Camus Explication from The Stranger

In The Stranger, author Albert Camus’ curt diction, offensive tone, and simple, direct syntax contribute to the characterization of the main character, Meursault. Meursault acts inhumanely in the face of situations that typically elicit emotion. Through his characters’ indifference, Camus exposes the tendency of men to put on a masculine front in order to hide their true emotions.
The first instance of his insensitivity is at Maman’s funeral. Her friends, the other elderly residents from her nursing home, come to keep vigil around her casket. Meursault first mentions them as a “rustling sound that woke me [Meursault] up” (9). In his eyes, they are nothing but a mere noise, completely insignificant to what he is thinking about. He observes that the women all have “bulging stomachs” and he says that he “never noticed what huge stomachs old women can have” (10). Elderly people are often highly respected members of society, and younger generations have a natural tendency to speak of them with courtesy. Meursault, on the other hand, uses rude, disrespectful terms, such as the aforementioned bulging stomachs, or “toothless mouths,” (10). Camus chooses these words because it reveals the first sign of Meursault rejecting emotion. Meursault has “the ridiculous feeling that they were there to judge [him]” (10) and because he thinks that about innocent people who came to pay tribute to his mother, it is an indication of his insecurity.
Meursault’s insecurity grows further on in the passage as well. He emphasizes multiple times that one woman “kept on crying” (10) and he wish that he “didn’t have to listen to her anymore” (10). This woman comes to the funeral to pay her respects to Maman and to express her sympathies to Meursault. This act of compassion is met with resistance; Meursault, annoyed by her crying, is only concerned for himself and not for her. He does not want to face the sadness of losing his mother, and hearing crying, a sound of sadness, might trigger emotion, so he dismisses it as an annoyance. His sentences are very short and choppy, structured with simple subjects and verbs, and their directness conveys his agitation. The caretaker of the home tells Meursault that the woman was a very good friend of Maman’s, and that now she “hasn’t got anyone” (11) but that is the last that Meursault speaks of the woman in the passage. The commentary about this woman stops here because Meursault does not want to deal with the feelings that might stir within him if he interacts with her. By acting like he is tough and does not care about the woman, who could conceivably be one of the only links left to his mother, Meursault is putting up a masculine façade in order to divert the emotion.
After this point, Meursault shuts down; his diction and tone are more inappropriate and reckless, as he tries to overcompensate for his lack of emotions. Meursault states that the woman “finally shut up” (11). The phrase ‘shut up’ is usually used by teenagers or children, not adults talking about their elders. He complains about being “tired” and that his “back was hurting” (11). This physical need overtakes any other feelings or emotions, and a stereotypical man puts his physical needs, desires, or feelings before anything else. A “strange noise” (11) then aggravates him, and he identifies it as a “weird smacking” (11) sound that the elderly people are making by “sucking at the insides of their cheeks” (11). The connotation of this description is more like animals than it is like humans, so Meursault cannot relate to them directly. His diction here is demeaning, and it is particularly so because these people are hurt by Maman’s passing, and attend the funeral to support him and mourn the loss of his mother. His final thought of the passage is that “the dead woman lying in front of them didn’t mean anything to them. But I think now that that was a false impression,” (11). He refers to his own mother as a ‘dead woman’ and that shows that he is indifferent to the whole situation, almost as if he is looking in on these events from the outside. He is a stranger to emotions, as the title of the book suggests, and his coldness covers him up so that emotions cannot penetrate within him.
On the whole, the diction of the passage shows how Meursault hides his emotions behind a wall of overcompensated masculinity. A funeral generally brings about emotions in some way, but his complete lack of feeling, coupled with a desire to put his own physical needs above his emotional needs, Camus exposes this character flaw in Meursault. This is not the only time he does this, however. He takes another emotional situation, one of abuse, and confronts Meursault with it.
Meursault and Marie are having lunch at Meursault’s house and they hear Raymond having a fight with his girlfriend. They rush outside to see what is happening. They hear “thuds” and his girlfriend screaming “in such a terrifying way” (35). He acknowledges that the woman is in trouble from the beginning, but this acknowledgement is strayed away from; he does not want to have to confront it. Marie is concerned, and asks Meursault to find a policeman to help, but Meursault refuses to because he “didn’t like cops” (36). His inactions here reflect his chauvinistic sentiments, but he must lie to get his way out of helping the woman because he does not want Marie to see how he truly feels about women. Meursault’s sentences are shorter and more direct again after this; they dictate the events of his afternoon with Marie that leads up to his conversation with Raymond. Meursalt “finished fixing lunch. But she wasn’t hungry; I ate almost everything” (37). Marie has clearly been affected by the events that she has seen because she does not want to eat. Meursault however, is completely unconcerned with what he has just experienced, and eats his lunch like nothing happened. Camus shows this contrast between men and women here, because Merusault acts hardened, like the stereotypical man, while Marie acts emotionally, like a stereotypical woman. Meursault does not want to dwell on the event, because he is outrunning guilt. If he does not think about what he has done, it will not affect him.
The feeling comes back to haunt him, however, as Meursault finds Raymond at his door later that day. Raymond recounts the events of the day, and in order to play along with Raymond, Meursault comments that “she’d gotten her punishment now and he ought to be happy” (37). Raymond has a strong influence over Meursault’s behavior because he is acting very masculine about putting a woman in her place. The terms he uses to describe the event are not very graphic, so Camus stores Meursault’s memories away and chooses to only tell what makes Raymond appear to be the victim of the situation. So in order to fit in with Raymond and not allow his emotions to get the better of him, Meursault puts on the act that he condones the beating and that Raymond was correct in his actions. Meursault eggs the behavior on even more when he “agreed to act as a witness” (37) for Raymond. Though Meursault acts like testifying for Raymond “didn’t matter” (37) to him, he clearly tries to remain indifferent to the situation. Raymond abused his girlfriend, but Meursault, who wants to side with a ‘man,’ decides to help him out.

