“However, the tendency of postcolonial criticism to focus on global issues, on comparisons and contrasts among various peoples, means
that it is up to the individual members of specific populations to develop their own body of criticism on the history, traditions, and
interpretation on their own literat
ure.” This is the reason in choosing postcolonial literature analysis.
1.2 Research Topic
The topic of this research is the psychology of the minority in the white world. “Minority is a culturally, ethnically, or racially distinct group that coexists with but is
subordinate to a more dominant group Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014 .”
Iranian in America is minority because the Iranian entering the U.S. since 1978 only totalled 200.000 people Gillis, 2008. A country where the population is dominated
by European people is considered as white world in this research. United States is one of the countries that has European people in majority as a statement saying that 64
percents of the whole population of the United States of America are white Housing Assistance Council, 2012:1. So what is described in this research is the psychology
of the Iranian who live in the United States of America. The psychological problem researched is called Dependency complex.
1.3 Research Problems
What become problems in this research is the psychological condition of Iranian people who live in a white world like United States of America. Yet, this
psychological condition actually appears in the colonial era. Frantz Fanon in his book Black Skin, White Mask chapter The So-called Dependency Complex of Colonized
People criticizes and corrects the theory of dependency complex written by O. Mannoni. Mannoni 1964:40 explains the complex in the colonial era as he states in
his book: “The central idea is that the confrontation of civilized and primitive
men creates a special situation – the colonial situation – and brings
about the emergence of a mass of illusions and misunderstandings that only a psychological analysis can place and define.”
The colonial situation shows that what is described as Mannoni’s theory called
dependency complex happened to the people in the colonial era. What happened to the Jayazeris in Funny in Farsi also has the characteristics
of dependency complex. Does dependency complex still appear in the post-colonial era even though O. Mannoni and Frantz Fanon observe dependency complex that
happened to the colonial era? That becomes one of the problems in this research. In his book, Fanon describes the characteristics and the backgrounds that
cause the dependency complex that happened to the black people in the colonial era. Although the white or the colonial were less than the colonized in number, the white
never felt inferior and the black always felt inferior as proven in what Fanon 1986:68 says:
“The colonial eventhough he is “in the minority”, does not feel that this makes him inferior. In Martinique there are two hundred whites
who consider themeselves superior to 300.000 people of color. In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen
million native people, and it has never occured to a single black to
consider himself superior to a member of the white minority.” The inferior people whom Mannoni and Fanon talk about are black people
who were colonized by the white colonial. In contrast, the inferior people in Funny in Farsi are not black. They are
Asian. Then what becomes something that can be discussed is how dependency complex exists among non-black inferior people. It becomes the other problem of this
research. This problem also leads us to another new problem. How does dependency complex exist among Iranian people living in America? This is the main problem
discussed in this research. Showing the phenomena in the novel will not be complete without proving
that it actually happens or not. The way to prove that the story in the novel is actual is relating the story in the novel and the context of the real life of Iranian American. By
finding the relationship between two of them, the analysis will also be able to show that dependency complex really happens to the peope in the real life. This
relationship is the second problem of this research. One of the examples of proving the novel that it is actual is the appearance of
the stereotype that Iranians are terror ists. Gillis 2008 says, “Iranian Americans in
particular have been subjected to the latter stereotype because of the political radicals who held 25 Americans hostage for more than a year in 1979 in the American
Embassy in Tehran, Iran’s capital city.” She doesn’t write the statement above in form of a novel. She writes it in form of an article entitled “Iranian Americans.” It
shows what she writes is not fictious because an article always describes actual facts. Americans who lived in Iran were really hostages for a year in the American
Embassy in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. In the novel, Dumas 2003:116-
117 also tells, “As he was settling into his new job, a group of Americans in Tehran were taken hostage in the American
Embassy.” Then, she continues to show the terrorist stereotype of Iranian living in America by stating, “Vendors started selling T-shirts and bumper stickers that said
“Iranians Go Home” and “Wanted: Iranians, for Target Practice.” Shooting and target
are really identical with the t errorist’s activity. She implicitly shows, although there is
now word terrorist, that Iranians were labeled as the terrorist because the political problem happening in Iran.
The story in the novel is clearly proved that it really happens in the factual moment by showing the real history of the Iranian American. The answer of the
research question asking the relation between the story in the novel and the context of the real life is that they are both real. This is the general answer of the second
question of this research. The explanation of Gillis and the story of Dumas tell the same moment. The history is a supporting proof to show that the novel is not a
fictitious story.
1.4 Research Questions
