The Power of Narrative of Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi(SPECIAL ISSUE CELEBRATING TEN YEARS OF ESTABLISHMENT OF FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES)

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi has been enthusiastically received in America and got an international recognition because it vividly describes an Iranian woman's authentic experiences under the Iran Islamic Revolution and its new regime from 1979 to 1997. With her students, Nafisi, a professor of American and English literature, tries to escape from cruel reality in Tehran to the world of Western literature. She interprets the meaning of the real life using Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice and other novels. Nafisi's narrative is so powerful and gripping that the readers would empathize with the author and make up the images of Iran as an oppressive and totalitarian country and America as a free state just as she shows. However, in close reading we could find that there is an information gap about the Iranian history, that is, she does not mention the days of Sha much enough to compare it with the present regime. Therefore, this book should be read with a view that it has such a limitation. In this paper, the techniques which Nafisi uses to arrest the readers' attention are examined to clarify their characteristics and weakness if any. Nafisi's narrative might be deconstructed by introducing Said's theory of post-colonialism in the part four, 'Austen'