In both instances, Camus describes Meursault as a stranger to his own feelings. In his indifference, he sails through some very difficult events, including his mother’s funeral and an assault of an innocent woman. To keep from feeling these emotions, he puts up a wall around himself so that he does not have to feel sad, upset, angry, or hurt; acting like a man makes up for his inability to have feelings, and he can use his status as a man as validation for his actions. Camus exposes that tendency in men, as opposed to women, who bare it all. The woman cries at Maman’s funeral, and Marie cannot eat after witnessing the attack. This is one of the main differences between the sexes, and Camus differentiates between the two with the reactions to these events.

A Humument Explication

On page 210 of Tom Phillips’ A Humument, Phillips suggests that humans are often torn between what they perceive to be reality and what literally is reality, namely between sanity and insanity. Phillips uses streaks of bold, clashing colors and contrasts dark and light imagery within his text to emphasize the different perceptions of reality within the human mind. Darkness represents the craziness, or inability to see the true reality, whereas light symbolizes the true, sane reality.

To begin the page, Phillips first describes his character’s realization that something is not as it seems. He writes that “at the time arranged” he “abandon[s] all.” Though the time was arranged, which indicates some sort of methodical thinking, he still must abandon everything he knows, in this case, his reason. Then, “he at once…drove off to…the dim regions of Bloon,” which is the area where sanity and insanity meet. Dimness implies that this location is the convergence of these two realities because when something is dim, it is neither light nor dark, but an area in between. Thus, Phillips’ character approaches the brink of his sanity. The pathways of pale yellow that highlight the text and connect the words to each other are also indicative of this route because they look like winding roads that connect one end of the image to the other, just as the characters’ road is connecting sanity and insanity.

Phillips’ character continues his path to realization a bit further down the page. He “had found…the loss of all events,” which suggests that he no longer remembers what occurred in his past or his past thoughts, which are both a part of his sanity. The only thing he knows, however is that, “he was…he knew…heavy for ever.” This heavy feeling symbolizes the weight that his torn feelings are pressing down upon him and the fact that these feelings are with him for eternity. The solid black border of the image further exemplifies this feeling because it is the darkest color in the image and because it surrounds all the other colors, it suppresses and entraps the rest of the image, just as the heaviness does to Phillips’ character.

