The narrator of the book, Farman Farmaian, surprised me the most because of her will power and her courage to create a life of her own. Her father believed that education was extremely important and she wanted to please him by furthering her education by going to America. “Nothing is more important, he would admonish, than your education” (Farrmaian 10-11). What stuck out to me was when her father said, “times are changing, and what counts nowadays is not who your father was but what you make of your own lives” (Farmaian 11). He doesn’t want his children to get by because of who he is; he wants his children to get an education and make something of themselves. Satti’s eagerness to please Shazdeh by wanting to do something life …show more content…
Like for example, “The Shah’s overthrow happened opened everyone’s hand, and people were revealing their true nature. Surely no other race on earth was like us-unprincipled, conniving, and treacherous (Farmaian 369).” This opinion of the people of Iran doesn’t account for everyone though. There could be some people who weren’t conniving and treacherous. This was just her opinion of a group of certain people that she had observed with everything going on in Iran. There was also criticism of the government and Farmaian thought “Reza Shah had been not only a cruel ruler, but, as it had turned out, a weak one, powerless to repel the foreign conqueror. An ordinary soldier’s loyalty was to someone who could protect him, not to a lord who couldn’t defend him and his family against invaders (Farmaian …show more content…
Such problems as inflation, unemployment, and failed economic programs were blamed on the old scapegoats of foreigners and conspiracies instead of on fanaticism-, corruption, ineptitude, and the persecution of innocent people and inoffensive minorities (Faramain 393).” In conclusion, people in Iran could only count on themselves for survival and no one else. They suffered internally have yet to have a strong
It also shows some more common ideas, like how all families have secrets, and in just a short time, someone’s life can be turned upside down and they have to find the best way to stay strong for themselves and their families. The most important thing I learned from this book, is how some people in other cultures find life to be very difficult when they are trying to do what is best for their family. Anita kept saying America is the ‘free country’ and I couldn’t agree more. So many people want to come here for so many different reasons, and it makes you realize that if our country is so great that people from all over the world want to move here, we are very lucky to be so highly thought
Not only did the religious history play a large role in Iran’s beliefs but also foreign invaders have been imposing their power on the Iranian region for thousands of years. Iran...
Before the revolution when Dumas and her family first moved to Whittier, California, a mother and her daughter kindly helped Firoozeh and her mother find their way home, inattentive to the fact they were Iranian. “This kind stranger agreed to take us back to our house” (Dumas, 7). On the other hand, after eradicating the Shah, Iranian terrorists had a substantial motive to capture American hostages, and the country began to develop hostility towards all Iranians. Dumas recalls, “During our stay in Newport Beach, the Iranian Revolution took place and a group of Americans were taken hostage in the American embassy in Tehran. Overnight, Iranians living in America became, to say the least, very unpopular. For some reason, many Americans began to think that all Iranians, despite outward appearances to the contrary, could at any given moment get angry and take prisoners” (Dumas, ). Ignorance and xenophobia became the prime factors that led to this intense discrimination. The author describes the injustice her father experienced while searching for a job, “At the sight of the Iranian passport, the lawyer turned pale, ‘I am so sorry, but the government of Saudi Arabia does not accept Iranians at this time.’” (Dumas, 120). Contradicting with what Dumas’s father assumed America would provide for him, a job, he was turned down by many of them by the
This book teaches the importance of self-expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful of what is going on. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
...the future to see that his life is not ruined by acts of immaturity. And, in “Araby”, we encounter another young man facing a crisis of the spirit who attempts to find a very limiting connection between his religious and his physical and emotional passions. In all of these stories, we encounter boys in the cusp of burgeoning manhood. What we are left with, in each, is the understanding that even if they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can. These stories bind all of us together in their universal messages…youth is something we get over, eventually, and in our own ways, but we cannot help get over it.
