READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN's Four sections explained

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Aleena Farooq.
Roll No. 07.
B.S. English. (6th
Semester)
AZAR NAFISI - READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN.
In 1995, Nafisi started a secret class with seven of her best English literature students. Together, they
studied various pieces of fiction that reflected their lives and experiences during the Iranian Revolution. Each
section of the book is devoted to an author whose works the class has read. Through each of these sections,
Nafisi elaborates on the trials and tribulations that she and her students have endured during this time.
Azar Nafisi: The author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Nafisi is an English literature professor who holds
her own private literature class at her home.
Bijan: Nafisi's husband. He is hardworking and very calm.
The Magician: The Magician’s real name is Professor R. By choice, he quit his post at the University of
Tehran, and decided to live in a secluded environment in an attempt to separate himself from the regime as
much as possible. He acts as Nafisi’s secret advisor and always has the solutions to Nafisi’s problems and
worries.
The Seven Students:
Azin: She is the tallest among the students and has blonde hair. She is considered a "trophy wife" by her
rich merchant husband, and has a three year old daughter. Towards the end of the novel, Azin develops marital
problems and wants a divorce. She is inclined to talk about love, sex, and men and because of her outrageous
comments; she was dubbed "the wild one" by the reading group. Azin often clashed with the more traditional
Mahshid and Manna.
Mahshid: Mahshid is dainty and has delicate features. Her father is a devout Muslim man. Mahshid was
once sent to jail because she was involved with a nonconformist religious organization. As a result of her jail
experiences, she was banned from having an education for two years and her kidney became impaired as well.
Mahshid is lonely, and even at the age of thirty-some years, she still lives with her mother.
Manna: Manna is withdrawn and writes lots of poetry. She cherishes memories of her father who
passed away after the revolution and of her childhood.
Mitra: Mitra is beautiful and her smile is marked by her dimples. She is married to Hamid, and towards
the end of the novel, they plan to leave Iran and move to Canada.
Nassrin: Nassrin joined Nafisi's class later than the rest of the students. Nassrin secretly attended
Nafisi's class while lying to her father, who knew all along but kept quiet about the matter. Like Mahshid,
Nassrin had once been in jail, but was saved from execution becuase of her father's credentials. Nassrin
eventually left the country because she could no longer stand the feeling of living in Iran. She escaped to
London in search of a better future.

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Sanaz: Sanaz is a thin, independent girl. She has a spoiled brother who is overly watchful and tries to
control her every move. She was deeply in love with a man named Ali who was in Turkey, but managed to
maintain their relationship despite all their years apart. He finally asked her to marry him and they got engaged,
but he later broke up with her on the phone because he felt that he could not provide her true happiness.
Yassi: Yassi is a rebel through music; she wants to go to America just like her uncles. She came from a
religious family and both her mother and her aunt are in hiding for joining a Muslim group for women. She
expects more in life than what Iran could offer.
SUMMARY:
Section 1 – Lolita:
In the first section of the book, Nafisi focuses on the author, Nabokov, and his novels:
Lolita and Invitation to a Beheading.
Nafisi begins the memoir with a description of the dream she created in the Islamic Republic of Iran: to
create a group for a dedicated group of students to analyze specific pieces of literature. She discusses two texts
in this first section: Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading and Lolita.
Lolita was a young girl, around the age of twelve, who had her life controlled by her stepfather and
"jailer", Humbert. Humbert forces Lolita to be his little lover and as a result, Lolita loses a sense of herself when
this new identity created by Humbert is imposed upon her.
In Nabokov's other book, Invitation to a Beheading, Nafisi discusses the heroism that Cincinnatus, the
main character, displays. He keeps his individuality even while being jailed, and doesn't succumb to an identity
imposed upon him by others. The scene where the jailer invites Cincinnatus to dance is illustrated as one of the
most important scenes in Invitation to a Beheading. As they dance, Cincinnatus is set into circles and he would
remain as a prisoner as long as he had accepted the "movements" imposed upon him by the jailer. Cincinnatus
demonstrates his ability to defend his own identity and individual in the end of the story, when he is
executed. Both pieces of Nabokov's literature demonstrate the theme of having one's identity being forcefully
replaced by someone else's vision.
The Islamic regime had authority over the people just like how Humbert had authority over Lolita and
how the jailers had authority over Cincinnatus. The veiling of women in Iran is a prime example of the
oppression seen in the lives led by the women. Their individuality was destroyed when they lost their unique
characteristics to the law that enforced them to wear the veil. The women do not look like women anymore,
they become ghosts. After the revolution, a woman's position in society had curtailed due to the "dress-code"
inflicted onto them. Nafisi uses Nabokov's two books to highlight these problems of identity replacement in this
first section of her memoir.
Section2 – Gatsby:
In this second section, Nafisi analyzes F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, and relates it to living in
Iran.