Phillips’ character reaches his final destination toward the middle of the image. As he continues on, he “entered the dirty passage leading to his…condemned cell.” The words used in the imagery of the ‘dirty passage’ create a dank, dark impression of his location, making it seem to be very undesirable and unpleasant. The ‘condemned cell’ is his insanity because he is on the cusp of falling into a different type of reality and he has no power to control what is happening. The black border also represents this cell because it encages the rest of the image and is shaped like a cell, with no curves or bends, just straight lines. The pale yellow pathways could also represent this path. Though they are not dark, the yellow represents hope and a path toward the light, or truth. Therefore, this represents the characters’ path to insanity because it is something he cannot control and is what he is destined to do. Thus, he is continuing on to the truth.

To end the page, Phillips’ character comes to terms with the two realities he faces. He “thought of the lake, the starlight.” These are familiar sights to him, as they are the only things he can remember as he transitions between reality and his insanity. They are both relaxing images in comparison to the dark, dirty pathways. The starlight is similar to the pale yellow color in the image because the light is illuminating his path toward the reality he is about to enter.

Lastly, at the end of the page, Phillips’ character sees “both realities…once.” The ‘once’ may really mean ‘at once’ because of all of the dualities presented in the image. The word ‘once’ is separated from the rest of the text by a long pathway which represents the final step of the path the character takes between his two realities. This final moment of contrast can also be seen in the primary colors in the image. They consist of long stripes of tomato red and grape purple that run the length of the page. The red and purple are indications of a contrast in the image between the different realities because they are both extremes in different types of color; red is part of the ‘warm color’ family, while purple is part of the ‘cool colors.’ Upon first glance, they immediately clash, as they are not typically seen together in nature. This is also indicative of the craziness because it varies from what is natural or normal. Also, red has certain connotations of anger, while purple is more relaxing and tranquil, consequently reflecting this contrast.

Overall, Phillips creates an image of contrast to reflect the convergence of two different realities: sanity and insanity. To a sane person, life is reality. However, an insane person also believes that the way he lives is reality too. Therefore, reality has a different meaning for different people. Phillips’ character’s reality in A Humument is the path toward his pending insanity, as exemplified by contrasting colors and imagery, a fate he cannot alter.

James Joyce Critical Essay

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce juxtaposes elements in Stephen’s life as contrasting pairs to emphasize the division he feels within himself. These pairs include the clashes between religion and politics, love and lust, fantasy and reality, and the ultimate conflict between male and female. According to feminist thought, children learn this contrast at a very young age, when they are first learning language. When the child is fully able to recognize this distinction, it signifies that a clear differentiation has been made between the mother and the father. As he ponders these thoughts, Stephen slips into a state of confusion. Through the juxtaposition of these contrasting feelings, Joyce suggests that the intoxicating power of memory and its relationship with the current state can drastically affect the mentality of an impressionable teenager and his growth into adulthood.

n the case of Stephen,ation has been made between the mother and the father. , when they are first learning language, and thisIn the passage in Chapter 1 when Stephen recalls the boys at school stealing wine from the sacristy, Joyce contrasts Stephen’s different takes on sin and religion through the religious or “ecclesiastical” (Henke 331) mother and his departure from it. Stephen first explains that “it had been found out who had done it by the smell” (Joyce 54). The sense of smell is tied very heavily to memory, so the fact that the boys are caught by sense of smell implies that the memory of what they did is potent enough to stick with them because it essentially brought about their demise.

When Stephen next addresses the issue of sin, he declares that it “must have been a terrible sin” (Joyce 54) to “steal the flashing gold thing into which God was put on the altar” (Joyce 54). So, it is Stephen’s first instinct to see the sin in this situation, which implies he has been brought up with morals that reflect his religion. The image of flashing gold represents the power the chalice holds, as gold is normally connoted with power, authority, and masculinity. In the idea of dichotomies, religion is typically related to the feminine side, but the reverence Stephen has for the gold chalice suggests his fear of God as a paternal threat. According to psychoanalytic criticism, “a series of father figures…knock Stephen down” (Brivic 282), and God is the one that Stephen fears the most.

