In the book Persepolis, there are two major phases that happens in the Iranian Revolution. In the first phase, the Shah is overthrown and after the Shah is gone, a radical theory is established. In Persepolis, the main point or the outline story reflects on how the law in forcing them to change their way of living in this story. In this book, there were many ways of living during the revolution.…
My analysis address the four principle issues behind the Iranian revolution, these being: Political; Cultural and Social, Economic and Military.…
Set throughout the time of Afghanistan’s feud with Russia and also the control of the Taliban cluster, Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner takes US through the excruciating journey that emeer (The main character) should endure to achieve redemption for his sins still as his father’s love. Hosseini shows US the death of a child's innocence once emeer horrifically witnesses his supporter, Hassan, obtaining raped and will nothing to prevent it, each attributable to the very fact of their social variations and also the ‘reward’ that emeer would gain if he let it pass. This death of emeer's innocence propels the story forward by pushing Amir to come back to extreme measures so as to disembarrass himself of the…
Afghanistan’s troubled times resulted in the Taliban’s takeover and the suffering of the Afghan people which would challenge the people to face great adversity in the time to come. The characters would have to seek redemption despite the circumstances in Afghanistan and its society’s standards. In the books A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini betrayal allows the theme of redemption and self-sacrifice as well as the perseverance in the face of adversity to develop, these themes are shown through the characters Amir and Miriam.…
One of my favorite parts of this book is it is written in a comic strip format with extraordinary images that convey a great amount of emotion and depth. On page 144 in Marjane’s memoir she argues, “You say that we don’t have political prisoners anymore. But we’ve gone from 3,000 prisoners under the Shah to 300,000 under your Regime.” When she stands up to her teacher and portrays her point of view with facts she risks her life due to the fascist government. In other words, it shows the reader that the people of Iran fought for a better life, to only receive a life that contained limits and fear. In essence, when the Regime took over more people were arrested, more people were murdered and more people lived in fear. Personally, at the beginning of reading this book I was unsure if I would enjoy the read because I’ve never really had interest in the topic. However, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood really surprised me, Marjane Satrapi’s incredible story really kept me engaged while learning about the Islamic Revolution and the Regimes rule. This is one reason I would rate the book with 2 stars. Additionally, I would highly recommend reading this memoir because it allowed me to understand and grasp its contents with visuals. You can purchase Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood for only $13.95. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood was published by Pantheon Books in June 2004 with a total of 153 pages. If needed the ISBN number is…
Throughout the history of Iran, there have been many forms of resistance, such as the Tobacco Revolt and Black Friday, which have created other types of resistance in modern day Iran.The power of force to silence and eliminate forms of resistance in history has nurtured a movement of forms of protest in modern day Iran. Foremost, in the year of 1891, the Nasir al-Din Shah signed an agreement with the British giving them privilege over the profitable Iranian tobacco industry. Following the agreement, a protest began, led by the muslim clergy, or ulama, and other Iranians who believed that whatever was Iranian belonged to Iran, not foreign nations. All Iranians came together and decided to boycott against the agreement by organizing demonstrations…
Hisham Matar’s 2009 novel, In The Country of Men, offers up the narrative of a child, Suleiman, a boy living under a dictatorship and a family that keeps secrets from him. Through Suleiman, Matar reveals an interpretation of life under a dictatorship through expressing a child’s experiences and views of betrayal and loyalty. Matar symbolizes this child as the nation under a dictatorship. In particular, Matar attempts to further express the transformation of people living under a dictatorship by symbolizing the child, Suleiman’s, through many encounters with betrayals and secrets from his family members, conversion from a naive, ignorant, and subdued boy to an exposed and even malicious and powerful “man”.…
In “Only Ten,” Allan Baillie explores Hussein’s journey and his transformation from being consumed by fear and trepidation to feeling a sense security and stability. Similarly, to “Wanderlust” the journey allows one to escape loneliness and experience the brightness of life. The representation of the alive and fruitful plants evoking inner peace is explored in “smelling the fruit, pressing at the earth and even listening to the leaves” contrasting his desolate past in Iran. The repetition of “nothing” in “nothing green, nothing growing” emphasizes the lifelessness of his childhood and explores his need to seek inner peace found in the brightness of the plants. This concept mirrors, the persona in “Wanderlust” having the desire to escape her…