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The Great Gatsby is a story about a wealthy man named Jay Gatsby, who is a dreamer and a romantic.
The story is told from the viewpoint of Nick, Gatsby's neighbor, who observes Gatsby and his endless efforts to
love a woman named Daisy. Daisy is married to another man named Tom Buchanan, who has an affair with a
woman had named Myrtle. As the story progresses, Daisy ends up running over Myrtle with Gatsby's car.
Gatsby takes the blame for the murder and is shot dead by Myrtle's husband. In the end, it is evident that
Gatsby's efforts to love Daisy proved to be harmful to himself. The end of Gatsby comes when Gatsby tries to
achieve a dream that in reality cannot be achieved and has already ended.
The end of dreams is also apparent in Nafisi's life in the Iranian Republic. Even though the revolution
has destroyed many individuals and stripped them of their own personal identity as discussed in Section 1, it
becomes apparent in Section 2 that the Iranian Revolution is slowly destroying itself because the ideals that it
tries to impose upon its people result in the clashing of different religious groups. The biggest example of such
unrest is seen when Nafisi describes her experiences at the University of Tehran.
Her attempts to teach her class are interrupted by religious demonstrations. Even when Nafisi tries to
introduce The Great Gatsby to her university class in a positive light, students who support the Revolution
oppose the book, claiming that it is "Westernized" and "decadent". The book is soon put on trial in the class,
and what used to be a simple class discussion becomes a battleground for political and religious views. After a
period of days, protests and revolts at the University become so out-of-hand that the Iranian government
threatened to close the school. This threat is a sign of the people's unhappiness and unrest, which are the
symptoms that signify the death of the Iranian Revolution's dream to create in their eyes, what they call a better
society.
Section3 – James:
In this section, Nafisi focuses on the difficult situations she encountered during the time of the Iran vs
Iraq War when she was forced to choose between wearing a veil and continue teaching under the strict
regulations, or keeping her identity and refuse to surrender to her changing surroundings.
Nafisi relates her real-life struggles to James' characters in his novels, Daisy Miller and Washington
Square.
Daisy Miller is portrayed as a rebellious lady who died from the Roman fever despite Winterbourne's
warning because she discovered Winterbourne's indifference towards her. Her death proved her devotion
towards Winterbourne despite his betrayal. This fact establishes her heroine quality. Some of Nafisi's students
thought that Daisy Miller was immoral and deserved her death in the end. Contrary to her students' beliefs
however, Nafisi concentrates more on Daisy Miller's courage and the devotion she had in order to retain her
sense of integrity. Like Daisy Miller, Nafisi possesses the courage and resistance towards her corrupt
government that she is forced to live in.
In James' other novel, Washington Square, Dr. Sloper, a villain without empathy and compassion,
fails to love his daughter, Catherine, and prevents her from marrying her beloved Morris Townsend. James
gives his villain perfect, brilliant characteristics while he gives his heroine, Catherine Sloper, many negative
qualities such as unattractiveness. The one positive trait that Catherine does possess however is

