Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

Content Warning: This section depicts suicide.

Nafisi opens Part 3 by recalling the day the Iran-Iraq War began: September 23, 1980. Nafisi describes herself as blindsided and confused by the outbreak of the conflict: “For me, as for millions of ordinary Iranians, the war came out of nowhere […] unexpected, unwelcome and utterly senseless” (157). As the Iran-Iraq War rages over the next eight years, Nafisi details her professional and personal woes as the political situation continues to darken.

Nafisi describes Iranian society as becoming ever more polarized during these years. The veil becomes mandatory for all women, including female students and professors at universities. Due to “women’s overwhelming objection to the laws” (167), the Islamic regime institutes harsh measures to enforce compliance, including “up to seventy-six lashes and jail terms” for any woman who disobeys (167). Nafisi feels deeply conflicted about the new clothing requirements; she tries to resist for as long as she can, but ultimately must submit to the mandatory veiling and clothing searches each day before entering campus to continue teaching.

The social and political pressures she faces foster tension within her marriage. She resents her husband Bijan’s “apparent disregard for what I, as a woman and an academic, was going through” (169).