Set against the backdrop of the gradual rise of the Taliban, the novel follows the life of it’s the narrator, Amir, who faces a personal crisis when he witnesses an act of violence done to his loyal friend and servant, Hassan, which he fails to prevent. The guilt of his inaction overwhelms Amir and he eventually forces Hassan and his father Ali to cease their servitude, much to the dismay of…
She includes the Persian Empire in her book because they had military and economic strength. They were skilled in using the strengths of the people they conquered to succeed.…
Vonnegut’s use of the Shah as someone who is there to study the workings of Ilium is evident almost from the beginning. He is introduced as early on as the second chapter of the novel where it is stated that his purpose in visiting Ilium is “to see what he could learn in the most powerful nation on earth for the good of his people” (20). One of the things about which the Shah proves most curious is about the role of citizens in the society of Ilium, most particularly about how they fit into a world that is run by machines. The Shah’s guide Halyard tries to convince him that ‘by eliminating human error through machinery, and needless competition through organization, we’ve raised the standard of living of the average man immensely’ (21). However the Shah is not accepting of this portrayal of how the mechanized society of Ilium is good and liberating for man, and instead…
Despite being treated as second-rate citizens in the country that they lived in, the family of Iranian immigrants simply said that when people “asked us what we thought of the hostage situation. ‘It’s awful,’ we always said” (Dumas 39). Despite his support for American efforts to return the hostages and his American patriotism, the author’s father, Kazem, was laid off at an American oil company shortly after the Iranian Hostage Crisis. It is clear that the company was unable to separate Kazem’s nation of origin from the events in Iran. After being fired, he was unable to find a legitimate job with another company until well after the crisis had ended. He was turned down in Saudi Arabia and could not find a job anywhere else; global perceptions of Iranians had been tarnished during the Hostage Crisis. Firoozeh’s father was not the only one in the family subjected to scrutiny, her mother was equally impacted by the rabid hatred of Americans toward Iranians. Firoozeh explains that “People would hear my mother’s thick accent and ask us, ‘Where are you from?’ [...] Many…
The first key event I will discuss is the rescue of Sohrab from Assef’s house. This is a pivotal moment in the novel as it could be described as the moment of redemption for all the regret Amir has felt in his life after the incident when he was young. Setting has a large part to play in this event and is key towards the reader’s perception of it. From the outset, we get the impression that this house is almost like the fort of a king. ‘He parked in the shadows of Willow trees that spilled over the walls of the compound’. The reader is lead into a false sense of security with the willow tree portraying and image of calmness. ‘Walked to the tall, wooden front gates of the house.’ This description of the compound is very daunting and instantaneously shows signs of authority. We then get our first sense of fear in this scene. ‘A pair of men toting Kalashnikovs answered the door.’ This causes us to feel slightly uneased by that fact that Amir is taking us into this situation with him. This introduction to the scene gives us a sense of a lonely, cold environment that Sohrab is in, allowing fear for him to creep in to the reader. We then get a vivid description of the dance Sohrab performs for the men which enhances the ill thought of the young boy being treated as a sex slave and that in this environment he has no one to protect him. ‘One of the guards pressed a button and pushtu music filled the room…Sohrab raised his arms and turned slowly…spun gracefully…head swung from side to side like a pendulum.’ The author is creating imagery for the reader, which is powerful when relating it to the…
Many of the Iranian people bitterly resented what they saw as American intervention in their affairs. The Shah was a brutal, arbitrary dictator whose secret police (the SAVAK, or the Sāzemān-e Ettelā'āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar) tortured and murdered thousands of people. The Iranian government spent billions…
King Zahir Shah, who gave precedence to the secular legal system over Shari’a law, overturned the Constitution of 1931 in 1964. The new Constitution viewed men and women equal, but there were only four women in the first parliament out of 216. In the late 1960s the changes was both support and opposed by the Afghan people. Many young people cam to Kabul to take advantage of expanded education, however others opposed the changes and fought for a return to Islamic values. the tension increase with the socialist and Islamist parties growing in strength. In 1873 his cousin and former minister Daoud suddenly overthrew Zahir Shah. Daoud tried to reduce the dependence on the Soviet Union and strengthen the link with the West and Iran. Daoud was not…