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the compassion she has towards her own identity. It is this compassion that distinguishes her from the
ordinary and creates her identity. Nafisi has the same compassion towards her suffering students when they
encountered countless unreasonable obstacles created by the regime. Her tone of compassion is present even
in her description towards the end of the third section of the once powerful radical Muslim student who went
insane and set himself on fire due to the government's betrayal. The story of Catherine Sloper connects to Nafisi
and her students' lives in that they all live in an environment with a lack of empathy and freedom.
Power in one's life serves no long lasting significance because one person's diminutive power is always
controlled by the government and can soon be taken away, just as the young martyr's rank and granted place in
heaven were taken away as soon as he returned home from the war. On the other hand, one's integrity and
individuality make up an important, influential human being. Just like Daisy Miller and Catherine Sloper, Nafisi
and her students ultimately succeeded when they held on to their beliefs and their integrity even in their unjust
environment.
Section 4 – Austen:
In the last section of her book, Nafisi focuses on the works of Jane Austen and reflects her life and the
lives of her students upon these works.
Nafisi focuses mostly on Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, in this section. Pride and Prejudice is a
romance novel regarding the life of Elizabeth Bennet and her problems with marriage and righteousness in a
19th century refined community. Elizabeth's happiness lies at the core of her relationship with Darcy, a wealthy
bachelor, and a potential fiancé. The rest of the community believes that Darcy is snobbish, and Elizabeth
loathes and judges Darcy based on these outside beliefs. However, Darcy grows to love Elizabeth, and
Elizabeth realizes that her first impressions of Darcy were wrong. She wants to make amends with Darcy, but
under the public eye, it is hard for her to do so without becoming judged herself.
Elizabeth and Darcy's tense relationship reflects the problematic relationships shared by men and
women in the Iranian Republic. Nafisi recounts several of her students' stories, all of which involve such
relationships. Many of her female students are confused about the concept of love, and how to handle a
romantic relationship because the Islamic regime has redefined all things sexual.
Modesty takes the form of a veil. The regime has branded harmless gestures such as laughing in public
to be "seductive". Eye contact between a man and a woman is no longer friendly; it becomes guarded and leery.
Love is no longer that of the heart; it has become a duty to spirituality. Such restrictions placed on these people
confuses their own private wants with the expectations generated by the public and makes it hard for women
living during the regime to establish a happy and healthy relationship with the opposite sex.
Nafisi smoothly concludes her memoir with the discussion of this last book. With this book, Nafisi
paints a collective portrait of the stresses that the Islamic regime has placed on its own people--whether it is a
loss of identity, of dreams, or of one's relationships with other people.
Towards the end of her memoir, Nafisi makes the pivotal decision to go to America to escape her
suppressive surroundings. Such a decision reveals a deeper perspective of Nafisi's wants and that of her
students. After hearing of Professor Nafisi's decision to leave, America becomes the elusive symbol of freedom
for the students.

