51 pages • 1 hour read
The Stationery Shop of Tehran
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Part 2, Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary: “1916: The Melon Seller’s Daughter”
Ali, the young Mr. Fakhri, is betrothed to his cousin Atieh but is besotted with Badri, the young daughter of a melon-seller at the bazaar. One day, while everyone is at the mosque for midday prayers, he follows her and she kisses him. Badri is defensive about her poverty and lack of education, but offers to meet Ali at the same time whenever he wishes to see her.
Ali’s family continues to plan his marriage and his future as a religious scholar. When he tries to tell his father about Badri, he is met with laughter. He marries Atieh and they have four children. She is a perfect wife and mother and it is a sign of her devotion to him that she expresses no resentment when he chooses to open the Stationery Shop rather than pursuing a more prestigious career as a scholar. Ali never forgets Badri, and he fantasizes about her when he is making love to his wife.
One day, Badri arrives in his shop elegantly dressed and accompanied by the young Bahman. She tells Ali that she is now an engineer’s wife and her husband has helped her to learn to read and write. She introduces her son, who is immediately interested in the shop’s collection of books. She makes some rather cutting remarks about men like Fakhri, asserting that men who respect old-fashioned social mores about class are “real men” (143). Fakhri responds humbly, resolving to teach young Bahman everything he can and to help him realize his potential.
Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “1953: Fate on the Forehead”
A letter from Bahman arrives and Roya is bewildered to find him dismissing their love as a teenage infatuation, which he must abandon in order to pursue his higher, political aims. She doubts the authenticity of the letter and wonders whether it was written under duress. First of all, she does not believe that Bahman would really write such a letter. Secondly, to have reached her when it did it should have been mailed before the coup. Finally, it is the first such letter she has received by post.
The next morning, Roya receives a phone call from Mrs. Aslan, announcing that they are all at the family villa in the North and her son is to be married in two months. Roya is in a state of dazed shock as Zari holds forth on Bahman’s weakness and treachery. Finally, lying in bed, she admits out loud that her sister was right about her fiancé.
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary: “1953-4: Pioneers”
Given the changed political situation, Roya’s father is determined that his daughters should study in the United States. His wife is skeptical and Roya is resistant at first, but both girls are now taking English lessons. Two months have passed since Bahman’s wedding to Shahla. Roya’s mother argues that at least Zari should stay in Iran and Roya considers that Zari is increasingly attached to Yousof, a medical student, and may not wish to leave Iran.
Roya’s father reflects that, despite all their efforts, perhaps Iran is not destined to be a free country. He recalls his own father’s struggles for a constitutional revolution in 1906. Roya’s mother argues that it makes no sense moving their daughter to the West because they do not want to live under a ruler (the shah) who is a Western puppet. Her father counters that in America there is at least a guarantee of safety and democracy. Zari suddenly speaks up and agrees that she will apply and travel with Roya.
Roya considers the pitying looks she is getting around the city, the traumatic memory of Mr. Fakhri’s death and her constant fear of running into Bahman, who has abandoned the idea of working in journalism and has instead taken up a position in an oil company. She concludes that she and her sister will follow her father’s wishes and be pioneers, returning to their homeland as internationally- educated, modern women.
Both girls are accepted into a women’s college in California. Their parents spend all their savings preparing them to go. As the plane leaves, Roya looks down on her home city through the low-hanging clouds.
Part 2, Chapters 14-16 Analysis
The narrative of Ali and Badri’s doomed love further illustrates how social constraints and conventions can run counter to natural emotions and affections in The Experience of Love and Marriage, in this case with tragic consequences. The imagery of melons and ice connects Badri to Roya, who has a glass ice and melon at Jahangir’s party in Chapter 9. The delayed revelation of the identity of the two young lovers, who are initially referred to only with their unfamiliar first names, has a disorienting effect and invites readers to consider the chain of events that has led these two teenagers to become the adults they now are.
The Ties Between the Personal and Political with regard to both Iran’s doomed democracy and Bahman and Roya’s doomed love is discussed again in Chapter 16, where Roya’s father reflects on past, failed attempts to bring democracy to Iran. His fatalistic conclusion—that Iran is a doomed country and his daughters must migrate to America—is immediately countered by his wife’s retort that America is responsible for sabotaging Iran’s fledgling democracy. Democracy has failed to take root in Iran as a consequence of societal corruption and the toxic legacy of imperialism. The doomed romance between Bahman and Roya reflects in miniature the dashing of youthful idealism and optimism that Iran at large undergoes at this time.
As Roya’s flight leaves Tehran at the end of Chapter 16, she longs for the low-hanging clouds to burst and to soak the city with tears (163), creating a moment of pathetic fallacy, in which Roya wishes to see her emotions mirrored in the natural landscape around her. As she leaves Tehran behind, she exchanges one chapter of her life for another, leaving behind the first flush of her youth and moving forward as a more disillusioned young woman.
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