Friday, May 22, 2015
Who is Marjane now?
At the point in the book that we are at now, Marjane is a totally different person than she was earlier on in the book. She has gone from a girl who lived an upper class lifestyle to someone who has lived a life on the streets. In the beginning of the book, her father drove a Cadillac and she felt bad that she had such a nice life compared to some of those around her. When she moved to Vienna to escape the war, she eventually became homeless due to an argument with the woman she was staying with. She slept on the streets and eventually called her parents to tell them she was coming back to Iran. When Marjane arrived at the airport in Iran, her parents picked her up in a car that was not as nice as her Cadillac, because they no longer owned one. Since she had suffered in the streets of Vienna, she now would have rather been picked up in the Cadillac as a symbol of leaving her hardships behind. This shows that Marjane is no longer a sheltered girl, and that she has lived on the other side of the spectrum. She has also grown up quite a bit, caring about her appearance and having a boyfriend, she is quite different than she was in the beginning of the book.
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I agree that experiencing life from both sides of the spectrum - being a sheltered, naive girl from a wealthier family, to feeling isolated from the mainstream society in Vienna - she was able to develop her identity as a liberal woman with feminist ideas. Marjane had initially thought that developing intellectual skills was most essential to understanding society and getting exposed to the world around her (as a sheltered girl): "To enlighten me, they bought books"(12), but she later found out that intellect alone wasn't enough: "Reading wasn't enough. To fit in, I still had a long way to go"(179). This is similar to Marjane's situation now; even though she has many liberal views (intellect), she discovers that it isn't enough to fit into society, as she feels vulnerable when the regime represses her and deprives her of her freedom.
ReplyDeleteGood point, she has indeed treaded away from certain aspects of her identity and evolved into a mature women. But, she in fact, has always been one to point out what has been wrong with things and thrown in her opinion.
ReplyDeleteMarjane has represented herself now as an active feminist and although she had become astray for a moment while in Vienna and for a moment back in Iran, she has remained loyal to herself as her grandmother advised before she left her home in Iran.