are told will get them into heaven if they are killed in battle. Marjane's mother tries to talk some sense into the boy, but it doesn't work. Marjane and her mother then visit with Shahab, one of Marjane's older cousins. He's in the army, and he tells them what it's like when "buses full of kids" arrive on the front lines. They are all like Mrs. Nasrine's son, poor, young, and convinced "the afterlife is even better than Disneyland." Thrown into battle with little or no training, thousands "exploded on the minefields with their keys around their necks." Marjane and her male cousin Peyman, who are about the same age, have much different experiences than that of Mrs. Nasrine's son. Peyman's school doesn't hand out golden keys to paradise to its students. At Marjane's school, Marjane and her classmates rebel against the mourning rituals by turning everything into a joke. When the teacher threatens expulsion, the girls' parents take their children's side. Marjane's father even insults the teacher. While Mrs. Nasrine worries about her son's future, Marjane goes to her first party. It's at Peyman's house.

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Marjane and her mother go grocery shopping. The supermarket shelves are nearly empty. Marjane's mother says people should only take as much as they absolutely need but then decides she and Marjane should go to the store across the street to stock up just in case of an emergency. Later, Marjane's father wants to purchase a few extra cans of gas. The gas station attendant won't fill their cans because "otherwise there won't be enough for everyone." He tells the Satrapis that Iraqi forces bombed an oil refinery in Abadan. Marjane's mother panics. Abadan is the home of her best friend, Mali. She tries to call Mali and then Mali's mother, but nobody answers the phone. That night Mali, her husband, and their two sons show up at the Satrapis' door. Mali's husband managed to save a few family jewels, but that was it. Everything else they owned was destroyed. Mali's family stays with the Satrapis for a week while they sell the jewelry and find a new place to live. One day at the grocery store, Marjane, her mother, Mali, and Mali's sons overhear two local women complaining about the influx of refugees in Tehran. "They take everything," one of the women says. The other agrees, adding that most refugee women are "sluts" who prostitute themselves. Mali is humiliated. Marjane feels terrible for her and ashamed for thinking that Mali's children were brats.

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Marjane is visiting her father's office when a battalion of fighter jets flies overhead. Ebi, an engineer, thinks they are Iraqi planes. Their fears are confirmed when they turn on the radio and Iraqi forces have bombed Tehran. Marjane and her father hurry home to check on Taji. She's fine. She was in the shower and didn't even hear the bombs explode.

Marjane is eager for Iran to defeat Iraq, but her parents don't seem to share her nationalistic enthusiasm. Satrapi uses boldface type to emphasize Marjane's passion as the girl shouts, "We have to bomb Baghdad!" Her mother responds by telling her to take her feet off the coffee table. Ebi is pessimistic about Iran's chances against Iraq, and Marjane, sporting an Iranian army cap, says he is "a defeatist. He's no patriot." She revises her opinion of him when he weeps upon hearing the outlawed Iranian national anthem and celebrates when Iranian bombers attack Baghdad. Their celebration is short-lived, however, when they learn most of the Iranian planes never returned from the mission. The father of one of Marjane's friends, Pardisse, was one of the pilots killed in the raid.

Marjane and her friends write reports about the war at school. Marjane writes about the "historical context entitled 'The Arab Conquest and Our War,'" but everyone else is more impressed with Pardisse's essay, which is a letter to her father. Marjane later tells Pardisse she should be proud of her father for being a hero. Pardisse says it would be better for him to be "alive and in jail rather than dead and a hero."

