Chapters 13 & 14

The Abedis try to return to a ‘normal’ life, but the influence of Khomeini’s fundamentalist ideas are apparent in their everyday routines.  Reza joins the Air Force.  Iraq has declared war on Iran.  A border town with oil refineries, Kermanshah is a ripe target for Iraq throughout the conflict.

1. War
2. Choices 
3. Fate

1. How is the “American Hostage Crisis” viewed in America?  In Iran?
2. Compare and contrast Ardeshir and Reza’s climb up the mountain with that of Chapter three. 
3. Why does Reza join the Iranian Air Force?
4. Describe Nimtaj.
5. Do you agree with Abbas’s message to Reza?

Create a storyboard for each major event in this chapter.  Each storyboard square will include a picture and either a one sentence summary or a copied sentence from that point in the story.

1. His right hand grabbed a rock that dissolved from his grip, and he hung perpendicular, swinging like an old gate.  Reza felt the hot breath of death on his neck, Let go it breathed.  Just let go.  “Nooooo!” his voice boomed off the carvings of kings.
2. With the voice of a frightened child, Reza blurted out questions he knew had no answers.  “Hassan’s missing, the universities are bullshit, and oil money, oil money my ass, Shah’s not coming back, Khomeini’s a bag of lies, and I, and I…”  He dropped to his knees and wanted to cry, but the words bit at his heart with more anger than sadness. 
3. Raw anger and undefined shame rocked Reza.  His insides raged, his body shook, but in the end—he could only cry with her.  Cry, until he lay drained of all emotions, save one.  The one he has tried to banish all his life.  Fear.

A symbol is a person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance.

Discuss the symbolic meanings of the carvings of the ancient kings, the climb up the cliff and/or the mountains.  Draw examples from both this chapter and previous chapters.

Against the dramatic landscape of world altering events, Reza’s heroric journey unfolds.