Introduction
Iranian women’s memoirs and fiction have become increasingly popular reading material in the West. Certainly the most popular of these texts has been Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003). But in a world in which Muslim women are increasingly the subject of neo-Orientalist fear and fascination, Reading Lolita in Tehran cannot be read and properly interpreted as intended by the author without the context, which has not been sufficiently provided. The issue lies with the author’s intent to distribute her work in America, and therefore intending her work to be read by an American audience, who are not provided with the adequate historical and political tools to understand this text, which has been written almost exclusively in an Iranian context.
My work aims to analyse the ways that the milieu in which the novel was written, and the discourses of the global audience at the time, such as ‘global sisterhood’. By exploring how these concepts shaped the reception of Nafisi’s autobiography, and how the auto-ethnographic memoir is being taught, we narrow in on criticising current problematic approaches to the text.
As of October 2005, the memoir had sold more than nine hundred thousand copies in the United States (NationalSales) and was approaching its second year on the New York Times best sellers list ("Paperback Best Sellers," 2005). Rights have been sold for a movie (Weaver 2004) and for its publication in twenty-two countries (Salamon 2004).2 Between its release and October 2004, at least fifty-eight reviews, interviews, and articles that discuss the book or its author were published in U.S. and other English language Western newspapers, magazines, and trade publications.
Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers
The burgeoning academic fields of postcolonialism, multiculturalism, and ethnic studies has sparked interest in Third World women and their literature. The efforts of feminist scholars inside the academy to correct the limitations of a Eurocentric feminist movement and to make space for Third World women to speak of their own experiences instead of being represented as the “Other” seemed to be coming to fruition.
“If we critiqued our home cultures or spoke of issues confronting Arab women, our words seemed merely to confirm what our audiences already knew- that is, the patriarchal, oppressive nature of Third World societies.”
Challenging this preconceived knowledge would result in accusations of defensiveness and raised questions of the authenticity of one’s feminism.
Following the events of the Gulf War in 1991, Arab women were awarded the title of ‘mediators’ between East and West, the United States and the Middle East.
Reading Lolita in Tehran as a Neo-orientalist Autoethnography
Orientalism refers to the discipline which imagines and exaggerates differences of Arab cultures compared to that of Europe and the U.S., or more broadly, the West. This framework concerns itself with redressing the exotification and hierarchical perception of Arab countries as ‘backwards’ or ‘uncivilised’. Neo-orientalism is the re-emergence of this Orientalist framework specific to the relationship of the ‘West-and-Islam dualism’ within a post-globalised center. This work, produced in 2003, fits into a neo-orientalist reading, where any critical analysis of the text considers the socio-political climate and global tensions of this transnational work. Neo-orientalism, however, redefines many of the already present symbols that previously exoticised the Islamic Other, not to remove these __, but relabel them; this can be seen in the case of the veil. Previously functioning as a metonymy for the harem, sexualising the culture through its mysterious and inaccessible connotations, the veil in neo-orientalist discourse has been refashioned into a symbol of the oppression of Muslim women and their lack of civil rights and liberties.
Nafisi’s popular and politically motivated memoir has been recognised as “sophisticated entertainment” that brings to life personalised historical and political events. Her motivations stem from the tense social conditions after the 9/11 attacks which, as previously covered, plays directly to the Western ego and sense of authority. The issue lies with audiences that can interpret her limited personal account as “history”, especially when we consider the partiality her exhibits throughout her work.
A critical reading of Nafisi’s work reveals the alignment of the Iranian-American memoir’s intention with the framework of a neo-Orientalist paradigm. Her neo-orientalist discourse represents Iran through its perceived fanaticism and violent culture, and offers Western literature, specifically the writings of Austen, Fitzgerald, Nabokov, and James, as the “liberating medium through which Iranian women can be redeemed”. This, by extension, glorifies the Western culture as a whole, propounding it as the much-needed saviour, enabling the ever-present hero complex that Western feminists have over Muslim women. An analysis of the novel illustrates the dichotomy between secularism and religion, where there is a clear hierarchical distinction between the two, present in the tone of the writing and the account of Nafisi’s experiences. While the production of the Iranian memoir after 9/11 suggests an opposing account to the fear instilled in society by Western media, Nafisi’s novel does nothing to redress these suspicions and superiority. Instead, she further validates this occidental thinking with her pointed criticisms of Islamic government and unapologetic advocation of regime change in Iran, and by extension, nearby Islamic countries.