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Once Iran becomes the Islamic Republic, life changes for the country's inhabitants. Fundamentalists take over the American Embassy in Tehran, all universities are closed, and women are forced to wear headscarves in public. Marjane's mother is harassed on the street for letting her hair show, and a demonstration protesting fundamentalist fashion requirements turns into an angry brawl. Neighbors who once embraced miniskirts and alcohol are suddenly perfectly pious citizens. Marjane's parents insist she tells people she prays several times a day even though she doesn't. Sensing their ability to leave the country is coming to an end, Marjane and her family go on vacation in Spain and Italy. When they return, Grandmother informs them Iran is now at war with Iraq. Iranian fundamentalists "tried to stir up their Iraqi Shiite allies" against Saddam Hussein, who had always wanted an excuse to invade Iran. Grandmother calls this "the second Arab invasion." Marjane is ready to fight.

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Marjane's father and Anoosh discuss politics. Ebi is worried "the Republic wants to be called Islamic" even though the revolution sprang from the left, or liberal dissidents, but Anoosh isn't too concerned. He thinks the religious leaders, realizing they don't know how to run a country, will "return to their mosques," leaving the proletariat, or working class, in charge. Not everyone agrees with Anoosh. Like Ebi, many fear life under rule of the Islamic Republic. Marjane's friend Kaveh and his family leave Iran for the United States. Several other friends and family members also depart. Marjane's mother wonders if they should go, too, but Ebi insists everyone they love will come back. "They're just afraid of change," he says. Then he receives a phone call. Mohsen Shakiba drowned in his bathtub. Only his head was in the water, which indicates he was murdered. "The deliverers of divine justice" strike at Siamak Jari's house next. He isn't home, so they kill his sister. Anoosh continues to insist "everything will be alright," but he doesn't seem as confident as before. When Marjane leaves school one day, it is her mother who picks her up, not Anoosh. Her mother says Anoosh's wife called him and asked him to come back to Moscow. Marjane knows that's a lie, Anoosh never talks to his wife. Her father later confesses Anoosh was arrested. He gets only one visitor in prison, and he wants it to be Marjane. She puts on her best dress and goes to see him. He promises "the proletariat will rule" and gives Marjane another bread swan. Anoosh is executed not long after their visit. Marjane lies in her bed and tells herself everything will be all right. God comes to comfort her. She kicks him out and tells him she never wants to see him again. She is "lost, without any bearings" when her parents shout for her to go into the basement. They are being bombed. The war with Iraq has begun.

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Massacres continue regularly after Black Friday. The shah tries to make Iran into a democracy, but Iranian citizens continue their revolt. He finally resigns. United States President Jimmy Carter refuses the shah entry to the United States, so the shah takes refuge in Egypt. Marjane's father says the shah and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat "betrayed the countries of their region by making a pact with Israel." The entire country celebrates the shah's departure. Strange things start happening after the shah's departure. Marjane and her classmates are told to rip photos of the shah from their textbooks even though their teacher once told them "the shah was chosen by God." The Satrapis' neighbor claims a scar on her cheek is from a bullet that grazed her during the riots even though it was there long before the revolution began. Marjane learns her friend Ramin's father was a member of SAVAK, the shah's secret police force. The neighborhood kids say he killed one million people. Marjane and her friends decide to get justice for the "dead million" by attacking Ramin with homemade brass knuckles fabricated from nails. Marjane's mother stops the would-be vigilantes before they find Ramin. She takes Marjane home and explains it isn't Ramin's fault that his father killed people. "It is not for you and me to do justice ... I'd even say we have to learn to forgive," she tells Marjane. Marjane later tells Ramin she forgives him for his father's sins. Ramin says his father killed communists, who are evil. Marjane reports this back to her mother, who is disappointed that Ramin "repeats what they tell him." Marjane looks in the mirror and tells herself to forgive. It makes her feel like someone "really, really good."