However, Stephen challenges this authority with curiosity and confusion. Stephen logically and innocently states that “God was not in it of course when they stole it” (Joyce 54). Though it shows that he is beginning to think more rationally, it also shows that he is starting to question the beliefs that he grew up with. Stephen also calls the boys’ actions a “terrible and strange sin” (Joyce 54) that “thrilled him” (Joyce 54). This is a sign of Stephen’s insecurities and confusion because he realizes his inner conflict between what he has been taught and what he is developing in his own mind.

Stephen further goes on to explain the memory of the smell of wine that made him “feel a little sickish” (Joyce 54). Similarly to the boys who stole the wine and were caught by the smell on their breaths, Stephen recalls his “first holy communion” (Joyce 54) when the rector “had a winy smell off [his] breath after the wine of the mass” (Joyce 54). This imagery of smell is tied strongly to one of his earliest religious memories, and in the Catholic religion, the first communion is supposed to be the “happiest day of your life” (Joyce 54). This is a childhood memory of Stephen’s, and he remembers calling it that because his family or other religious influences at school referred to it as such. Stephen also acknowledges that Napoleon said “the happiest day of my life was the day on which I made my first communion” (Joyce 55). His recognition of Napoleon’s beliefs indicates that he also sees Napoleon as a strong paternal figure. Thus, the contrast between the feminine connotation of religion and the male influence of a renowned leader like Napoleon also develops Stephen’s confusion regarding religion.

To end the passage in between the religious references, Stephen describes the connotations he has of the word wine. He says it is “beautiful” (Joyce 54) and makes him think of “dark purple because the grapes were dark purple that grew in Greece outside houses like white temples” (Joyce 54). Calling the word beautiful suggests that Stephen is starting to find an appreciation for words because beautiful has a strong tie with things that are heavenly or unable to be described in any other way. French feminists tie language to the “period of fusion between mother and child” (Henke 300) and the eventual “separation” (Henke 300) of mother and son. So, as Stephen is learning to be independent and have his own thoughts, he is forsaking what he has been brought up with, namely what his mother taught him. His appreciation for language and words is indicative of the art he wishes to pursue, and in turn, to follow his dream, he must let go if his past and start anew.

Also, drawing on the reference to Greece and using the simile to compare the houses to white temples also suggests a heavenly feeling because of how spiritual temples are. The contrast of white houses and dark purple grapes through color imagery is also indicative of Stephen’s confusion because he is battling between conflicting feelings. The white of the houses, as in religion, represents purity and the feminine, while the dark purple represents the darkness or sin that often tries to overtake the purity, as with the grapes growing over the houses. The imagery here could also relate to Stephen’s mind. A “temple” (Joyce 54) is also a part of the head typically associated with the brain, so the “grapes” (Joyce 54) represent the growing thoughts within Stephen’s mind that are overtaking the ideas he originally had.

Though Stephen is fairly young when the wine incident takes place, he cannot help but feel the struggle between boyhood and adolescence. He battles with the aforementioned religious topic, as young adults often become more quizzical and question what they have been taught. Later on, he also toils with the location in which he lives: the “political” (Henke 331) mother.

In Chapter 2, Stephen’s family is facing financial problems, so they are forced withdraw him from his school and move to Dublin. In Dublin, Stephen looks to find adventure and answers to his complex questions. He sees himself through the story The Count of Monte Cristo and imaginarily falls in love with the character Mercedes. He looks up to the character of Edmond Dantes as “his model” (Henke 322) because he sees Dantes as “an isolated hero who eventually conquers the woman he loves through a complex process of amorous sublimation” (Henke 322). Therefore, he battles with differentiating fantasy from reality because he can only picture himself the fantastic setting of Dantes’ world.

With the new territory of a new city comes a new liberty. Stephen becomes “freer” (Joyce 70) and roams the city, looking vainly for Mercedes. He makes a “skeleton map of the city in his mind” (Joyce 70) in order to trace the streets, describing his passage as “unchallenged” (Joyce 70). The word unchallenged suggests that Stephen is completely unrivaled, with no one checking his actions and the ‘skeleton’ reference indicates that he sees the area as barren, cold, and empty. This is very different to what he experiences at school, where he is constantly monitored. Now that his family has transitioned into a new home, he is able to do as he pleases, and these new privileges bring about conflict because he does not now how to handle it.

