Reading Lolita in Tehran, A Memoir in Books Chapter Summary & Analysis - Part 3: Chapters 12 - 22 Summary

Part 3: Chapters 12 - 22 Summary

Air raid sirens would sound at all hours of the day and night, interrupting class or sleep. After the bombs fell, friends and relatives would phone each other for reassurance that everyone was safe. The university's hallways were now festooned with propaganda posters promoting the war, displacing the notices of talks or films that one would expect at a university. These posters made Nafisi feel that she was not really at a university to teach literature.

Two weeks after starting her new teaching post, Nafisi finds an envelope slipped under her office door. Inside she finds a sheet of paper with the message: "The adulterous Nafisi should be expelled." The head of the department received a similar message. The word "adulterous" had become so overused as an insult that it simply served as a generic put-down. The regime and the clerics constantly used this term to discredit and harm reputations....
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