Marjane Satrapi’s blockbuster autobiographical graphic novels Persepolis One and Two took the world by storm for their fearless – and irreverent – portrayal of Islamic rule in her motherland of Iran. In these two graphic novels, we follow Satrapi’s growing up years in Iran, the brutal regime of the Shah and her family’s resistance to it, and their subsequent migration to Europe. Satrapi holds French citizenship at present, and, besides writing, also directs movies. The film adaptation of Persepolis (directed by Satrapi) is a richly decorated movie that received tremendous attention at the Oscars, Cannes, Golden Globe, and César Awards.
Marjane, the girl character of Persepolis, returns in Satrapi’s book Embroideries, whose English translation was published in 2008. However, here she is not the central character. Surrounded by a flock of women of varying ages and social positions, she observes them and offers occasional quips as they talk about their marriages and sex lives.
Ventilation of the heart
The book opens with a lunch party where the women have gathered with their husbands. Once the eating is done, the men take their teas and retire for a siesta while the women get busy clearing up the table. Marjane’s grandmother who addresses her husband as “Satrapi” because “no woman should respect her husband” orders her granddaughter to “cook” the tea before the women sit down to gossip. Or as she calls it, a “session of ventilation of the heart.”
Her loudmouth, opium-addicted grandmother leads with the story of her childhood friend Nahid who lost her virginity to her lover before marriage. When she’s to be wedded to a much older man, she runs to Marjane’s grandmother seeking advice to restore her virginity. The blood on the sheet after the first night together was crucial to the sanctity of the marriage. Already divorced once, Marjane’s grandmother steps in with instructions which ends with her friend lacerating her husband’s testicles.
All the talk and giggling about testicles – lacerated and intact – prompts a mother of four girls to confess she’s never seen the male member. Why? Because “bam bam bam” is what sex with her husband is like. The other women reassure her that she isn’t missing out on anything. Marjane’s grandmother who has been married three times warns the group that marriage is like “roulette” – sometimes one wins, but often one loses. A glamorous, wealthy aunt declares frankly that there’s “no point” in getting married. Bethroted at 13 to a 69-year-old army general, she recounts the painful years of being married to a man who refused to divorce her even after she ran away on their very first night together. There’s another round of excited discussions on whether men that age can manage to engage in sexual acts. The aunt dwells briefly on the topic before moving on to the sexual prowess of European men. In their case, the foreskin of the penis is not as offensive as she had been taught to believe.
Marriage is the central point of discussion. One aunt recalls discovering her husband was a serial cheater only after she moved to Germany with him. Another prefers being a mistress – an “extraordinary pearl” – than a wife for she can do without a man’s tantrums and unhygienic ways. While the women remain unimpressed with their male companions, it is not to say that they do not make attempts to win their affection. In one particularly funny instance, Marjane’s friend Shideh resorts to “white magic” to brew an elaborate recipe of tea to change her boyfriend’s mind about not marrying her.
The troubles in even seemingly stable marriages come to light when the women complain about their husbands cheating or “almost” cheating on them. As they lament the brutal blows of age and child-bearing, notes are exchanged about surgical interventions. A woman admits to having fat shifted from her buttocks to breasts and laughs at her husband who unknowingly kisses her behind when he shoves his face into her bosom. A discussion on the merits of rhinoplasty and vaginal tuck (or “embroidery”) follows.
A girl is married off at 18 to a foreign-residing Iranian without any prior meeting. The groom does not bother to attend the wedding and the chair next to the bride is occupied by his photo. The strangeness of the wedding foreshadows a doomed marriage as the bride soon discovers that in addition to her husband sleeping under the bed, he also prefers to have sex with men. In the final account, a woman’s marriage ends in the most predictable – yet comical – tale of deception.
Laughter in the dark
Embroideries illuminates what most women have always known – the most horrifying, joyous, and courageous stories emerge when women start to talk about their lives. You don’t have to venture far from home, the bravest woman you know is possibly your own grandmother, mother, or aunt. Capturing a time of post-revolution Iran, Satrapi shows how women were adapting to social conventions during the regime and after it. Now, they had seemed to loosen up as they talked freely about sex, marriages, beauty standards, and their physical needs. One woman exclaims that women’s morals are “relaxing” and vaginal tucking which has been widely discredited as an unethical medical procedure is hailed as liberating by the group who know first-hand the importance of virginity in traditional Iranian marriages.
The questions of safety aside, Satrapi offers an honest portrayal of the complicated relationship between women and cosmetic surgeries. In a world designed to cater to male fantasies, sometimes going under the knife might be the only way for women to avoid scrutiny of their looks and chastity.
The personal stories of the women and the sexual nature of their conversations in Embroideries is a striking diversion from the political documentation of Persepolis. In fact, contemporary politics seems to be deliberately omitted from this book. The only sign of changing times is that women have discarded the burqas for headscarves. The women in Marjane’s family are not dejected from the hell the men have put them through – they laugh at them behind their backs and make fun of their crude ways. This is Satrapi – and the women of Iran – showing the middle finger to the regime and the patriarchy with style (and a smirk).
Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi, translated from the French by Anjali Singh, Jonathan Cape.
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