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America is the symbol that embodies their thoughts; their imaginations of a better place; which are made
all the more tangible with the study of Western literature in their secret class. This fact brings the reader around
full circle to the beginning of the memoir, and forces them to realize why Nafisi decided to create her secret
literature class: to find freedom.
An Analysis of Several Important Quotes from the Memoir:
Section 1 – Lolita:
"What Nabokov captured was the texture of life in a totalitarian society where you are completely alone in
an illusory world full of false promises where you no longer differentiate between your savior and
executioner" (Nafisi 23).
Nafisi discusses the theme of an oppressive society as compared to the situation in Invitation to a
Beheading in this passage. She discusses how the literature specifically relates to reality and the totalitarian
society's abuse of power. Everything in the society becomes false, and there is insight into the relationship
between an individual and the reality of tyranny and repression.
"Curiously, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities, about which we
felt so helplessly speechless" (Nafisi 38-39).
In this first introductory section, Nafisi develops the students' ability to become insightful readers and
relate the novels they read to their realities. It is evident that the themes throughout the novels have a
connection that leads the students back to their own realities. The novels provided the link for the students to
realize their situations and view what they were living through as a painful memory.
"The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims
to become complicit of their crimes" (Nafisi 76).
Nafisi relates her analysis of Invitation to a Beheading, where Cincinnatus is circling in a dance as he
waits for his execution, to the "crimes committed" by the government heading the people of Iran. The
government easily set rules and restrictions on its people and the students actually witnessed this brutality every
time they set foot out onto the street. The requiring of wearing the veil had been like an "execution" to their
lives and identities as a woman.
Section 2 – Gatsby:
"This new man, Dr. A, was different. His smile was friendly but not intimate; it was more appraising. He
invited me to a party at his house, that very night, yet his manner was distant. We talked about literature and
not relatives" (Nafisi 87).
In this passage, Nafisi recently returned to Iran and notices the distant relationship Dr. A has towards
her, but at the time she only thought that Dr. A was exceptional from the other Iranian men since he used to live
in America. In her explanation of their encounter, it shows that Dr. A is constantly maintaining a
professional space between them even though they're acquainted enough to invite her to his house. Nafisi's tone
in her description of Dr. A suggests the awkward and irrelevant tension in every Iranian man's attitude in
keeping a distance towards the women in the new regime.
"When in the States we had shouted Death to this or that, those deaths seemed to be more symbolic, more
abstract, as if we were encouraged by the impossibility of our slogans to insist upon them even more. But in

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Tehran in 1979, these slogans were turning into reality with macabre precision. I felt helpless: all the dreams
and slogans were coming true, and there was no escaping them" (Nafisi 97).
After residing in the United States for quite a long time, Nafisi revisits her home country, Iran, again.
This passage demonstrates the change she felt in the cultures because when she was in the United States, people
fought for rights without being radicals and tyrants. On the other hand, the slogan's on the banners in Iran that
said "Death to America!" actually meant it literally. Iran thought of America as the evil and poison to their
minds and culture. Universities were closed and students and faculty were killed in their act against this. In the
end, the revolution had changed the Iranian Republic and destroyed it.
"He wanted to fulfill his dream by repeating the past, and in the end he discovered that the past was dead, the
present a sham, and there was no future. Was this not similar to our revolution, which had come in the name
of our collective past and had wrecked our lives in the name of a dream?"(Nafisi 144).
This passage clearly shows the connection Nafisi makes between the revolution and literature. Instead of
coming out straight and explaining her opinions on the Revolution, she compares it to Gatsby's dream in The
Great Gatsby. The extreme words she utilizes such as "dead", "sham", "wrecked" and "no future" reveal
her lack of hope for her country to bring her happiness and a bright future. It proves her reality during the
revolution transformed her to become narrow-minded.
Section 3 – James:
"I had not realized how far the routines of one's life create the illusion of stability. Now that I could not wear
what I would normally wear, walk in the street to the beat of my own body, shout if I wanted to or pat a male
colleague on the back on the spur of the moment, now that all this was illegal, I felt light and fictional, as if I
were walking on air, as if I had been written into being and then erased in on quick swipe" (Nafisi 167).
In this passage, Nafisi mentions many examples and privileges she had lost during the war. It establishes
the importance of one's daily routines because one could feel invisible without them, as Nafisi had experienced.
Her specific examples reflect a much larger picture on the restrictions set by the regime and its effect on women
in Iran. It shows that all women in Iran are now controlled by the strict regime that prevents them from
reasonable rights and rapidly erases them from being. This passage conveys the main reason why most of
Nafisi's students and women in Iran desire escape to another place where they can live and search for freedom.
"You remember those days the regime went crazy attacking the Mujahideen－I was really very lucky. They
executed so many of my friends, but initially gave me only ten years. Ten year was lucky?" (191).
Nafisi briefly summarizes her conversation with Nassrin in this passage. It is extremely precise but at
the same time reveals a lot about a woman's hardship in Iran. She describes Nassrin's tone to be carefree and
"lucky", but it is obvious that even for Nafisi, it is surprising to believe that a young girl would think ten years
in jail was considered lucky. Nafisi interchanged Nassrin's words and her thoughts without using any
punctuation which gives the casual expression Nassrin gave to her to the reader.
"Nothing was said about him－no commemoration, no flowers or speeches, in a country where funerals and
mourning were more magnificently produced than any other national art form. I, who prided myself on
speaking out against the veil or other forms of harassment, also kept quiet. Apart from the murmurs, the only
thing out of the ordinary about that day was that the loudspeakers for some reason kept announcing in the
hall that classes would be held as usual that afternoon. We did have a class that afternoon. It did not go on
as usual" (Nafisi 253).

