"Out of the fire and inti the frying pan"

I think the saying, "out of the frying pan and into the fire relates a lot to the condition of Iran when Satrapi was younger. After the shah has left and fundamentalism is rising, the father remarks, " ...Let's enjoy our new freedom" (43). His wife remarks, "Now that the devil has the left" (43)! In the cartoon, the characters are surrounded by a devil as they say these things. I think this is the author's way of saying that the Shah brought on bad times, but fundamentalists did not fix anything. They were not the angels who came and fixed the country. They were just a new ruling class. Not much had really changed.

This idea of one situation not being any better than another after a change correlates with that of the quote "Out of the frying pan and into the fire." When one goes from the frying pan to the fire, he goes from two equally bad situations. This is much like what the Iranian people, including the Satrapis, are feeling. Power transferred from one dictator to another. There was only a nominal change not necessarily an actual change.

This is also similar to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. This movement brought comunism to Russia. Although russians embraced communism, the new life they recieved was really not that much better than the life they had when they were under the control of the czars. Effectively they went from the fryinf=g pan into the fire