Quote Response

"That night I stayed a very long time in the bath. I wanted to know what it felt like to be in a cell filled with water" "What are you doing?" "My hands were wrinkled when I came out, like Grandpa's" (Satrapi 25).

This exchange between Marji and God occurs after Marji's mother tells her about her grandfather. Her mother explains that her grandfather was once a prince and then was named prime minister. After some conflict, as Satrapi describes, her grandfather became a communist and was imprisoned. Marji's mother explained that as torture, sometimes Marji's grandfather was put in a cell filled with water. Shortly after this exchange, Marji says that she would like to take a long bath.

I thought that this quote really demonstrated the innocence and youth of Marji's character at this point in the story. In order for her to emmulate her grandfather's suffering, she did her best to recreate the situation for herself, regardless of how much different a long bath and torture really were.

What stood out to me in this quote was how profound the last sentence is. She is making the connection that the wrinkling of her hands due to water exposure is similar to the wrinkling of her grandfather's hands from his old age. She is a young child who has had to be exposed to so much at such an early age, and she is doing her best to understand her situation and circumstance.

I think that this quote is a perfect example of the kind of traumatic events that the people of Iran had become accustomed to and how young children had to try and incorporate this knowledge into their daily lives and survive anyway.