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In this passage, Nafisi has a compassionate tone in her description of this young martyr's tragic ending
where no funeral was held to honor him after he had sacrificed so much for his country. The school's
repeating announcements reflect the treatment citizens receive in Iran in that everything would go on as usual
and one's death was forced to be ignored. In comparison to Khomeini's magnificent funeral Nafisi had described
earlier, with all the people paying tribute and days of mourning taken place; this little boy deserves at least
something, but instead he would soon be forgotten by the country he had so much faith in. This cruel treatment
to the boy even shocked Nafisi.
Section 4 – Austen:
"I could not find a better way of explaining the overall structure of Pride and Prejudice to my classes than to
compare it to the eighteenth-century dance...which is both a public and private act. The atmosphere of Pride
and Prejudice does carry the festive air of a ball" (Nafisi 267).
Nafisi compares Pride and Prejudice to a dance. Dancing illustrates the fragile balance between the
public and the private mind. A dance has the potential to be both a public show, and entertainment for one's
own private soul. When this balance between outside influences and one's own free choice becomes disturbed,
the dance falls apart, and confusion ensues. This imbalance is reflected in the lives of the Iranian citizens
because the Islamic regime imposes so many restrictions upon its people.
"They put at the center of our attention what Austen's novels formulate: not the importance of marriage but
the importance of heart and understanding in marriage; not the primacy of conventions but the breaking of
conventions. These women, genteel and beautiful, are the rebels who say no to the choices made by silly
mothers, incompetent fathers (there are seldom any wise fathers in Austen's novels) and the rigidly orthodox
society. They risk ostracism and poverty to gain love and companionship, and to embrace that elusive goal at
the heart of democracy: the right to choose" (Nafisi 307).
This quote asserts that by overcoming the public influences placed upon oneself, one can create their
own free will to choose. Austen challenges the idea of marriage by convention, and by the same token, Nafisi
challenges her students and readers to question the authority of the Iranian Republic. If one never takes up the
initiative to challenge such ideas, it only allows these public influences to gain even more control over one's
life. If Elizabeth Bennet never opposed the beliefs of her aristocratic community, she would never have been
happy with Darcy. Similarly, if the women in Iran never question the concept of veiling, the veil has the
potential to become mandatory for the rest of their lives.
"Well, it's like this: if you're forced into having sex with someone you dislike, you make your mind blank--
you pretend to be somewhere else, you tend to forget your body, you hate your body. That's what we do over
here. We are constantly pretending to be somewhere else--we either plan it or dream it" (Nafisi 329).
Nafisi and her girls are suppressed by the regime's constant demands. The quote relates living in Iran to
having sex with a man they hate. The quote illustrates a rape of one's own identity. Women are forcefully
removed from their social positions. They must wear a veil, they cannot speak loudly in public, and they cannot
communicate freely with other Muslim men. The female students are unable to find solace within their
surroundings so instead, they withdraw into the fantasies that they read and the fantasies they create with their
minds. The literature class allows the women a few hours of relief from the stresses of the regime each day. It is
a place for the women to pour out their worries to each other and to relate their lives with their books. Not only
does Nafisi's quote reflect the effects of the Islamic regime on her own students, it is an indication of the effects
of the regime on other Iranian women as well.

READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN's Four sections explained

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