Assalamualaikum everyone.

We are the third group for today and the members of

this group are Nur Fatini, Noor Kamalia, Siti Khairul Atiyah, and Sarah Ayesha. So,
without further ado, let’s move to the first part, which is the summary.
Okay, so now we are going to look at the summary of Reading Lolita in Tehran.
As we all know, this book has been divided into four parts. And if you don’t know
about this yet by now, it’s okay, let’s listen and learn together okay? So, there are
four parts in Reading Lolita in Tehran. The first part is “Lolita”, the second part is
called “Gatsby”, the third part is “James”, and the last part is “Austen”.
Now, let’s look at the summary of the first part, which is Lolita. Azar Nafisi has
resigned from her professorship at Allameh Tabatabai University and she choose to
fulfil her dream which is to hold a private literature class with her seven selected
students. The students are Manna, Mahshid, Yassi, Azin, Mitra, Sanaz, and Nassrin,
in which all of them are women, and there is also an addition of one more male
student which is Manna’s husband, Mina. However, Mina will not be joining the class
directly with the other female students. According to page 2, Nafisi said “ So he,
Nima, read the assigned material, and on special days he would come to my house
to talk about the books we were reading.” The class meets in Nafisi’s home every
Thursday night. Nafisi characterises her seven students one by one as they enter
her home on their first class. For instance in page 9, Mahshid is distinguished as the
one who willingly wears the veil before the revolution, and who was jailed for five
years because of her “affiliation with a dissident religious organization”, whereas
Azin is described as sporting a kimono-style robe, and wearing large golden earrings
and pink lipstick. Next, Nafisi’s private class focused on the relation between fiction
and reality. So, over the course of this first section, Nafisi has introduced us to the
seven students in the group and recreates their discussions about two primary texts:
which is Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading and Lolita. She makes both implicit and
explicit connections between these novels and the lives of these women living in the
Islamic Republic of Iran, and by extension, explores the links between literature and
reality.

Next, we are going to look at the summary of Part 2: Gatsby. “Gatsby” is eleven
years before “Lolita”, just as the Iranian Revolution starts in 1979. Nafisi recalls the
time how she was married before 18, then goes to America to study, and comes
back to Iran after 17 years. A month after returning to Tehran, Nafisi went to the
University of Tehran to seek for a job and began teaching there. It is the same year
where some of the critical events of Islamic Revolution happened, including the rise
of Khomeini, the American hostage crisis, and the forced veiling of women. When
she was teaching there, she leads the students through readings of important literary
works, most notably F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Next slide. Nafisi
chooses The Great Gatsby to teach in her class because it captures the revolutionist
theme. According to Nafisi, this novel, while seemingly apolitical, has an important
revolutionary quality. However, her students struggles with The Great Gatsby
because its themes negotiate the American Dream, a concept that contrasts deeply
with the Iran at this time. The students were confused by The Great Gatsby, not
understanding the idealism, passion, and treachery of the relationships. Then, Mr.
Nyazi confronted Nafisi to lodge a complaint against The Great Gatsby and because
of that, Nafisi stages a trial in her class, with The Great Gatsby as the defendant,
and the activity causes a sensation on campus and attracts a lot of attention.

Moving on to the next slide, now we are going to look at the summary of the third
part, which is James. This part is a little bit long if you have read it. “James” takes
place as the Iran-Iraq War begins in the 1980 and the government becomes more
and more repressive. The government has put into law that women should be veiled
in the workplace. Nafisi was given the choice to comply or be fired. To respond to
this, Nafisi decided not to comply, so she marched out as free woman. During her
hiatus from teaching, she had two kids. Then, some universities want her to teach
again. Tehran University asked her to come back, but she refused. She taught a few
courses at the Free Islamic University and the former National University, but did not
stay long there either. After that, the University of Allameh Tabatabai began to
express interest in Nafisi in 1987. However, Nafisi responded that she would not
wear the veil in class. But, she later comply with the rule, but in exchange, she
demanded to be allowed to teach the material of her choice. Next slide. Nafisi and
the university received a threatening letter stating the she should not be allowed to
teach. “The adulterous Nafisi should be expelled.” (p. 124) Nafisi thinks that the letter
is childish and she considers it as a welcoming gift on her formal return to academia.
Next, two texts take center stage this time: Henry James’s Washington
Square and Daisy Miller. In 1988, air strikes resumed on Tehran for some time. Until
the war ended “suddenly and quietly” according to page 157. The end of war
unfortunately does not bring relief to the people of Iran. Although the ceasing of
missile attacks was certainly good, there was a prevalent feeling of “disillusion and
disenchantment” (p. 158) since Iran lay in ruins, and the nation suffered from
rampant unemployment. In the final chapter of the section, Nafisi narrates a typical
day in class and as she is making her final comments on the theme of courage in
James’s work, a student in another class burnt himself and he died that night.

Now we are going to look at the last part, which is “Austen”. In the final part of the
book, Nafisi returns to the description of the private literature class which the memoir
began, opening to a scene where the girls satirically adapted the first line of Pride
and Prejudice to their own situation. The reading of Pride and Prejudice offers
interesting insights into the nature of love and communication, as Nafisi and her
students cope with the challenges peculiar to women living under the regime’s
oppressive interpretation of Islamic tradition. In “Austen”, Nafisi also discusses about
the issue of marriages, leaving Iran, men and sex with her private class. For
example, she notes that menopause is little discussed or understood among many
women and their husbands. Throughout “Austen”, Nafisi also presents many other
problems commonly faced by women. For examples, the difficulties of open
courtship through the experiences of Sanaz and Yassi, the ridiculous rule of
“temporary marriage” and the discrimination in divorce and child custody laws. Next
slide. Nafisi notes that although the younger generation did not have the chance to
benefit from the earlier establishment of women’s rights, the knowledge that such
rights existed in the not-too distant past, inspires them to work for more in the future.
Then, when they talk about leaving the country, not only Nafisi, but nearly all the girls
in the group, struggle with the question of whether to flee the country to attain
greater personal freedoms, or stay and fight for change at home. However, Mahshid
said in page 188, "If everybody leaves... who will help make something of this
country?" “Austen” is about the choice of women. The women in Nafisi’s private
class at the end are making choices that ultimately rock their reputations and the
world. Lastly, in the second last chapter, Nafisi talks to the magician about her idea
to write Reading Lolita. Nafisi ends the book with: “I went about my way rejoicing,
thinking how wonderful it is to be a woman and a writer at the end of the twentieth
century.”

Fuhhh. Okay, next, we are going to look at the point of view. Throughout this novel,
Nafisi, as the book author, narrates in the first person point of view. The reader sees
Nafisi's students through her eyes and each student's individual personality is
brought out through Nafisi's discerning perception, and everything that happen in this
book is also through the eyes of Nafisi. And one more thing I forgot to mention just
now, the narrative of this novel is non-linear, because Nafisi oftens jumps in time.
Which means, even though it is arranged in order of Lolita, Gatsby, James, and
Austen, but if we were to change it according to its original timeline, it is supposed to
be Gatsby, James, Lolita, and then Austen.