Prisoner Of Tehran By Marina Nemat: An Analysis

To survive is the most basic purpose of all life. Living beings act to further survival and to prevent the opposite, death. Humans dedicate their whole lives in ensuring their survival by getting jobs to provide basic needs and making friends and companions to not have to rough through the struggles of life alone. This form of survival deals with those who are blessed with freedom; the freedom to work, speak out, love, laugh and most importantly live. However, there are circumstances in which these freedoms are suppressed and where one’s own life is taken out of the individual's control and where the only means of survival are limited to the mind and chance. When a person has only thoughts and luck to keep them alive, their survival is infinitesimally …show more content…
Having a weak and unwilling mind will reduce a person to their state of their body and it is when one allows this to happen then any chance of survival is taken away. Characteristics that could strengthen the mentality include hope and faith, both which rely on a deus ex machina type complex in which some unknown force (luck being a contender) come in and turn the situation around for the better. In Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat, this concept of the limited tools of survival is highlighted by the battle with maintaining the strength of mind and reliance on luck that Marina faced in the political prison she was held in. It was in this political prison that her rights were effectively abolished and she was constantly tortured and put under the constant fear of death and it was only through her mental perseverance and pure chance that she had survived.Survival was made possible when it was least expected through hope given by the future and family, faith in religion and supernatural figures and luck that allows for relationships that make survival more …show more content…
In Marinas case, the hope of seeing her family again was enough of a driving force to keep her strong through the whole ordeal. Marina would resort to thinking that one day she will return to her family and Andre and that she had to keep strong for them, with her saying, "I knew that someday I would feel the embrace of Andre and the love of my family and I had the fight for that" (Nemat 72). It is apparent that Marina used the hope of seeing her family again to motivate her to stay strong and it confirms the notion that “Hope is powerful. As opposed to its dark cousin, despair, which paralyzes us, hope energizes and mobilizes us. Beyond that, hope affects those around us, lifting them as well as us.” (Nowinski). Another key aspect of her hope was her grandmother Xena. During her time in Evin, Marina constantly thought of her grandmother who in comparison had to deal with just as much suffering as Marina. This gave Marina the hope that if her grandmother could do it she could too. Marina was humbled by the fact that, "The similarity of what's happening to me now brings my mind back to my grandmother who has lost everything she loved and had to deal with more than anyone should be expected to deal with." (Nemat 128). It was with this hope that Marina was able to be mentally able to take on the troubles in much of the same way that