In Nafisi’s self-representation in Reading Lolita in Tehran, she acknowledges her distinction in relation to many other Iranian women. She describes her years studying in Europe and the U.S., and notes her family’s elite status- her father, mayor of Tehran, and her mother, another member of parliament. Despite this, she is invested in describing the lives of these average Iranian women through their narrative in order to compensate their marginalisation. It has been argued that it is necessary to acknowledge the distinction between the speaking for and speaking of another, particularly when considering representations of the oppressed Other. Nafisi’s ‘speaking of’ does its best to not cross over, as evident in her overwhelmingly present narrative voice. Nevertheless, her writing leans towards representativeness and "speaking for," describing her students as a very mixed group and making broad statements about life for women under the Islamic Republic. Audiences then zero in on these claims in order to substantiate their own reading, which demonstrates the plights and desires of Iranian women as a whole. Nafisi’s authenticity hinges on her the ability of her textual voice, and relies on its readership to be able to clearly assess the text and discern the preconception of ultimate representation from its reality.
Nafisi as a Transnational/Postcolonial Feminist
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders
Transnational feminism is a theory and commitment to practice which recognizes differences and borders while building solidarity and transcending those borders. It critiques Western mainstream feminism for using itself as a referent for Other cultures and communities, and calls for a decentering from hegemonic Western discourse. Anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism are central components of this decentering, decolonizing project.
Transnational feminism requires caution when speaking for others. Speaking, to be understood in a nexus of listening, responding and interpreting, is only available to those who will be heard in institutions of power. Academics and activists must engage in self-conscious discourse and activism which empowers the speaking of the oppressed, recognizes their specific dynamics and histories and creates conditions for their voices to be heard. Otherwise one risks engaging in what Chandra Talpade Mohanty refers to as “discursive colonization.”
As it stands today, feminism remains primarily white, able-bodied and unable to change. The value of absolute truth lies in its inability to coexist in with the multiple narrative voices. Society’s aversion to such change is the foundation of the inequality upon which feminism today still stands.
TO BE DISCUSSED IN A LATER CHAPTER?? IMAGES OF THE VEIL
The veil, as it stands today, is used in literary and cultural discourse which is tied to stereotypical assumptions. Through Nafisi’s political messages in her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, she adheres to such assumptions and fails as a Third World woman writer to subvert these assertions. In religious and political discourses, it holds a fixed meaning of oppression and, in this text in particular, represents the harsh oppressive conditions of the Iranian Republic regime, under which Iran is suffering, and the denial of woman’s agency. This over-simplified, de-historicised, and demonised representation is intentional and plays to the motivations of Nafisi’s novel.
Postcolonialist literature is created to address the consequences that follow the decolonisation of a country, specifically, those questions of political or cultural independence of formly subjugated people, and themes of racialisation. Nafisi, as an American citizen, aims to represent her heritage of Iranian culture in such a way as to calm the tensions that were present at the post 9/11 time of publication.
Uncritical Reception of Reading Lolita in Tehran
Through Nafisi’s notes experiences of teaching Western literature in post-revolution Iran, the audience can interpret the ‘universal values of said works to create a space of liberation for Iranian women. This uncritical reception can be understood through the reading of her work through an Orientalist framework. While she challenges the modern day understanding of an Iranian context, she continually reiterates the Oriental binary which represents the West as superior as it is modern, contrasted by the depictions of the East as static and outdated, framing it as an anti-modern nation. Through her representation of women as the victim of oppressive state violence, she further reinforces this binary, contrasting the monolithic and barbarian Iranian state to the democratic ethos that she argues is present in the Western texts she studies with her class.
