Gender Role and Culture
In the society of the 17th century Persia, women are relegated to the positions assigned to them by the culture of the Persians. Their main role is to get married and to bear children. Early and arranged marriages are the order of the day for the Persian women. The unnamed Iranian woman who is the narrator of the story hoped to be married within a year despite being only 14 years old. When the father dies, the girl and her mother get into a life of biting poverty. This situation shows women in Persian society as highly depended. They are incapable of steering their own lives due to cultural oppression.
The author of the book, Anita Amirrezvani, however, goes on to audaciously paint women in a light that was never known in the Persian society. The society discriminates against women based on gender roles and oppressive culture. The girl and her mother are forced to move out of their home to reside with the girl's uncle. The girl becomes an experienced carpet designer. She gains economic independence and this makes her somewhat unmarriageable. The turn of events shows the level to which gender-based oppression was deeply entrenched in Persian society. Women in this society are supposed to be nothing less or more of subservient and obedient. The girl was later forced to marry a wealthy man and this meant to things. She either had to trash her dignity or get into a risky situation defined by defiance to the oppressive culture. The odds were stacked against her as she would end up losing everything she had gained in the transformation she had undergone since she had known the trade of designing rugs and carpets
Theme of Change
Life itself can change drastically. Other aspects of life take time to change. First of all, the narrator and mother had to cope with the change that was occasioned by the death of the father. The father must have been the sole breadwinner of the family since immediately after his demise, the girl and her mother got into an invasive predicament economically. They started residing in deplorable conditions, wearing torn clothes and sleeping under leaking roofs. The narrator's life also transformed greatly when she learned to be a seasoned rug designer.
Theme of Superstitions
The narrator finds herself in endless woes and she attributes the challenges to a comet that passed through the space of their villages. She has to cope with the death of their father, after which she and her mother find themselves in extremely hard circumstances of lack, wearing torn clothes and sleeping under a leaky roof. She reminisces the way she had worn luxurious apparel as she waited for her lover who instead tore them.
