Funny In Farsi Theme

In the chapter “America, Land of the free” from the book Funny in Farsi Firoozeh Dumas argues that people are more willing to do things under uncommon circumstances when being offered something in exchange because desire makes them ignore the their actions and focus on the benefits. Everybody has experienced the feeling of desire in their lifetime, and are conscious of how this feeling is involved in their decision making process.

The focus of this paper is an analysis of the book Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas using concepts from the Lives Across Cultures textbook. Ten concepts are identified and defined from Chapter readings. Following definitions, examples from the novel of these concepts are shown.

The war brings enormous damages to humanity. People who survive war suffer from psychological problems. In the excerpt from, A Long Way Gone, a boy who managed to stay alive through war suffers from the past memories that are even in his dreams, “I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away” (Beah). This quote makes it clear that people who went through war suffer mentally from unwillingly dreaming of war and memories that suddenly come to their heads. The image “In Times of War” also shows that humanity suffers from war. In the cartoon picture, there are people lying

One of the problems she faces is nobody can pronounce her name and because of that she has trouble making friends and getting jobs. The culture that she's from has names that actually mean something but in the United States, there are simple names that just sounds nice and they are simple. She says that nobody in the USA wants to deal with complicated names and thats why they just try not to associate with them. With this new culture and her complicated name she found it difficult to have a social life or find a job. To deal with this problem she decided to change her name to a simple common American name. After she changed her name to Julie she made friends, and found jobs a lot easier. Most people would consider this a personal choice that shaped her identity, but in my opinion it was the culture. If it weren't for the culture she never would have changed her

Firoozeh Dumas, author of Funny in Farsi, crafts a well developed book that details her experience as an Iranian immigrant in America. She uses humor and a light hearted tone throughout the book and this creates an appeal for all ages. While Dumas spins hilarious stories from her childhood, she often speaks with a serious undertone about the struggles of growing up Iranian in America. Dumas tells why she decided to attempt to take on an American name, how she discovered the way Americans truly feel about Iranians, and how her husband, Francois, experienced life in America differently than she did. Through her stories, the reader is able to dive into Dumas’ life and experience her life alongside her.

When Firoozeh Dumas, who at the time of moving here, had her maiden name which she left unknown, she was taunted by other school children because of her hard to pronounce name. She failed to mention the twists people made of her name, unlike the amusing nicknames her cousins and brothers received. After coming up with her much more Americanized name of Julie, she was no longer an outsider. All of a sudden,

In the novel, Funny in Farsi, religion plays an important role as Firoozeh Dumas migrated to the United States of America. During her time in America, Firoozeh is forced to look upon things differently than how most American's do, however as her life continues she establishes the perfect balance between her homelands religion and the religion in America. In addition, religion also serves as a tool for her to demonstrate the progress she has made to become culturally in tune with the Americans she is around.

The Power to Change Change: to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone. With change, comes potential. You can either chose to embrace it for the good, or you choose to push it away. Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas is the story of how her life shifted when her family moved from Iran to Southern California when she was just seven years old. Firoozeh came to America with no firsthand knowledge on what it would be like.

In the excerpt from “Funny in Farsi” by Firoozeh Dumas a mother and a daughter struggle in a school as they speak a different language, yet they soon realize the father's description of America is exactly right. “Since my mother and I did not speak English, the meeting consisted of a dialogue between my father and Mrs. Sandberg(The teacher)”. It was very difficult for the mother and daughter to communicate with others around them, for example, their teacher. “He had decided that it would be a good idea for my mother to attend school with me for a few weeks”. The child’s mother does not know much more than her daughter, this is a great opportunity for both to learn something new in their lives. “After spending an entire day in America, surrounded

War is one of the most controversial topics in today’s society. However, because poetry tends to focus on the experiences of the author, it is quite widespread. Grief, fear, and pain are some of the most prevalent emotions in literature. In his poem, “Facing It,” Yusef Komunyakaa tells his experience with war and how it has affected him. The poem begins with the author experiencing a loss of identity as he is at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Then, he experiences nostalgia whilst reminiscing his past. Lastly, he experiences flashbacks that deter his ability to distinguish the past from the present. Komunyakaa wastes no time in loading his poem with themes. He touches on grief, war, gaining control, acceptance, and sentimentality. The

Iranians,1 the majority of whom settled in the United States. A generation later, the girls

“…by the end tears are as near as laughter”. Compare both playwrights’ juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy in The History Boys and Translations. Comedy, defined to be “a play characterized by its humorous or satirical tone and its depiction of amusing people or incidents, in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity.” The juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy in The History Boys is more prominent than the highlighted tragic aspects, alongside the occasional glimpse of comedy in Friel’s Translations.

The information depicted in this text is from the article “Beyond a Joke: From Animal Laughter to Human Joy?” written by Jaak Panksepp. Panksepp is a neurobiologist who graduated with a degree in neuroscience, biology, and psychology. This article covered the ideology that non-human creatures can emit laughter similar to humans. Panksepp had experimented on three various non-human creatures designed to discover whether or not they produced laughter, including a chimpanzee, rat, and less exclusively, canines (dogs). Experimenter would transmit stimuli to activate joy, and thus compare it to human emotions. “I think the more we know about the emotions of other animals, the more we will understand our own emotions,” (Panksepp, 2000’s). Panksepp

Death is inevitable in every person’s life, but death in these character’s lives is easily predicted to be early, and this represents the sadness and sorrows in the innocence of war. There are many ways to die, and war is the saddest way for that to occur, but at the same time,

Historical sources indicate that the embryo of came to be termed as the Ismaili daʿwa began to take shape during the imamate of al-Ṣādiq.