Identity and Taboo in Iran
Many of the essays in this collection are about Iranian identity (how it has changed, what it has become), and that theme continues to be thread through "Sex in the Time of the Mullahs" and "Misreading Kundera in Tehran." Though Azadeh Moaveni and Nagmeh Zarbafian discuss different subject matters, they both discuss and unravel modern Iranian identity. Structurally, they also both use their own experiences to draw on larger concepts.
In "Sex in the Time of the Mullahs," Moaveni recounts her experience attending a secret party in Tehran. She described how Iran is experiencing "a sexual revolution behind closed doors," in which Iranian youths engage in sexual activity as well as drinking and doing drugs - in general, activities for which they would be arrested outside of their homes. Moaveni relates that this partying, done in private, helps to restore these Iranians' "sense of autonomy" and display their "total disregard for the regime's taboos" (56). There's a common theme through this collection of the dichotomy between public and private life in Iran, and Moaveni definitely explores that in this piece.
Though through Western eyes, we might view this sexual revolution as a positive thing, Moaveni definitely criticized it throughout her essay. We catch onto her opinion in a different party scene she describes, where people are singing along to a Persian pop hit called "Nastaran" with the lyrics, "You don't even know what you really want," which Moaveni says, "seemed to resonate with the general mood" (56). Later, she comments that atmosphere of the party seemed "at once sullen and alive" - alive because people could release their inhibitions, but sullen because the party itself was representative of their "stolen freedoms" (58). Hence, why these people don't know what they want, if they want to engage in taboo for the taboo or if they only want to - or have to - engage in it in order to feel free.
In "Misreading Kundera in Tehran," Zarbafian describes, in several episodes, her experiences with connecting to people from other cultures, particularly in reading teaching the novel Identity by Milan Kundera, both in its original French and in translated Persian. The novel, as Zarbafian describes it, navigates the disparate thoughts of two characters in a love affair: "the whole novel centers on the fact that two people in love, at their most intimate moments, feel that they do not recognize one another's identity" (64).
Zarbafian translates (no pun intended) the theme of this novel to her situation trying to reconcile the novel's original French text with its translated Persian text. The Persian translation of Identity leaves out whole chapters and changes the meanings of various scenes, leaving the novel a skeleton of its original. These translations are due to influence from Iranian taboos; for instance, in the translation, the male protagonist does not make love to his female love interest, but instead simply "declares his affection" (66). Zarbafian explains how this relates to loss of identity: when readers read the Persian translation, they are "trapped in an unfamiliar world where they cannot figure out whom they are facing, what is happening, and how it is happening" (63).
In these essays, identity is lost through censorship and desperately attempted to be reclaimed through illegal partying. Either way, modern Persian identity is shaped by Iranian taboos.
In "Sex in the Time of the Mullahs," Moaveni recounts her experience attending a secret party in Tehran. She described how Iran is experiencing "a sexual revolution behind closed doors," in which Iranian youths engage in sexual activity as well as drinking and doing drugs - in general, activities for which they would be arrested outside of their homes. Moaveni relates that this partying, done in private, helps to restore these Iranians' "sense of autonomy" and display their "total disregard for the regime's taboos" (56). There's a common theme through this collection of the dichotomy between public and private life in Iran, and Moaveni definitely explores that in this piece.
Though through Western eyes, we might view this sexual revolution as a positive thing, Moaveni definitely criticized it throughout her essay. We catch onto her opinion in a different party scene she describes, where people are singing along to a Persian pop hit called "Nastaran" with the lyrics, "You don't even know what you really want," which Moaveni says, "seemed to resonate with the general mood" (56). Later, she comments that atmosphere of the party seemed "at once sullen and alive" - alive because people could release their inhibitions, but sullen because the party itself was representative of their "stolen freedoms" (58). Hence, why these people don't know what they want, if they want to engage in taboo for the taboo or if they only want to - or have to - engage in it in order to feel free.
In "Misreading Kundera in Tehran," Zarbafian describes, in several episodes, her experiences with connecting to people from other cultures, particularly in reading teaching the novel Identity by Milan Kundera, both in its original French and in translated Persian. The novel, as Zarbafian describes it, navigates the disparate thoughts of two characters in a love affair: "the whole novel centers on the fact that two people in love, at their most intimate moments, feel that they do not recognize one another's identity" (64).
Zarbafian translates (no pun intended) the theme of this novel to her situation trying to reconcile the novel's original French text with its translated Persian text. The Persian translation of Identity leaves out whole chapters and changes the meanings of various scenes, leaving the novel a skeleton of its original. These translations are due to influence from Iranian taboos; for instance, in the translation, the male protagonist does not make love to his female love interest, but instead simply "declares his affection" (66). Zarbafian explains how this relates to loss of identity: when readers read the Persian translation, they are "trapped in an unfamiliar world where they cannot figure out whom they are facing, what is happening, and how it is happening" (63).
In these essays, identity is lost through censorship and desperately attempted to be reclaimed through illegal partying. Either way, modern Persian identity is shaped by Iranian taboos.
Thematically, there is the same concern, but one seems to be about erasure of pleasure/deception and the other about the exaggeration of it. A discussion of how they approach it will tell us a lot more.
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Thanks for linking together these two essays by their shared themes of identity and censored passion. I enjoyed reading the personal essay format, as we hadn't done much of that so far in class, and thought it was a more interesting, fluid way to tell a larger political story.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about your comment that "identity is lost through censorship" and I think I find that it's less black-and-white. In "Misreading Kundera in Tehran," the censorship of the novel results in the bolstering of an Iranian identity the regime already supports. Readers see the novel as a mirror for the world they already know and the identities they already (are supposed to) hold, rather than as a complex dialogue that invites debate, interpretation, and transformation. It's a really interesting question, though - what does it mean to lose your identity? What does that look like, feel like?
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