How does Satrapi address exile and home?

• A. Exile is a purely physical displacement.
• B. Exile is both a literal displacement and a psychological feeling; home becomes layered, felt in memory.
• C. Home is a fixed place.
• D. Exile is only about memory.

Answer: (C)

Exile in Satrapi’s work isn’t just leaving a place; it’s a felt dislocation that travels with you. Home, then, isn’t a single, fixed location but something layered that lives in memory, people, language, and daily experiences you carry with you across borders. The narrator’s sense of where she belongs shifts as she moves between Iran and other countries, with Tehran and childhood moments resurfacing in memory and shaping who she is.

Seeing home as fixed ignores how memory and identity persist and reshape themselves after displacement, which Satrapi shows through the way scenes from Iran recur in new settings, the way family and cultural practices anchor a sense of belonging, and how longing and memory keep home accessible even when you’re physically far away. The other ideas flatten exile to either memory alone or a purely physical distance, missing how both dimensions interweave to produce a complex, living sense of home.