“Lucia’s parents were incredible. They were unlike anyone I’d ever mate. Her Tyrolean Austrian father wore pants made of leather .Her Tyrolean Italian mother had moustache. Only her sister reminded me of Heidi.”
Marjane devotes Christmas to Lucia’s family. They act towards her more benevolently than Zozo, whom she had anticipated to be like a mother to her. By all accounts, Lucia’s family unit is an outsider in Marjane’s life. Nevertheless, they embrace her same as people who have been on familiar terms with her all along. Therefore, acquaintance is not what makes people benevolent. Being thoughtful towards a guest epitomizes utmost civilization.
“I read “The Second Sex” Simone explained that if women peed standing up, their perception of life would change. Seated it was much simpler. And, as an Iranian woman before learning to urinate like a man, I need to learn to become a liberated and emancipated woman. So I tried. It ran slightly down my left leg. It was little disgusting.”
Marjane acts out Simone’s ideology of urinating like a man and it turns out disastrous. Marjane cannot urinate like a man on her first endeavor because all her life she has been urinating while sitting. The aftermath of her experiment substantiates the reality that for an ideology to be operational it calls for repetitive conditioning. Moreover, culture dictates whether an ideology will have weight in one’s life or not.
“In every religion, you find the same extremists”
According to Marjane, the nuns at the boarding house are extremists because they expect to to remain quiet while they degrade her. The mother superior’s assistant regards Marjane to as disrespectful because she stood for herself when Mother superior made an attempt to disgrace her in the TV room for eating from her pot. Even though they both contributed to the squabble, Mother Superior holds that she is justified to treat Marjane dishonorably because Marjane is Iranian. The nuns’ extremism is analogous to that put on a display by the extremist Muslims as they too indulge in immoderate actions at the pretext of upholding Islam.
“My breakup with Markus represented more than a simple separation, I had just lost my one emotional support, the only person who cared for me to whom I was also wholly attached.”
Markus’s infidelity pains Marjane because she has been unconditionally devoted to their relationship. Markus is the prodigy of two-facedness because he gives Marjane the inkling that he took an interest in her, yet he has an additional affair behind Marjane’s back. The unfaithfulness damages Marjane’s ego and is a factor in her emotional exposure.
“For ten years they’ve been made to believe that the martyrs are living in a five-star hotel in paradise.”
Exponents of war indoctrinate people using erroneous beliefs linked to paradise and martyrdom. Consequently, instead of being anguished by the colossal devastation of lives, the living are assuaged by the idea that even though some fighters are deceased, they are leading superior lives in paradise. Appealing to the obliviousness of the masses to sustain war makes it infeasible to present case for harmony.
“ I have always wanted for you to become independent, educated cultured…and here you are getting married at twenty one. I want you to leave Iran for you to be free and emancipated.”
Although Marjane’s mother lives in a traditionalist culture, she wants her daughter to transcend the orthodox obligations that hold back the Iranian women. Marjane’s mother does not impose orthodox canons on her daughter, and she appreciates that matrimony is not her daughter’s fascination.
“ I was already feeling sorry! I had suddenly become ‘a married woman.’ I have conformed to society, while I had always wanted to remain in the margins. In my mind,’ a married woman’ wasn’t like me .It required too many compromises I couldn’t accept it.”
Marjane’s aversion towards marriage shortly after her wedding foreshadows her divorce. Her resolution to espouse Reza despite her parent’s covert disapproval is an indicator that she has not surmounted her identity crisis so she complies with the same societal principles that she is repulsed by.
