Azar Nafisi in her book The Republic of Imagination uses her and her friends experiences and

observations in her home country of Iran and her adopted country, The United States of America
to express her concern regarding the disappearance or taken for granted opportunity to use
imagination in The U.S. The storylines and characters from three American novels are used to
illustrate these changes within The United States of Americas education policies and citizenry.
Nafisi is an Iranian born woman who lived in Iran prior to, during, and after the violent
revolutionary times of 1979. She eventually immigrated to The United States. She became a
naturalized citizen of The U.S. in 2008. Nafisi is an educator in literature at the university level.
She feels that the loss of liberal arts education and a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics (STEM) education in our schools is the primary source for the loss of
imagination and reduction in the ability of the average citizen to make moral, ethical decisions
for themselves. The first novel she chooses is Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. She uses the
characters of Huckleberry Finn to address the subjects of racism, censorship, and the loss of
American idealism. She views the writings of Mark Twain and especially Huckleberry Finn as
the point in the national timeline when The U.S. begins to become conflicted between
individuality and conformity, personal choice and nationalism. The second novel she chooses is
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. This novel was chosen to illustrate The United States embracing of
materialism and consumerism. Idealism, imagination and dreams are replaced by conformity to
a national culture of chasing after the newest possessions. Personal decision making is replaced
by the new profession of advertising. The main character in this novel is controlled by the love
of the newest technology, societal class and privilege. Nafisi uses Carson McCullers writings to
describe how regional culture and ideology promotes conformity and isolation. She also points
out how national leaders use these divisions to force educational policies on The U.S. citizens
that promotes standardization and eliminates individual thought and decision making. Nafisis
perspective of The U.S. is one of hope and fear. Her experiences during the revolution in her
native country of Iran and the totalitarian state which followed gives her a unique perspective on
the freedom to use ones imagination and to make personal choices that citizens of The U.S. take
for granted.

The character of Huckleberry Finn, for Nafisi, is the epitome of traditional American
heroes. She says, at their best, American heroes are wary of being overcivilized, that they carve
out their own path and look to their heart for what is right and just (Nafisi, 2014, p. 44). She
feels that Americans have lost this spirit of adventure, passion and integrity. She states that
Americans take for granted the opportunities to read inspiring literature like Huckleberry Finn.
The character of Huck allows us to follow the misadventures of a lonely and povertystricken
orphan in a cruel and ungenerous world, only to be rewarded in the endwe emerge comfortable
in the knowledge that, despite all the terrible things happening in this terrible world, alls well
that ends well (Nafisi, 2014, p. 52). This was the definition of the American dream. The U.S.
did not limit it citizens by forcing them to permanently remain in the socio-economic class in
which they were born. Nafisis students in Iran read about characters like Huck who was
suspicious of the smothery ways of conventional society, but in his ideals, his moral courage, his
determination to open himself up to the lessons of nature and the vagaries of experience, he was
as much a product of the Enlightenment as were George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, or
so I came to think when Ibegan reading more American history (Nafisi, 2014, p. 57). They
read about a nation in which any dream was achievable with enough personal courage,
imagination and willingness to persevere through adversity, and choices could be made based on
their own personal sense of ethics and integrity. Nafisi concludes that Hucks story is shaped
around one central theme, best articulated by Mark Twain in a notebook entry of 1895, in which
he describes Huck Finn as a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience came
into collision and conscience suffers defeat. (Nafisi, 2014, p. 64). The source of Hucks
rebellion, is individuality, is morality. One of Twains greatest contributions was to transform
the seat of morality from conscience to the heart, from public mores and dictums to individual
experience and choice (Nafisi, 2014, p. 64). Huckleberry Finns U.S.A. was one of adventure;
individuality; and personal choices, ethics, and integrity. It was The U.S.A. that would be lost to
the conformity to the ideas of others.

Nafisi points out in the novel Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis that we are invited to recognize that this
all American businessman, a defender of individualism and free trade, is best defined by his
ownership of the best of the nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm clocks,
with all the modern attachments, (Nafisi, 2014, p. 165). Mr. Babbitt is completely opposite of
Huck. Mr. Babbitt is defined as an individual coming from a culture like ours where the newest
and most sophisticated gadget is a must have. It was important for him and his business to
socialize with the right people and belong to the correct social club. Mr. Babbitt was comforted
by the smothery ways of conventional society (Nafisi, 2014, p. 57). When he faced individual
freedom, he was frightened. Nafisi describes how possessions have always been signs of wealth,
signs of social class, and signs of the number of friends one has. She then observes about
technological possessions that America has come up with a new role for them: they are now our
pals, and although we may find ourselves addicted to them, they are ultimately dispensable
(Nafisi, 2014, p. 171). Thus, American individuality is replaced with easily dispensable
companionship. The seat of morality returns from the heart to the conscience, from individual
experiences and choices to public mores and dictums in the form of advertising.

Carson McCullers is a writer of Southern fiction, a term to which Nafisi says she was
almost allergicSome of my [Nafisis] favorite writers belonged to that group, but they were
great writers, not great Southern writers (Nafisi, 2014, p. 214). Nafisi uses Carson McCullers
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter to express a newer understanding of how important regional
differences or differences of any kind are important in maintaining individuality, inspiring
imagination, and fighting conformity. This novel tells the stories of four individuals united by
their hometown in Western Georgia and each character has something in their life against which
they must struggle. Nafisi realizes that this is a metaphor for the uniqueness of The U.S. Nafisi
says about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, "The story begins with the personal lives of these
isolated small town characters, but it ultimately links them to the destiny of the whole of
humanity (Nafisi, 2014, p. 280). Each character seems to represent issues that the entire U.S.
faces even today. The best example of this concept is when Nafisi is reminded of the character
make Kelly while watching a news program about a young girl that had parents whom had both
lost their source of employment and the family at lost their home. The family base numerous
challenges because of their homelessness. Nafisi says, What caught my attention was the
expressions on the faces of the children, in particular back girl with short blonde hair, who
seemed to beam forth a desperate resilience and personal integrity that made her say, not because
of the camera but in all sincerity, that they would survive, and that for her the American dream
was still valid-and I believed her (Nafisi, 2014, p. 252). She realizes, as Twain has suggested
that The writer questions social norms and homes in on uncomfortable truths. He (or she)
forces us to admit impulses and yearnings we would prefer to ignore or deny, and to
acknowledge a yawning gap between what is and what should be. The American writer does so
with a special mandate...because in a democratic society, far more so than in a monarchial or
totalitarian one, the writer speaks for the individual and not for the state (Nafisi, 2014, p. 295).
Nafisi shows the reader that the American dream is still alive because there are still individual
citizens of The U.S. who can imagine a better country and are willing to individually struggle to
achieve what they can imagine.