As Stephen wanders through the streets of Dublin, the “vastness and strangeness” (Joyce 70) of life hit him again. This pair of nouns reflects Stephen’s ambiguity and confusion regarding his surroundings because he looks at it in terms of its massive size, but also how foreign it appears to him; he seems very uncomfortable. He walks from “garden to garden in search of Mercedes,” (Joyce 70) passing by the “bearded policeman” (Joyce 70) and the “bales of merchandise stacked along the walls” (Joyce 70). This vivid imagery of the town shows how overwhelmed Stephen is in a new city because he was very sheltered in the small community at his school. However, as he reminisces back to his old town, he misses “the bright sky and the sun-warmed trellises of the wineshops” (Joyce 70). In this way, his very intricate memories manipulate his thoughts. The warmth given off by the shop in contrast to the cold feeling of wandering the streets alone suggests that even though he is in a new place that will bring him adventure with fantasies like Mercedes, he still dreams of the comfort of his old home. Stephen then remembers the feeling of “vague dissatisfaction” (Joyce 70) but “continued to wonder up and down day after day” (Joyce 70). Though he knows that she is not real, he still continues to sulk around looking for her, a wild figment of his imagination. The repetitive back and forth motion, which can be interpreted as a pair as well, ultimately relates to both his futile search for Mercedes and his inner conflicts over what reality really is.

As the novel progresses, Stephen is shrouded in doubt and cannot seem to grasp a single, solid feeling. He continues to struggle between the “binary pairs” (Henke 300) he encounters throughout his final years at school, especially with regards to his feelings about women. Even as the novel comes to a close in Chapter 5, Stephen continues to brood over the duality he feels in his daily life, especially with his confusion between love and lust.

In Chapter 5, Stephen develops feelings for a girl named Emma, but he is unsure of the intentions of these feelings. He experiences many lustful images of women, but believes to a degree that his feelings for Emma are stronger than that. She walks past both Stephen and Cranly, but only acknowledges Cranly. Stephen notices a “slight flush on Cranly’s cheek” (Joyce 206), which infuriates him. As a result, he “could not see” (Joyce 206). Joyce suggests that Stephen is blinded by his anger, and according to psychoanalytic criticism, “the loss of eyes is an image of castration” (Brivic 281). This moment, therefore, is indicative of Stephen’s feeling of losing his masculinity. He is unable to elicit a reaction from Emma, while Cranly is able to garner her attention. Stephen even goes as far as to call Cranly’s actions “rudeness” (Joyce 206) because he had once trusted Cranly with his “wayward confessions” (Joyce 206). Stephen is constantly let down and chastised by the male influences in his life, so Cranly’s ‘betrayal’ reminds him of when he “dismounted from a borrowed creaking bicycle to pray to God in a wood” (Joyce 206). However, “two constabularymen had come into sight round a bend” (Joyce 206) and “broken off his prayer” (Joyce 206). Stephen already sees God as a paternal threat, but men who approach him intimidate him so much that it halts him in mid-prayer. By using this comparison, Joyce juxtaposes Stephen’s fear of paternal threats that are both divine and mortal.

Stephen questions for a moment if Cranly had “heard him” (Joyce 206) but then automatically responds that “he could wait” (Joyce 206). Though the pronoun “he” is ambiguous, it is most likely referring to Cranly because Stephen incredulously questions Cranly’s intentions but automatically shifts his attention back to Emma. She “passed through the dusk” (Joyce 206) as the “air was silent…and therefore the tongues about him had ceased in their babble” (Joyce 206). It seems as though those tongues are the voices in Stephen’s mind that present him with constant struggles and conflict. Emma “provides a substitute for the mother” (Henke 334) because as previously mentioned, Stephen is enduring a struggle to remove himself from his three different mothers and has nowhere to turn in his time of need. In place of the three that he is separating himself from, Stephen is looking for a culmination of protection, strength, attraction, love, and lust, and he believes he has found it in Emma.

