Tough Characterization of Maryam Mazar

26 Besides, Maryam is also a tough person. She becomes tough because her father teaches her to be that kind of person since she was a child. Moreover, her father often uses physical punishments to make her stronger. This can be seen from her speech, “When I was child, if I was weak, I was punished. It made me strong. When I humiliated my father, he humiliated me. It made me strong.”12. This quotation really shows that her father really wants her to be a tough person, especially tough in her personality. Maryam’s father wants her daughters to be a strong and tough person who can face any problems that may happen since they live in Revolution Era, where something can go wrong anytime. Yet, Maryam is one of the daughters of a general of Shah’s army. It can be seen from this quotation, “She began, ‘Well, the story is that Ali worked for our grandfather, a man of position, prestige, a soldier in the Shah’s army. You know this?’ Sara had nodded, thinking that it wasn’t the first time Shirin had told this tale.” 198. Maryam lives in a dangerous area, since her father is one of the soldiers of Shah’s army. As a result, being tough is required, so that when something bad happened to her family, she is ready to continue her life by herself. Maryam’s tough personality is being tested when her father kicks her out of his house and his family because of her determined personality. Maryam keeps trying to be a nurse and violates her father’s command to get married. Consequently, her father does not acknowledge Maryam as her daughter. This can be seen in Maryam’s speech, “He no longer wanted me as a daughter, he said that. I had disappointed him so much.” 226. This makes her upset as she knows she does not deserve this kind of treatment. Although her father keeps sending her 27 jewelry, it never makes Maryam glad because she does not want those things but forgiveness from her father. Beneath the cotton wool were rings from her father-turquoise, pearl, ruby and gold- one for each year she had not seen him, always arriving around her birthday, until his death. All she had ever wanted was his forgiveness, but he hadn’t spoken to her since the day he had banished her. You are no longer my daughter. 29 This incident makes Maryam start to live her own life and leave her wealthy life. Starting from this moment, Maryam never speaks any words to her father. This can be seen from Doctor Ahlavi speech, “Your father is deeply disappointed, Maryam,” Doctor Ahlavi continued. “He can’t look on you as a daughter anymore. This can be no longer your home.” 99. Although her father said to Doctor Ahlavi that he is disappointed of what have happened to Maryam but he never asks Maryam to go back to his family. He keeps sending Maryam out of his house. Furthermore, he kicks Maryam out of his house embarrassingly. ‘No. but my father didn’t believe me, so I had to leave.’ ‘Run away?’ ‘No, thrown out like so much rubbish.’ Maryam gestured to the cloth and clutter on the ground, shuddering as a gust of a wind blew beneath the door. 225-226 Maryam is being regarded as a disgusting person because her father does not believe her. He assumes that Maryam is no longer virgin because of Ali, his servant. When he asks Maryam to prove it by checking her condition to the military doctor, it only makes everything worse because they rape her and make her lose her virginity. The soldier in a white coat said I was intact, that I could go home.’ Maryam closed her eyes and remembered herself as a child. Her tears fell. ‘But then they treated me like a rag doll. All my clothes torn and thrown on the floor. I remember their spit on me, the smell of their sweat, their 28 rough hands. I did not think it was possible to be hurt so much.’…’I was no virgin after that day.’262 This makes Maryam become more disappointed because she believes that a father should protect his children from every bad thing that may happen. This can be seen from this quotation, “He should have protected us, my father, as you said I should have protected Saeed. But he treated us like dirt. He made me feel like a whore.” 227. Maryam feels her father treats her like something invaluable and abhorrent. ‘She’d say that our grandfather, in his temper, couldn’t forgive Maryam her waywardness. He had to protect our family name. He had tried to marry her to someone of her own class but she refused, and so in the end he sent her away to Tehran and then England, out of sight. And he banished Ali, without books, to the village he’d come from.’ She looked at Sara. 199 Her father sends her out of Mazareh in order to protect his family honor, and as a tough woman, Maryam does not surrender to this situation. She starts a new life and continues getting her dream to be a nurse. Maryam said, “I left him behind in my past. I was young. In Tehran I made new friends and then went to London. I needed to settle somewhere, and knew it couldn’t be here.” 227 Everything happens to Maryam never stops her to continue her life and to get her dream to be a nurse and because of her experiences in facing her problems, she grows to be a tough woman. This can be seen from this quotation, “She pressed her head back against the wall. “You taught me well, Father, to be ruthless.” She held her hands against her temples.” 182 This quotation shows how Maryam realizes that to face her hard life, she has to be ruthless, not 29 necessary to do ruthless things but to do what she needs to do without taking too many considerations. I suppose it’s become harder to be so far away from where I grew up. The older I am, the more shallow my roots have felt in England. There I have no one to share stories with, or to remember. In London, I’m surrounded by people who know this country only through their news, a cartoon of Iran. It can be lonely. 132 Maryam passes a hard life in England, far from her family and her hometown. She learns to adapt living in England and be familiar with those things of culture. She knows she feels lonely because she is surrounded by people she never knows and meets before. However, she stays holding up her identity as an Iranian. Now, a quarter of century later, if you have an Iranian passport, people here, the authorities, think you’re a terrorist, someone who may have a bomb strapped to their belly. We’re in “the axis of evil”, they say, the scourge of the earth.’ He stared at us. ‘I’m treated like a refugee, as if it is a thing of pity, of scorn to call myself Iranian. I tell people, “I’m proud of my country. 137 Maryam assumes that being an Iranian gives her many bad conditions, as a terrorist or a refugee. This condition never changes her to acknowledge her own country because she feels proud of it. Yes, yes, you do, and we have time to talk, but please don’t be like me or my father. Look at me Sara.’ Sara lifted her face. ‘Anger has no going back. A slap cannot be undone. Some insults can never be unsaid. They worn away inside, however much you regret, hope, pray, until something terrible happens, like the day on the bridge. I don’t want you to suffer like that. 206 Maryam says this to Sara, her daughter. It really shows how Maryam suffers for a long time. Maryam realizes that every wound in her heart will not be gone, although she regrets, prays, and hopes. Maryam does not want her daughter to feel the same as what she feels. 30

