Option One – Cultural context Gender roles


Under the governing regime in Iran, women are treated as second-class citizens. They must cover their heads with a veil and avoid socialising with men. Marjane’s mother is a liberated woman who struggles with such restrictions. One day her car breaks down and while she waits for her husband to collect her, she is verbally attacked by two fundamentalist men who are enraged because she is not wearing the veil. Marjane’s mother is terrified and deeply distressed when they tell her that women like her should be raped and then ‘thrown in the garbage’.


Marjane is dismayed by the restrictions placed on women in Iran. She has always dreamed of being ‘an educated, liberated woman’ but she sees her dream going up in smoke after the Islamic revolution. She realises that rather than following in the footsteps of her hero, Marie Curie, she will probably have ten children by the time she is the age at which Marie Curie went to France to study.


In an effort to express her independence, Marjane rebels against the rules governing women’s behaviour and clothing. She wears her veil in such a way as to show a few strands of her hair, and she ignores the ban on jewellery. However, this attitude causes problems for Marjane when the principal of her school sees her wearing a bracelet and tries to take it off her. Marjane hits the principal and is expelled. It is clear to her parents that Marjane’s refusal to conform to the government’s expectations of women will get her into serious trouble. They decide to send her to Vienna to continue her schooling, even though she is only 14.


Life in Vienna is far less restrictive than in Iran. Boys and girls socialise together and Marjane discovers that young women are free to sleep with their boyfriends if they want to do so. She has a two-year relationship with a Viennese student called Markus. Although the love affair is not a happy one, Marjane is able to be intimate with Markus in a way she could never be with a boyfriend in Iran.


When Marjane returns to Iran after her time in Vienna, her female friends seem fascinated by stories of her life in Europe. They discuss ‘cute boys’ they have seen and ask Marjane if she has had sex. Marjane answers honestly and is shocked when her friends suddenly turn on her, asking her ‘What’s the difference between you and a whore?’ Marjane realises that her old friends are ‘overrun with hormones and frustration’ and that they are jealous and angry with Marjane for being ‘a decadent Western woman’.


Life in Iran becomes increasingly unbearable for Marjane. She wants to be ‘an educated, liberated woman’ but this is simply not possible in a country where women’s freedom is so restricted. She studies at art college but has to attend a lecture on ‘Moral and Religious Conduct’ in which the lecturer instructs women on how to dress modestly so as not to inflame men’s passions. Marjane asks the lecturer why it is only women who are forced to dress a certain way, when male students dress as they want and sometimes ‘wear clothes so tight’ that the girls ‘can see everything’. The double standard in Iran is unacceptable to Marjane.


Marjane realises just how restricted women’s lives are when she visits a work colleague who speaks for his wife, effectively preventing her from taking part in the conversations. This is the final straw for Marjane. While she accepts that it is not just Iranian men who treat women as inferiors, the difference is that the law in Iran takes the man’s side in every case. Women are not even allowed to testify in court. Only a man may initiate a divorce, and he automatically gets custody of the children. Marjane says that the reason for this is that the man is like the grain and the woman simply the earth in which the grain grows. Marjane can’t take this gender inequality anymore and decides to emigrate to Europe, where she can live life on her own terms. Her mother supports her choice, telling her she is ‘a free woman’ and that she must never come back. Although Marjane believes she is doing the right thing, she is also keenly aware that she is leaving her beloved family behind. Her final words in the book are ‘Freedom had a price’.


Leaving Certificate English 355 Excellence in Texts


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