Reading Lolita In Tehran

Being a writer and a former American literature professor, Azar Nafisi lived in Iran and stayed during the Iranian Revolution from about the 1960's to the 1980's. Her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, explains the hardships and struggles during the revolution with literature. Using American literature to explain how she was coping, works like The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, and Washington Square came up in her novel. Through these American novels, she started a group with young women to let them express their opinions on sensitive subjects. Those books gave Nafisi, and in turn, the girls, hope. During the Iranian Revolution, women were disrespected and were treated differently based on who was in charge. Being exposed to foreign

For example, The Great Gatsby could teach the girls and her students at the university about the United States during the 1920's. In this case, "I had been asked to teach a course on twentieth-century fiction, and this seemed to me a reasonable principle for inclusion. And beyond that, it would give my students a glimpse of that other world that was now receding from us, lost in a clamor of denunciations" (Nafisi 108). Teaching students outside of their own bubble can help put together the pieces and expand their knowledge. Nafisi exposing the students to The Great Gatsby showed them that they can fix their bubble. Securing their spot in the world can lead to new beginnings, discoveries, and construe one's own thoughts and actions in

The novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov makes an impact on Nafisi's life. The novel Lolita is about a girl, who was abused by her guardian, Humbert. Lolita, the little girl, is a big symbol for all women during the Iranian Revolution. Lolita did not have the chance to speak out, like the women feel like they couldn't because of their violated rights. In other words, "Lolita became a symbol of what had happened to us: A man takes over a twelve-year-old girl's life and turns her into a dream of lost love," she says. "It's exactly what the ayatollahs did to us. They told women how to dress, look, talk. Nabokov understood that to be shaped and cut according to someone else's desires is the biggest crime of totalitarian societies" (). Being a powerful book, Lolita is able to show the reader how it resembles their own life. Reading Lolita gave women hope, and to know that they were not alone. Own life, thoughts, and feelings can contribute to a book, or convince yourself, just for a little while, that their story is your