The introduction to Persepolis gives a great deal of background information to the unrest in Iran leading up to the Islamic revolution. Iran had been in a state of unrest for “2500 years” (page11). Iran was ruled by foreign nations and exploited by the western world for its rich expanses of oil. In 1951 the prime minister of Iran tried to take back his country’s wealth by nationalizing
The main body of the investigation will outline how certain people chose to spread awareness and express opposition through literature and other methods, and what political consequences they had to face. The effects of the oppression are then analyzed, specifically drawing attention to how the ways of the SAVAK triggered the Iranian revolution and the collapse of Mohammad Reza Shah. Two of the sources used in this essay, Sky of Red Poppies and Persepolis, are then evaluated in detail based on bias, context, credibility, purpose, and historical accuracy. The conclusion will summarize the causes and effects of SAVAK oppression.
While the mother felt she was cultured she never fully understood what she was reading and learning, and could only name the classics. This difference between mother and daughter is what created a gap between the two. While the daughter had the knowledge to self-educate herself, her mother would never meet these standards no matter how hard she persevered. There was a generational gap between mother and daughter created by the change in social and cultural norms. For the daughter’s generation it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to continue her education and strive for social advancement through knowledge. For the mother’s generation social mobility was almost impossible even if one worked every day of her life, and children did what they were told to do by their parents. This wedge created a series of rebellious years by the daughter, leading her to ask permission to study in
Even today, Iran has largely maintained its anti-American stance, and conflict between the two nations is tangible. The United States, still wary of Iran’s hate for all western influence, keeps sanctions on Iran, in an attempt to restrict Iran's nuclear power. To many Americans, Iran is considered part of the Axis of Evil, a nation of terrorists and radical Muslims. In Iran, there still exist many ‘death to America’ slogans. With Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, however, the United States and Iran have started restoring diplomatic relations. We can only hope that Iran and the US will find enough common ground to break the shackles of
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
In the 1970’s Iran, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a very centralized military state that maintained a close relationship with the USA. The Shah was notoriously out of touch with working class Iranians as he implemented many controversial economic policies against small business owners that he suspected involved profiteering. Also unrestricted economic expansions in Iran lead to huge government expenditure that became a serious problem when oil prices dropped in the mid 1970’s. This caused many huge government construction projects to halt and the economy to stall after many years of massive profit. Following this was high rates of inflation that affected Iranians buying power and living standards. (Afary, 2012) Under the Shah, political participation was not widely available for all Iranians and it was common for political opposition to be met with harassment, illegal detention, and even torture. These measures were implemented by the Iranian secret police knows as ‘SAVAK’. This totalitarian regime combined with the increasing modernisation of the country paved the way for revolution.
We will first give the main characteristics of the Iranian identity and then will see its evolution through the Islamist conquest of Iran, the Shahnameh, the Constitutional Revolution
Although the Iranian Revolution was both a political and religious movement in that it resulted in major shifts in government structure from an autocracy to a republic and that Islamic beliefs were fought to be preserved, it was more a religious movement in that the primary goal of the people was to preserve traditional ideology and in that the government became a theocracy intertwined with religious laws and desires of the people. Although the Iranian Revolution was caused by combination of political and religious motivations and ideas, the desires of the people supporting the movement were more dominantly religious ideas that were wished to be imposed in society and in a new government. The Shah, or king, of Iran at the time was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who had developed relations with nations in the “western” world, specifically with the United States. The United States supported the White Revolution, which was a series of social reformations the Shah made to remove Islamic values, law and tradition from the government to boost the country’s economy (White Revolution, 2010).... ...
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
Chapter four of Charles Kurzman’s book details the evidence for and against a cultural explanation of the Iranian Revolution. There are two types of cultural explanations that center around the question, “Does culture shape us, or do we shape it (56)?” One side argues that cultures can be conductive of protest movements. The other views protest movements as groups that attempt to change culture, using the language of culture as a tool kit for the revolutionary. Both of these arguments have been used to explain the genesis and evolution of Iran’s protest movement.