Growing up can be hard, even in the best of circumstances. Marjane Satrapi’s childhood was complicated by various conflicts in her home country, Iran, the upheaval of being sent away from home, and the culture shock of returning years later. Satrapi memorialized her early life in two graphic novels combined to make Persepolis.

Part history lesson, part coming of age story, Persepolis traces the life of young Marjane from childhood, through adolescence and into young adulthood. As a child Marjane dreams of being a future prophet and listens to God speaking to her. But as with all children, she is very malleable. She believes the things her teachers tell her (such as that the Shah was chosen by God) until she learns other views from her parents. When the crowds begin agitating for change, she marches around the living room chanting “Down with the Shah.” She adopts her uncle’s (and possibly parents’) Communist politics. Soon the teachers are teaching different ideas as part of the Islamic Revolution; these too take hold for a time.

When the Iran-Iraq War escalates, her parents send her to Vienna for school. This is the time of her adolescence. Not only does she have the normal teen issues, she is very alone among people not at all like her. She ends up with the school outcasts. Without much supervision, she leads something of a Bohemian life, but never finds much fulfillment.

In time, and after some serious troubles, she returns to Iran for college. There she must conform to the rules of the Islamic regime. After the years of relative freedom in Europe, it is hard for her to adjust. She is no longer as malleable as she was as a child. Now she has a critical mind that rejects the official ideas being taught. Eventually, she leaves Iran for good.

Hers is a life of exile. She really has no place that is home. Away at school she often tries to hide the fact that she is Iranian because of people’s preconceptions. Even when she returns to Iran, she is just as much an outsider as she was in Europe. This is no longer the Iran of her childhood. We know that as she leaves Iran for the last time that she is, at heart, a homeless soul.

Although her tale is set in a turbulent time and place, much about her experience is universal. The struggle of finding one’s identity during adolescence is a key part of life. For Marjane it included a rejection of God (or perhaps just replacing God with Marx; the two share a scene when Marjane needs direction to life). That struggle often leads people to the feeling of being an outcast or loner, and the desire to be something that we are not. The idea of being a stranger in one’s own home is also a common sensation, especially in times of rapid social change.

Much of the conflict in Marjane’s life is not just the historical events that bring so much upheaval into her life, but the underlying tension between heritage and the new worlds she encounters. Heritage is all the things that give us that first sense of self—family, religion, nationality. For Marjane, she has a rich family history and the wisdom of her parents and grandmother. She has a fertile imagination in her relationship with God. But when those early sources of self begin to erode, she has to find a new way of living in a quickly changing world.

In that we are all akin to Marjane. We too are in a constant struggle to balance our heritage and the world that keeps changing around us—to know who we have been, who we are, and who we may become. Through it all there is the challenge of knowing what God would have us be.