In Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Azar Nafisi (the author) weaves her personal life in Iran with Western fiction to not only illustrate the power of literature but also to create a metaphor that represents the imposition of the Islamic Republic's ideology. However, is this image of Iran too relentless? Does it accurately portray the country's circumstances? Fatemah Keshavarz, author of Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran, shares with her readers fond memories of her father, her uncle, her mother, and their intimate connection with literature to remedy Nafisi's contemptuous tone. In addition, Keshavarz devotes a chapter for her criticisms on the Nafisi's portrayal of 'ordinary' Iranians as either extremists or helpless victims, the erasure of the intermediaries, and factual errors that seem prevalent throughout Reading Lolita in Tehran.
The Rogerian essay below will cover a little more about their backstories and justifications for their views:
(Note: I wanted to add in Khomeini's "Al-Tawhid: The Greater Jihad" to further support the opposition of Nafisi's views and to delve into the justifications of his fundamentalism.)
Perdition of Dreams
When we pick up a newspaper, a magazine, or watch the news on television about the ongoing events in the Middle East, what kind of impression are formed in our ‘Western’ mindsets? How does our media depict the rights of these citizens on the other side of the world, better yet, the rights of women? Of men? Of Islam? Of the culture as a whole? Within the personal context of Azar Nafisi’s life in Iran, Reading Lolita in Tehran reveals a corrupted, hypocritical aspect of the Iranian government throughout the reign of Reza Pahlavi, Khomeini, and Khatami; in addition, her all-female literature class paints the power of Western fiction and how important imagination had kept them independent from the controlling powers of the government. However, Fatemeh Keshavarz, author of Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran, insists on dispelling this stereotypical view of Middle Eastern tradition by presenting the Persian culture she had grown with intimately. Furthermore, supplication for this opposing view includes none other than Ayatollah Khomeini, an authoritative figure commonly depicted as a dominating totalitarian among Western prospectors. And so, the exploration of pre-revolutionary, revolutionary, and post-revolutionary Iran beyond media analyses begins. . .
In Nafisi’s New York bestseller, Reading Lolita in Tehran, she recounts her days in Iran as well as the motifs of shapeless robes, heavy chadors, and censorship. According to the author, women’s veils had symbolized a Muslim woman’s devotion to God in the past (Nafisi, Reading 103); however, the Islamic Republic marred this religious meaning into politics. Under the reign of the Shah, the egalitarian state had almost mirrored the liberal rights of Western society. In fact, the Shah legally banned the wearing of veils in public to lift the ‘oppression’ of women. Then beginning in 1979, the Iranian Revolution reversed all of the Shah’s decrees (Nafisi, The Veil 6). Mahshid, one of the Nafisi’s literature students, wore her chador as an act of defiance, but when the Iranian Revolution commenced, her chador lost its meaning when all women began to obey Ayatollah Khomeini’s ordinance (Nafisi, Reading 13). In a similar aspect, Nafisi’s grandmother wore her veil in order to bridge an intimate connection with God and despised the Republic for justifying the issue of the veil with politics. Were veils centered on women’s oppression or religious significance? Or was it a conflict of choice? Perspective plays a key factor to analyze the issue.
Reflected by Nafisi’s book title, the majority of the themes in her memoir were influenced by Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Humbert, the protagonist of Lolita, narrated the story through his own views and retold his fantasies of his one obsession: Dolores Haze, a 12-year old girl. Throughout the plot, he delineates how he had stripped her of her humanity, her soul, and her individuality in order to mold her into an ideal form that he pleased. After murdering her mother, the rape, the sexual molestations, and physical abuse, Dolores (simply ‘Lolita’) had “absolutely nowhere else to go” but in his arms (Nafisi, Reading 36). The message was simple: he imposed a dream. With this very concept, Nafisi bridged this analogy to the Islamic Republic “using religion as an ideology” to impose its authority upon its subjects (Power 2). In a separate article, “The Veiled Threat”, Nafisi vocalizes her adamant views of women’s rights in Iran. She claims that by removing the so-called ‘decadent’ Western culture, the ‘provocation’ of the liberal and visual arts, and “[rendering] women invisible and powerless”, the Republic had “paradoxically [made] women tremendously visible and powerful" (Nafisi, The Veil 1).
