Chapters 8-13 Settings Analysis

While Marina was in Evin Political Prison she experienced a harsh environment, that would be incredibly hard to adjust to. Marina would only get warm water once every 2 or 3 weeks, where she would shower for 10 minutes at 2 am in the morning. At night lights out would be at 11, were you would sleep on the floor with 3 blankets. Marina would place one blanket on the floor, one blanket as her duvet and would fold the last blanket into smaller sections to sleep on. There would be sp many girls that they would have to sleep even out on the hallways. During the time of Shad in area 246 (upstairs and down) there was a total of 50 prisoners, though after the Islamic revolution over 650 girls are now in area 246. Marina’s typical day at Evin would we getting up at 7, and the other girls would do there morning prays, after they would tidy there room by folding blankets and organizing areas. Then two girls who had meal time duties would spread a plastic sheet on the ground with metal spoons, plastic plates and cups, their were no knifes or forks, though a large cylinder flask of tea, bread and feta cheese would be for breakfast.
The tea contained camphor, which guards put in to prevent the menstruating cycle as sanitary pads are too expensive, though the negative side effects are swelling and depression. For Lunch they were services rise and soup, and for dinner they had bread and dates. During the day they would watch Islamic videos and read Islamic books, they also had one hour outside in the courtyard, and every month was visitor’s day.
Before Marina was arrested she could see the corruption and danger on the street. Military curfews, soldiers and military trucks were places on each corner and tanks would be seen crossing the street. The fall of Shad and up rise of Khomeini meant that important government or military positioned people suddenly left the country, schools were shut down in the late fall of 1978.
Not to long after the revolution, dancing was declared evil and illegal, Marina’s father lost his job, and went to work as a translator at a stainless steel factory. Marina’s school later open again, though the principal who held the school together was replaced by a 19 year old revolutionary guard. It was rumored that the old principal had been executed because she was close to the minister of education during the shad. During the between period of the fall of the Shad and rise of Khomeini there was a lot of political talk around school, political groups such as Marxists and Mojahedin-e Khalgh (God’s fighters for the people) who were underground and illegal during the shad period held open ceremonies and rallies for people to join.
At a young age of 16, Marina was exposed to a lot of mature, dangerous, political issues, she was very interested in others ideologies, though felt like she couldn’t join any of these political groups because they were all Islamic. She believed that mixing religion with politics was dangerous.  Aram has matured in a sad, depressing way since his brother disappearance and revolution, before he had only thought about basketball and partying, though now he worried about everything and gave marina advice all the time.  
Sarah also changed during the revolution, during her time in Evin she attempted suicide.
All color and happiness had been drained from Tehran, people wore only dark-colored clothes and looked down as they walked, as if to avoid each other as well as the scenery, almost every wall was covered with harsh slogans that promoted hatred.
Marina is very lucky to of survived this dark period.