Determined Characterization of Maryam Mazar
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He took my shoulders tightly in his hands. ‘You would deny my will?’ ‘I will not marry that man.’
‘Why not, Maryam?’ ‘Because I don’t know him and because I have yet to live myself. 65
Her father assumes that by marrying the man who her father has chosen, it guarantees Maryam with a bright future. Yet, Maryam still refuses to follow her
father’s desire. Other people also try to give advises for her not to deny her father’s desire and finally follow the tradition to get married to the man chosen by
her father. She said that I must leave school soon, then surprised me by asking if I’d
thought more about the marriage my father had proposed. I felt the air ebb away inside me. I hadn’t expected him to tell her about it. 50
… ‘I don’t want to get married and be like you or Mairy,’ I replied.
She put her hand to her face and stroked her eyebrows, then the raw skin on her neck.
‘You don’t want to be like her,’ my mother nodded at Fatima, ‘working to have a roof over your head.’
I looked at the tight set of her lips. I could remember her singing to me when I was a little, a soft voice barely more than a whisper.
‘I’d like to have a profession,’ I said to the tea leaves in my cup,’ like a nurse.’
‘Huh.’ she picked up her sewing again. I finished my tea and looked over to Fatima, frowning that I wanted to
live. We stood and I leaned to kiss my mother good bye, but she turned her face away.
‘You will sense sooner or later,’ she said, to me or to herself, and we put the cups back on the tray and left the room. 51
The quotation above states that Maryam continues arguing not to get married
because she dreams to be a nurse. Her whole family members keep asking and persuading her not to deny her father’s will because they believe that being a
nurse is a profession for a maid. Moreover, Maryam belongs to a family of a General which can make her be able to acquire everything she wants. It is shown
through the quotation as follows:
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Well, if I were plain,’ I continued, ‘people wouldn’t assume that all I wanted was to marry, and they might find it easier to think I could be
happy some other way.’ ‘By doing what?’ she asked
‘Teaching or nursing,’ I suggested She frowned again, more in bemusement. ‘But that’s for old maids,
Maryam, or if your family can’t provide for you. We have everything we need. 58
The quotation shows that she also wishes to be an ordinary woman that no one
would expose her and rather to think of the way she could be happy in some other ways. However, people still try to ask her to get married and to be a wise and
intellectual person who can obey the leader of her family desire, further, to follow Iran traditional way of life, where women should marry to a man who has been
chosen by her father. They say, “Maryam, don’t be troublesome in these difficult times. Marry well and learn to be wily. You are wise enough.” 69.
Maryam is also bored of being forced to get married by her family. She assumes this condition proves that her family still perceives her as a little child
who can be controlled easily. Furthermore, as a simple thing that does not have any power to decide something for her own life, consequently she could be
directed to any kind of situation according to anything her family desired. This condition makes Maryam a more determined person who is not afraid of trouble
that will emerge because of her act. This can be seen in this quotation, “I said I didn’t care of trouble, but that I was tired of being spoken to as a child or treated
as a chattel to marry, when all I wanted was to go to Tehran and train to be a nurse.”71.