4.1.4. Independent

Maryam is an independent person. Before being kicked out by her father from her family and her house, Maryam already learns to live independently. When someone asks her about her life, she answers it by stating she wants to be free which means she does not want to be influenced or controlled by someone or something. “Your father would not be pleased,” she teased, and held a finger up in a mock warning. As we walked over to Hassan’s house, where I have been staying, she said, “When will you grow up, Maryam?” “When it means I can be free.” She had asked this question for ever and I always give the same answer. 36 Maryam knows and realizes that being a woman in Iran means she does not have as many rights as a man does. She knows it is hard to be free as she wants. Everything starts when she wants to be a nurse rather than marry someone she does not know yet. This can be seen from Maryam speech, “He told me not to worry while telling me nothing at all. He said he hoped I would think less about the outside world, and more about my future and marriage.” 53. Her father assumes that her future means her marriage. Well, I suppose Mairy was old Iran. She was traditional and obedient, full of quite care. Maybe she had the easiest life, accepting tradition. She was your grandfather’s balm. Then there was Maryam. She was born before her time, as they say; trapped by it. She had her father’s spirit, you know- good warrior, but not for girl born into a world of kitchens and children. 139 Maryam is different from other women in Iran. While most women only stays at home and takes care of their children, Maryam chooses to deny those things called 31 tradition. She grows to be a disobedient woman and does not want to follow the tradition since she wants to be free. We never really escape. All I ever wanted as a child, a young woman, was to be free of etiquette and tradition, arranged marriages and everything just so. All I found was another world where I had to work out the new traditions, habits, how to appear just so. Isn’t it silly? 222 This quotation really represents how Maryam tries to escape from the tradition. She wants to be free from rules and obligation. ‘But do we have what we need, or know what we want? Or do we just do as we’re told? I asked. ‘Look at those mountains. Why can’t we just go there one day and walk along the valley floor, all the way to Afghanistan? I’d like to sleep in the poppy fields.’ 58 She does not want to do something that someone tells her to do, she wants to do what she thinks need to be done and what she really wants to do. Maryam also disagrees with the tradition of getting married with someone. She does not like women’s life being decided right after they were born in this world. She assumes that woman may choose the right man for them. She spoke first of Mairy, who at nineteen is three years older than me, and already has three noisy children by our cousin Reza. At her birth, Mairy was out on Reza’s knee as his future wife. I know this unusual, but I have always felt it must be a terrible thing to have your life decided moments after your first breath. 37 However, Maryam realizes that it is hard to change the tradition. She realizes that people should live along the tradition, but only for those which is made for good reason. She didn’t meet Sara eye. “Customs die hard here as elsewhere. Judgements are made for good reason and are difficult to change, however much time passes. They are the boundaries we must live within.” Her shoulders hunched in the cold. 255