Literature As An Escape

After reading the novel entitled Reading Lolita in Tehran I acknowledge how lucky I am because I can be an independent, educated, opinionated young woman. I have the freedom to express myself in whatever manner I wish, I can dress according to my individual choice, and I can do whatever a man can do, who knows maybe even better. This memoir really opened my eyes to the sad, but realistic lives, and challenges women in Tehran. In my opinion, these women turned to literature as an escape from society, and its unfair rules and regulations. If I was living in Iran I would have been one of these students, sneaking out and secretly attending the Thursday mornings session. By reading many different works of literature, I believe that they found it to be an escape, or some sort of familiarity. At some point in the novel it states, "...the most central of which was how these great works of imagination could help us in our present trapped situation as women. We were not looking for blue-prints, for an easy solution, but we did hope to find a link between the open spaces the novel provided and the closed ones we were confined to" (p.19). But as it is said, where there is a will, there is a way. This group of yound women, came together and worked together as a team in their fight against their repression, and the rise to their liberation.