Reception of Reading Lolita in Tehran in the West (CONTEXT)
The novel was timed to release in the climax of Islamic American tensions, enabling its vast readership in America to satiate their ever growing curiosity of Muslim countries and justify their suspicions of Islam. American’s from various political backgrounds lauded her work for her representation of the Third World Woman, either choosing to focus on her defiance of oppressive government, or her execution of the representation of the plight of women in contemporary Iran.
For centuries, America has prided itself the prime model of democracy upon which other countries need structure their own socio-political models. However, the end of Republican candidate Ronald Reagan’s term marked an uprise of the American neo-conservative concerns. Their interest lay primarily with the reclamation of this __ title
They felt as though their __ had been stripped, and they were fighting to reclaim this __ . The hostile environment generated by neocons in America over the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program catalysed the novel’s eager reception in the U.S. by these same audiences. Drawing on the “tropes of freedom, democracy and gender equality”, neoconservatives supported Nafisi’s book and other voices which purported to disclose the viciousness of Islamic regimes against its own people. This was done in part in order to legitimise a potential strike against the Islamic state under the guise of
The main issue with this text lies with its readership’s inability to interpret the context provided, leading to a further rejection or refusal to understand Islamic values. This becomes evident through an analysis of reviews which contain decontextualized and simplified accounts of experiences in the novel. He cites examples of “young women [being] rounded up for humiliating virginity checks at local clinics”, being married off at the age of 9, and in the rare case of a divorce, men always get custody of the children” (Lyons 2003). These examples all connect to the novel, however the reviewer has generalised these stories and marked them as a pattern in Iranian society. He also makes statements such as his claim that divorce in Iran is rare and women never getting custody of their children. This claim did not come from Nafisi’s novel, in fact Nafisi notes that one of her students had been divorced more than once, suggesting that the reviewer’s information had come from his own questionable investigation, outside the information presented by the novel.
Responding to an American response to Reading Lolita in Tehran
[Reading Nafisi in the West]
The novel was published in New York and was intended for distribution in the U.S. to educate and provide American audiences with the context which they desperately craved after the cataclysmic events of 9/11. Due to its status as a political memoir and a transnational work, Reading Lolita in Tehran is susceptible to being read and approached with problematic interpretations. As a political memoir, it cannot be clearly fitted into a particular genre, aligning with a plethora of frameworks, from a political analysis of environment to biography to literary criticism. The memoir, while only speaking from her own voice, can be and has been read as microcosmic, accurately encapsulating the experience of an entire community of people, rather than just the author’s. It is for these aforementioned reasons that the reception of this novel was praised upon reception.
Why Reading Lolita in Tehran is Counter-intuitive/Besieging the Burqa
Reading Lolita in Tehran is situated in a geopolitical landscape within the resurgence of Orientalism, which allows for the circulation of Islamophobic discourse. The timing of Nafisi’s publication in this era where Muslim women are increasingly the subject of neo-Orientalist pity, fear, and fascination is not coincidental. As such, it should not be regarded in this manner and an audience must hold the author accountable for her awareness of these conditions. The issue lies not with her account, but with the reception of her novel as a factual representation of all women voices in the Third World Islamic state. Reviewer’s have deemed Nafisi’s novel “the best introduction to modern Iran … to be found anywhere”, which only further exhibits the uncritical reception of neo-Orientalist discourses as actual truth in the United States and, more broadly, in the West.
Nafisi presents many complexities as her narration in the novel is constantly in contradiction to itself. She muses over the ridicule in the notion that “there were Western and Islamic versions of democracy and human rights”, collapsing this false binary, but then later conflates Islam with an authoritarian system of oppression. She also regurgitates the mythic American rhetoric on democracy, “all individuals, no matter how contemptible, have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. She touches later in her text on her awareness of her idealisation of the West, concerned that she has provided her daughters with an “uncritical, glowing picture of the other world”. This influence extends to her other female students as she posits that they “look at the West too uncritically”. Her accountability, however, is displaced, as the root of this idealism is located in the Islamic State’s extremist radicalism.