The conflicting voices in Stephen’s head, however, are pacified when he acknowledges the darkness. Stephen then misquotes a poem by claiming that “darkness falls from the air” (Joyce 206). The original line of poetry had “brightness” (Joyce 206) instead of darkness. Darkness and brightness, typically two opposites, do not often work interchangeably. However, Stephen replaces the word because he feels more comfortable in darkness. The brightness blinds him, as in the aforementioned paragraph, so the darkness settling in signifies that he is becoming more comfortable with his thoughts. He continues his path toward the darkness as “he walked away slowly towards the deeper shadows” (Joyce 206). Stephen can take solace there because he knows that there is no threat and he is in control.

Once Stephen reaches the darkness, however, his eyes “open from the darkness of desire” (Joyce 206). Any time the eyes open, it signifies a rebirth or reawakening, so at this point Stephen begins to see differences between himself and Cranly and how differently Emma sees both of them. Although Joyce explains that the darkness represents desire, Stephen still feels the most comfortable there because desire is all he knows. He cannot create a meaningful and lasting relationship based on emotions or feelings, so he chooses to live his desires through fantasy. Stephen, though “horrified by the realization that he has besmirched the icon of his beloved Emma by making her the object of his…fantasies,” (Henke 326) continues with his thoughts of her; he cannot resist the temptation. Stephen then “tasted the language of memory ambered wines” (Joyce 206). This implies that he is looking into his past, which has aged over time to develop into the feelings he has now.

This is further exemplified by Joyce’s juxtaposition of two different types of women. He sees “kind gentlewomen in Convent Garden wooing from their balconies” (Joyce 207) who are nuns or other types of religions women, and “poxfouled wenches of the taverns” (Joyce 207) who are women that are looked down on by society like prostitutes similar to the one he experiences. The women of the Convent are described with more delicate diction, like ‘kind,’ but the other women are referred to as ‘wenches,’ which is a word with a very strong connotation of dirtiness and impurity. According to Freudian thought, boys see “two aspects of women” (Brivic 287), one being the “virgin” (Brivic 287) and one being the “temptress” (Brivic 287). Stephen examines both types, as he can “dictate his actions” (Brivic 287) to the virginal type but can “find expression” (Brivic 287) in his fantasies of the tempting type. Unable to decide which he feels about Emma, Stephen realizes how both types of women “yield to their ravishers” (Joyce 207). In the religious women’s case, they answer to God, while the others answer to men who seek comfort in their bodies and sin. Stephen realizes that he “sees both in Emma” (Joyce 287) because he both fantasizes about her and can see himself in a relationship with her, but he continues to remain torn. Stephen’s ability at the end of the novel to make this distinction shows how he has developed into a young man, but it is this ability that tears Stephen away from women and pushes him toward his art.

Stephen’s conflicting feelings stem from the contrast between opposing forces. The Greek god Dionysis is a perfect example of this dichotomy that Stephen faces. Dionysus is the god of wine, but is also the god of intoxication. This contrast clearly represents Stephen’s situation because he is caught in between what he has been taught and what is logical, between the real world and his imagination, and between feelings of love and lust. The wine that Dionysus represents is a pure substance, as it is used in sacraments in the Catholic Church as the blood of Jesus. However, too much wine can cause a person to become drunk, and being under the influence elicits a person to think or say things they typically would not think or say otherwise, just like Stephen does when he contemplates the theft of the wine, Mercedes, and Emma. Overall, these pairs rule Stephen’s life and his decision making process because he is unable to see one side of something without another side to compare it to.

How it must have felt to read Lolita in Tehran Continued

Well, this a continuation of my previous post...it is the passage explication from Reading Lolita in Tehran. As you might be able to tell, I got really into this book. It is another one of my favorite pieces.


In Reading Lolita in Tehran, author Azar Nafisi and a group of her students meet secretly to read and discuss literature. Though her bond with these girls is strong, one of the most supportive yet unrecognized relationships that Nafisi relies on is her marriage to her husband Bijan. In one brief chapter, Nafisi recounts a conversation between herself and Bijan, and she uses metaphors and detailed description to capture the nuances of the moment and represent the dramatic change that takes place in their relationship as their surroundings change.