Countering Nafisi’s backwardness depictions of Iran, Fatemeh Keshavarz in Jasmine and Stars wanted to prove that there was more to Iran than the oppression of Islamic Republic. Labeling Nafisi as a ‘New Orientalist’, Keshavarz pointed out that she was dehumanizing her fellow Iranians; although she shares the belief in the importance of literature and the “life of letters”, she emphasized that it was easy for these New Orientalists to “lose sight of the human being behind the shadows” (Rahimieh 2). Writing in the style of literary nonfiction, Keshavarz wove her own personal life in Iran to mirror another side of Iran Nafasi had not touched upon with readers. To counterbalance Nafisi’s comtempt for contemporary Persian literature, Keshavarz devotes a chapter each to two prominent female writers: Forough Farrokhzad and Shahrnush Parsipur. With a particular poem, Farrokhzad illustrates “the explosive nature of the social problems” that “was real” in contrast to Nafisi’s exaggerations (Keshavarz 10) and categorizes the outspoken nature of Parsipur as “surprising. . .exciting. . .[and] even angry. . .but not bitter” (Keshavarz 85). In chapter 5, a detailed analysis of Reading Lolita in Tehran dispels the factual errors that Nafisi seemed to exhibit throughout her own book. Then in the final chapter, Keshavarz ensures the authenticity of Persian literature as a source for reflection to demonstrate that other books can provide just as much intellectual stimulation as Western literary works.
Furthermore, in the views of a fundamentalist, Ayatollah Khomeini emphatically stresses the virtue of dedication to Islam and spirituality and serves as a justification for many of his policies during and after the Iranian Revolution. In one of his articles, “Al-Tawid: the Greater Jihad”, he lectures on what etiquettes must be followed in order to properly serve God and society. Throughout his rhetoric, he constantly reminded his readers that students of Islam and members of the ulama must properly guide their fellow people to the true ways of the religion. Khomeini claims that if the these students learn from a corrupted source of knowledge, then “the product will be evil, root and branch, an evil tree” (Khomeini 3). Forbearing Khomeini’s beliefs, it’s an individual responsibility for people to take the path of self-reformation in order to refine their souls to fully prepare themselves for the purity of Islamic knowledge and crusading to eradicate sin within society. In addition, Khomeini abhors secular affairs because he believes that this world of ours is only a platform towards the ethereal afterlife, where “[t]here is no fighting for things and people of the other world are pure and at peace with one another” (Khomeini 10). Thus, the morality squads, Revolutionary guards, the censorship of the media, the strict dress codes for women, and the established etiquette between men and women all reflect the Khomeini’s efforts for reformation and purifying Iran to create a ‘sin-free’ society. To him, “[k]nowledge is the greatest veil” when the world finally begins to acknowledge truth.
All of these contrasting perspectives, Nafisi, Keshavarz, and Ayatollah Khomeini all share three common focuses: the life of letters, ideal reformation, and the analogies of perspective. In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Nafisi mentioned that writers, according to Khomeini, are crusaders to expel the blight of iniquities in society and preserve the word from being polluted by worldly exposures (Nafisi, Reading 124). She, however, believed in Western literature that bore no political stances and was a better reflection of life and the affairs of Iran. In contrast, Keshavarz felt that Persian literature provided just as much room for self-discovery and philosophical nourishment.
When examining the works of Nafisi, Keshavarz, Khomeini, and news media assumptions, one thing becomes apparent: perspective. No matter what source you use to investigate the matters of women and society in Iran, bias and the omission of information will always be evident. So to remedy these linear depictions, various sources of information and point of view narrations must be utilized to compose a full picture of the situation. In this case, reforming education may be the way to dispel assumptions, expose all the factors that contribute to the issue, practice tolerance for both cultural and individual values, and present many different perceptions, including Muslim and leftist student associations. When teaching all of this side-by-side, students can choose to stick to one association, agree with many of these diverse observations, or make their own opinion. However, the education can only provide a wider spectrum of knowledge; it’s up to the students’ to change their society into what best fits their ideals. Although random raids and executions continue in Iran, the young students and former revolutionaries in Nafisi’s “Epilogue” push further for democracy in their government.
Works Cited:
Keshavarz, Fatemeh. Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 10-85.
Khomeini, Ruhollah M. "Al-Tawhid: the Greater Jihad." Al-Islam. Trans. Muhammad Legenhausen and 'Azim Sarvdalir. Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project. 26 Mar. 2008 http://al-islam.org/al-tawhid/
Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House, 2003.
Nafisi, Azar. "Bahai News - the Veiled Threat." University of Georgia. 22 Feb. 1999. University of Georgia. 26 Mar. 2008 http://www.uga.edu/bahai/News/020499.html
Power, Carla. "Azar Nafisi.(Teaching western novels in Tehran)(Interview)." Newsweek International (May 5, 2003): 58. Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Sam Houston High School. 24 Mar. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com
Rahimieh, Nasrin. "Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran.(Book review)." The Middle East Journal 61.3 (Summer 2007): 535(2). Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Sam Houston High School. 27 Mar. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/