The novel’s treatment of the burqa is where Nafisi’s political agenda to promote Western secularism is most evident. The text concerns itself with oppressive nature of the burqa, shifting the blame from the physical veil, instead choosing to focus on the mandatory nature of veiling that constitutes female oppression. The novel muses how before the Iranian Revolution, Mahshid wore the veil “as a [voluntary] testament to her faith”, which became “meaningless” once it became compulsory by law, characterising Mahshid’s faith as egocentric as opposed to an imposition by the state. The method of this representation, however, does not do justice to its intention as, right from the first chapter, as the girls shed their veils, “they took off more than their scarves and robes. Gradually each one gained an outline and a shape, becoming her own inimitable self”. In these lines, the veil can be read as robbing women of their individuality and humanity, becoming associated with uniformity and lack of enlightenment. This representation of the veil as oppressive fails to provide the audience with enough pretext to refute this assertion.
Reading Lolita in Tehran’s Rejection of Islam
The binaries of secularism and religion are present throughout the text, and can be said to have been manipulated by Nafisi in order to support the political motivations of her memoir. Providing only what is necessary to her account, she [deliberately] excludes mention of the crimes committed by the Pahlavi monarch, who was supported by the U.S.. While she discloses that she was critical of the Shah’s regime when she was a student activist, she justifies it as people seeking more freedom. In her novel, she even furthers her distances from the Iranian student movement by claiming that she “as more of a rebel than political activist”. Other than the mention of the Shah’s imprisonment of her father, Nafisi does not refer to the highly repressive and corrupt elements of the government, including the Shah’s U.S. CIA supported reinstatement after the rise of nationalist Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. She also never comments on the governmental failings of his regimes, a few examples include his neglect to address the problems of illiteracy in Iran, poor rural infrastructure, and the trauma of mass rural-urban migration (Esposito 1984, 187-88). By failing to address these inadequacies of the government, she does not properly properly contextualise the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The neglection of these issues works to defend her negative depiction of the overthrow of a stable secular government. This depiction of Iranian history, has been criticised for condemning Islam for being the major determinant of the oppressive conditions of Islam by failing to address the violence done in the name of secular modernism. The narrative as she presents it, talks of a pre-revolutionary Iran being pulled back into the past by anti-West, anti-modern leaders, presenting the Islamic Republic as arriving “in the name of the past”. She expresses some ambivalence as to whether or not religion is to blame, she denounces the current Islamic Republic’s regime as “totalitarian”, “arbitrary”, and “senseless”, which are all terms that have been contextualized, but does not regard similar comments on the secular Pahlavi government with the same contextual respect or criticism. Although this distress over the aftermath of the revolution is founded and understandable, she does not discuss or even consider the appeal of the success of the revolution to many Iranians, including her own university students. As the audience, we are instead positioned to believe that most Iranians are in opposition to these revolutionaries, stating that their “society was far more advanced than its new rulers”.
In her work, Nafisi ignores the post-revolutionary ideals of Islam and the reclamation of women’s rights in Iran. She dismisses “Islamic feminists” as “a contradictory notion”, and not does not consider the political activism of these women. To its audience, by focussing on the “irrational” nature of the Islamic Republic, the novel seems to take the position that current oppressive conditions on Iran are a direct consequence of the government’s religious identification. She ignores to address the undemocratic nature of both regimes, Pahlavi and Islamic, instead allowing her audience to see Islam as the source of said repressive policies. Through these misinformations, she dismisses the transformations that have already occurred in Iran and concludes the secular political model as the only way to escape the resolve the oppressive conditions of the country.
Nafisi’s Influences and Motivations
Nafisi’s text is split into four sections, each section representing a different time in the lives of the women in her class, and their critical reading of each novel is coupled by the way they experienced that time in their own lives, and how they were controlled by the regime. The sections in which this control can be clearly seen are the first and last sections, Lolita and Austen. In the second section, Gatsby, Nafisi discusses her experience following the revolution and the ideological battles fought within Nafisi’s classroom and her university.