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Mehri is one of 15 children. Her parents couldn't afford to take care of all of them, so Mehri and her sister were sent to Marjane's family and her uncle's family to be maids. Mehri cared for Marjane when Marjane was small, and Marjane grew up thinking of Mehri as more of a sister than an employee. In 1978 Mehri fell in love with the boy next door, whom she saw through Marjane's bedroom window. The two never actually spoke, but Marjane wrote letters to the boy for Mehri, who was illiterate. After the two exchanged letters for six months, Marjane's parents found out about the clandestine courtship. Marjane's father confronted the boy and told him Mehri was his maid, not his daughter. No longer interested in Mehri, the boy handed Marjane's father the stack of letters. Ebi notices the handwriting on the letters is Marjane's. she couldn't figure out whether her father was for or against the restrictions imposed by social classes.

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Marjane's disappointment that her father isn't a hero is tempered by her heroic uncle, Anoosh, who was in prison for almost all Marjane's life. He visits Marjane's family upon his release, and Marjane is so smitten with him she begs him to spend the night. He does and tells her his story.

When Anoosh was 18, his Uncle Fereydoon became the minister of justice of the Iranian province Azerbaijan, which he and his friends had recently proclaimed independent from Iran. Like his uncle, Anoosh believed all people were "equal in the eyes of the law." Anoosh's father, however, was still faithful to the shah. He thought Anoosh was a traitor. Anoosh went to Azerbaijan and became his uncle's secretary. One night Anoosh dreamt of "dead people, blood." The next morning he woke to find the shah's soldiers surrounding his uncle's home. Fereydoon was arrested and eventually killed, but Anoosh escaped. He traveled for days in the cold and the snow to reach his parents' house. He was near death when he arrived. His father forgave him, but Anoosh couldn't stay long. The shah's soldiers were looking for him. He swam across the Aras River and into the USSR . He studied in Moscow, where he earned a doctorate in Marxism-Leninism, and married a Russian woman. Though they had two daughters together, they got divorced. Lonely, Anoosh returned to Iran in disguise. He was eventually captured and put into prison for nine years. He was tortured, though he says his ex-wife put him through worse. "I tell you all this because it's important that you know ... Our family memory must not be lost," he says to Marjane. Marjane promises never to forget. Anoosh tucks her into bed and gives her a swan made of bread.

Feels proud of having strong men in her family who fight for their ideals.

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A few days after the shah's resignation, three thousand political prisoners are released. The Satrapi family knows two of them, Siamak Jari and Mohsen Shakiba, both of whom were arrested for being communists. Siamak is the husband of Marjane's mother's best friend. Their daughter, Laly, once told Marjane that Siamak was on a trip. Marjane pointed out "on a trip" is adults' code for "dead," which didn't go over well at all. Siamak and Mohsen visit the Satrapis after they are released from prison. They tell horror stories about the torture they and their friends suffered. Marjane and her parents are shocked. Marjane tells Laly "it's a good thing" her father wasn't killed in prison like another family friend, Ahmadi, and then points out she wasn't entirely wrong when she told Laly he wasn't on a trip. Laly boasts that her father is a hero. Marjane, disappointed to have a father who isn't a hero, goes outside to play with friends, where she invents torture-inspired games. It's great fun, and she feels an enormous sense of power afterward, though that is soon replaced with sadness. Her mother consoles her and promises the torturers will "pay for what they have done." Marjane forsakes dialectic materialism and finds solace "in the arms of her friend."

Dehumanization

Conception of the child of desmemberment

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In this chapter we see how the books in Marji's school are biased and spread lies in favor of the shah.

She is told the story of her grandfather and tests out what it would be like to be in a water cell.

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In this chapter we see the revolution interpreted as a bicycle.

Symbolism:

We also see Marji asking her parents to go to a revolution due to the Cinema Rex fire killing 400 people.

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Ironic: People that are protesting for something rational follow other blindly to satisfy their emotion.

Marji reflects on her family's history and the political changes happening in Iran. She provides insights into the ancient Persian history, particularly the grandeur of Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Empire.

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Summary: Marji attends a liberal French bilingual coeducational school where boys and girls are now separated and girls must wear a veil as a result of the revolution. These are changes that make Marji and her friends unhappy, but also confused.