4. In the comment that “for a beautiful, poetic language, it sounded as harsh as Klingon when they fought” (79), which of the following is the antecedent to the pronoun “they”?

5. What color headscarf does Shirin wear to arrive in Iran?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reasons does Darius give for disliking Subway?

2. How does Darius relate his mother’s early misunderstanding of taarof with his father’s parents?

3. What does Darius notice when first reaching Ashkan’s store?

4. What was the game of Turbolift Door Darius used to play, and why did he stop playing it?

5. What does Darius identify as the two most humiliating moments in his life?

6. In what condition do the Bahramis and Kellners find Persepolis?

7. What is Ardeshir doing when Darius first sees him in Iran?

8. What reasons does Darius give for not eating falafel at home?

9. What reasons does Darius give for avoiding detailed discussion of his school as he rides from Tehran to Yazd with Fairba?

10. What is Surrender Cobra?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As Darius prepares to leave Iran, he notes that he intends to call Fariba weekly but knows he will fail, noting that “Because each time I talked to her, I’d have to say good-bye.

“Now that we were part of each other’s lives—our real lives, not our photonic ones—I didn’t know if I could survive that” (299).

Given that, is Darius better off for having had the experience of meeting his Persian family? How does the novel support or deny the idea?

Essay Topic 2

Darius muses that “she [Fariba] and Babou were seated in the very front, the binary suns of the Bahrami family solar system” (174). Explicate the metaphor (e.g, what are its tenor and vehicle, what does it imply about those encompassed by it, where does it fail?).