The conversation between Nafisi and Bijan begins with would typically be an awkward topic between two people, but Bijan is genuinely interested. She comments that “living in the Islamic Republic of Iran is like having sex with a man you loathe,” (329) and this comment takes Bijan slightly aback. He notices everything around his wife, her “student’s notes scattered on the table and…a dish of melting coffee ice cream” (329). Normally, having the coffee ice cream is one of Nafisi’s favorite things to do in the evening, but the fact that she has ignored it and let it melt warns Bijan that she must have been “feeling rotten” (329). Because he knows his wife so well, he is able to be sensitive to her seemingly random comment, and by asking her to “explain a little” (329) about what she means, he is enticing her let her emotions out. Through their dialogue that is not in quotation marks but rather in average sentences, Nafisi suggests their conversation is fluid and casual, as opposed to their former, argumentative conversations. This emphasizes the deep connection they have with one another and their mutual understanding and tolerance of each other’s feelings.

Nafisi then goes on to explain how she and Bijan came to be so understanding of each other; her heartfelt and intricately powerful words reflect this power of their relationship. She describes his many “silences” (329), as they can be “disapproving,” (329) “appreciative,” (329) or “loving” (329). Her knowledge of these subtle differences in his moods shows how well she knows him, because the words she chooses are specific to each individual feeling and she would be unable to pin them down so well if she didn’t understand him. They began this process of understanding as they discussed how they “felt about Iran” (329) and they finally “began seeing the matter through each other’s eyes” (329). The turmoil and obstacles they face in Iran was finally enough to bring them together to talk it out. Though they have different perspectives about Iran, Bijan’s being more “traditional and rooted” (329) while Nafisi’s is more “portable,” (329). The words she chooses to describe Bijan’s attitude are more concrete, and would typically be used to describe these types of feelings of nationality and pride in one’s country. However, the use of the word portable makes Nafisi’s feelings seem like an object that just be moved without consequence. Through these words, Nafisi emphasizes the difference between her own feelings and her husband’s feelings.

Nafisi, in the subsequent paragraph, has a moment of realization that suggests that the country that pushed them away from each other for so many years finally pulled them back together. She suddenly feels a “little lighter” (329), as if a weight has been lifted off of her. Physically and emotionally, her family has been ruled over by the Iranian government for so many years, and now, at this moment, she realizes that her marriage is stronger than the pressure they have been put under. Bijan goes back to her analogy, elaborating that her “girls must resent that fact that while you’re leaving this guy behind, they have to keep sleeping with him,” (330). Because he relates back to her analogy, he is trying his best to connect with how she is feeling, but he reminds her that “the memory” and “the stain” cannot be “slough[ed] off” (330) when she leaves. The word stain suggests that the impact her country has had on her will not be easily forgotten, while sloughed off hints that she does not take their leaving as seriously as he does. His warning has two parts: he is partially trying to help her understand the consequences of leaving, but he is also revealing his solid, traditional beliefs. Iran has made a lasting impact on the two of them, and he is not as easy to let it go.

Bijan’s final comment is a question to Nafisi about her effect on those who have impacted her, and his strong answer provides the motivation they both need to move on with their lives. Bijan says that the “relationship is not equal,” (330) between Nafisi and Iran, and by calling it a relationship, he defines the mutuality of “the good and the bad” (330) between the two. Nafisi always saw it as one sided because she was directly impacted by the actions and policies of the Iranian government, but she never realized that she, as a female professor, made an impact on Iran as well. Bijan believes that though the government has “the power to kill us or flog us,” it “only reminds them of their weakness,” (330). The weakness would be their cruelty and inhumanity because there is rebellion stirring within the country and the power of rebellion is much stronger than that of oppression in their eyes. His words are short, but they are sharp and powerful. Their connotation adds to Bijan’s point that the classes Nafisi teaches are her own form of rebellion, and that they have made a difference in Tehran.

Throughout the chapter, Nafisi dictates this dialogue in paragraph form without quotation marks, which adds to the fluidity of the text and highlights the melting of her thoughts with her husband’s thoughts. Bijan and Nafisi’s relationship is not always directly mentioned, except in places where they argue, but in this instant, they are able to connect together as they once did before all the turmoil began, and the manner in which they speak to each other reflects this mutual understanding in a tough situation.



Again, comments are very much appreciated!