Reading Lolita in Tehran

1
Reading Lolita in Tehran

• Introduction
• Discussion Questions

2
About the author

• Dr. Azar Nafisi
• Iranian-American
• Lived in Iran until she was 13
• Moved to England to go to school
• Went back to Iran in 1979 after she finished
  college
• Lived there for 18 years (part of the setting of
  the novel)

3
About the author

• Struggled with home
• What is home?
• Where you were born?
• Where they practice your cherished values?

4
Discussion Questions
5
Lolita Section (pp. 1-78)

• 1. Yassi adores playing with words, particularly
  with Nabokov's fanciful linguistic creation
  upsilamba. What does the word upsilamba mean to
  you? (Lolita Section, p. 18-21)

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Lolita Section (pp. 1-78)

• 2. In discussing the frame story of A Thousand
  and One Nights, Dr. Nafisi mentions three types
  of women who fell victim to the king's
  "unreasonable rule." How relevant are the actions
  and decisions of these fictional women to the
  lives of the women in Dr. Nafisi's private class?
  (Lolita Section, p. 19)

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Lolita Section (pp. 1-78)

• 3. Discuss the recurrent theme of complicity in
  the book that the Ayatollah, the stern
  philosopher-king, "did to us what we allowed him
  to do." (Lolita Section, p. 28)

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Lolita Section (pp. 1-78)

• 4. The confiscation of one's life by another is
  the root of Humbert's sin against Lolita. How did
  Khomeini become Iran's solipsizer? Discuss how
  Sanaz, Nassrin, Azin and the rest of the girls
  are part of a generation with no past. (Lolita
  Section, p. 76)

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Lolita SectionFor Tonight

• Dr. Nafisi describes Humbert, the poet/villain
  of Lolita in the following way
• Like the best defense attorneys, who dazzle
  with their rhetoric and appeal to our higher
  sense of morality, Humbert exonerates himself by
  implicating his victim (42)
• Reread chapter 13 in the Lolita section.
  Compare the ideology and methodology of Humbert
  and one other character from a work we have read
  this year.

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Gatsby Section (pp. 79-154)

• 1. On her first day teaching at the University of
  Tehran, Dr. Nafisi began class with the
  questions, "What should fiction accomplish? Why
  should anyone read at all?" What are your own
  answers? How does fiction force us to question
  what we often take for granted? (Gatsby Section,
  p. 94).

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Gatsby Section (pp. 79-154)

• 2. Dr. Nafisi teaches that the novel is a sensual
  experience of another world which appeals to the
  reader's capacity for compassion. Do you agree
  that "empathy is at the heart of the novel"? How
  has this book affected your understanding of the
  impact of the novel? (Gatsby Section, p. 111)

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Gatsby Section (pp. 79-154)

• 3. During the Gatsby trial Zarrin charges Mr.
  Nyazi with the inability to "distinguish fiction
  from reality." How does Mr. Nyazi's conflation of
  the fictional and the real relate to theme of the
  blind censor? Describe similar instances within a
  democracy like the United States when art was
  censored for its "dangerous" impact upon society.
  (Gatsby Section, p. 128)

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Gatsby Section (pp. 79-154)

• 4. Dr. Nafisi writes "It was not until I had
  reached home that I realized the true meaning of
  exile." How do her conceptions of home conflict
  with those of her husband, Bijan, who is
  reluctant to leave Tehran? Also, compare
  Mahshid's feeling that she "owes" something to
  Tehran and belongs there to Mitra and Nassrin's
  desires for freedom and escape. Discuss how the
  changing and often discordant influences of
  memory, family, safety, freedom, opportunity and
  duty define our sense of home and belonging.
  (Gatsby Section, p. 145)

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Gatsby SectionFor Tonight

• I explained that most great works of the
  imagination were meant to make you feel like a
  stranger in your own home. The best fiction
  always forced us to question what we took for
  granted. It questioned traditions and
  expectations when they seemed too immutable.
  (94)
• Explain Dr. Nafisis statement. Why should
  fiction make us feel, at times, uncomfortable?
  What does an author gain by subverting the very
  traditions of his readers?

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James Section (pp. 155-254)

• 1. Explain what Dr. Nafisi means when she says
  people, like myself had become irrelevant.
  Compare her way of dealing with her irrelevance
  to her magician's self-imposed exile. (James
  Section, pp. 167-176)

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James Section (pp. 155-254)

• 2. Compare attitudes toward the veil held by men,
  women and the government in the Islamic Republic
  of Iran. How was Dr. Nafisi's grandmother's
  choice to wear the chador marred by the political
  significance it had gained? Also, describe
  Mahshid's conflicted feelings as a Muslim who
  already observed the veil but who nevertheless
  objected to its political enforcement. (James
  Section, p. 192)

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James Section (pp. 155-254)

• 3. Fanatics like Mr. Ghomi, Mr. Nyazi and Mr.
  Bahri consistently surprised Dr. Nafisi by
  displaying absolute hatred for Western literature
  a reaction she describes as a "venom uncalled
  for in relation to works of fiction." What are
  their motivations? Do you, like Dr. Nafisi, think
  that people like Mr. Ghomi attack because they
  are afraid of what they don't understand? Why is
  ambiguity such a dangerous weapon to them?
  (James Section, p. 195)

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James Section (pp. 155-254)

• 4. In what ways had Ayatollah Khomeini "turned
  himself into a myth" for the people of Iran?
  (James Section, p. 246)

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Austen Section (pp. 255-340)

• 1. Personal and political are interdependent but
  not one and the same. The realm of imagination is
  a bridge between them, constantly refashioning
  one in terms of the other. it was perhaps not
  surprising that the Islamic Republics first task
  had been to blur the lines and boundaries between
  the personal and political thereby destroying
  both. (Austen Section, p. 273)
• Why does Dr. Nafisi believe that what is personal
  must be separate from what is political? What
  protections from our government do we have
  expressly written in the Constitution to keep
  these lines from blurring? How does the
  combination of the personal and political
  destroy both the public and private arenas of a
  persons life?