Freedom is the ability to act according to your own will. If someone asks you, "do you have freedom?" you will probably say yes, because you live in a country where people's freedom is the number one priority. The reality is that as a human being you are only free to think what you want and how you want it, but you are not free to express it because of the laws and the norms of the society that you belong. Due to the hypocrisy that exists between humans, in order to insert yourselves in society you must remain silent or change your ways, so you are not free at all. Identity is how you as an individual and as other people's view is identified. It is the set of a person's own characteristics and the understanding he has of it, in relation to other people. Having knowledge of the meaning of these concepts, I dare to answer the question: "Are we free to make our own identity?" WellI don't believe we are, but I do believe we are free to make our own choices depending on the authenticity of our own identity.
You are affected by your culture, by which education you are given, books you read, food you eat, clothes you wear, dialect, TV exposure, by the politics and media that you grow up with, and especially by your family and people around you. When you are born, you are not born with a set of values and expectations, so you learn them from your parents or adults who raise you primarily. You learn not only through these adults, also by life experiences and by watching/observing. In The Complete Persepolis the narrator claims, " I didn't really know what to think about the veil, deep down I was very religious but as a family we were very modern and avant-garde"(6). This reflects the influence of both the society and the family, in a girl who is just beginning to form her identity. Religion represents the life in Iran while the desire for a more liberal and modern life symbolizes the values of her family.