Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Darius the Great Is Not Okay, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
Family
Persian Identity and Culture
Mental Health, Depression, and Connection
Bullying
Summary
Analysis
To Darius’s surprise, Tehran smells like a normal city, not like rice (even “Fractional Persian” households like his usually smell like rice). He almost drops Laleh when he hears Mamou scream and sees her running toward them. Darius has never seen Mom so happy as when she hugs her mom for the first time in 17 years. Dayi Jamsheed drives everyone back to Yazd. Dad and Laleh sit in the back row of the SUV, while Darius and Mamou sit in the middle row. She holds Darius to her the whole time, seemingly trying to make up for missing a lifetime of hugs.
From the moment Darius steps out of the airport, Tehran defies his expectations: it smells like any other city, and his family members are shockingly affectionate. Darius isn’t entirely used to the kind of physical affection that Mamou shows him, though he doesn’t seem to mind it. This may be in part because Mamou doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with Darius, like Dad does—her hugs make him feel secure and wanted.
Themes
Mamou asks Darius about school and if he has a girlfriend. He doesn’t want to explain truck nuts to her, so he gives noncommittal answers. She insists he’s so handsome, so she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Darius shrugs and yawns, so Mamou suggests he nap. She pulls his head to her shoulder and kisses his forehead, her tears running into Darius’s hair. They both say, “I love you,” and Darius marvels that this kind of affection is “an opportunity, not a burden” for his grandmother. Still, it’s not the most comfortable position to sleep in, so Darius only dozes a bit.
However loved and accepted Mamou might make Darius feel, Darius immediately closes himself off and declines to share with her that he’s not the person he thinks she believes he is (that is, a popular, attractive, and good student). Still, notice that Darius doesn’t seem to think of himself as less deserving of Mamou’s love just because he doesn’t see himself the way she does. Rather, he appreciates her unconditional love and dozes happily in her presence.
Themes
Darius thinks about when he was little and Mom would chant to him in Farsi at bedtime. Dad, on the other hand, would help Darius come up with fantastical, exciting stories. This is one of the few things Darius remembers perfectly from life before antidepressants—mostly because he clearly remembers the night Story Time with Dad stopped about six months before Laleh’s birth. Dad gave no explanation, he just said Darius wasn’t getting a story that night. Mom insisted Darius hadn’t done anything wrong, but Darius knows deep inside that Dad didn’t want to tell him stories anymore.
Dad and Darius’s relationship hasn’t always been so fraught. Indeed, they used to share really happy times together telling stories. The way that Darius frames the end of “Story Time with Dad” makes it seem like this was a very traumatizing experience for him: it was, perhaps, the first event that made him believe Dad doesn’t love him. And Darius seems to have carried that belief through to the present.
Themes
Darius wakes up to Mamou saying that they’re here. Yazd doesn’t look like a scene from Aladdin; the asphalt is dull and gray, and the houses are white but otherwise look like those in Portland. (Fatty Bolger has been teasing Darius about camels and cacti, and it turns out he’s wrong on both counts.) Dayi Jamsheed pulls up in front of a white house with scrubby grass in front and tells Dad to wake up. Darius gets out and offers to help Dayi Jamsheed with the luggage, but Jamsheed refuses. This is Darius’s first taarof in Iran. To taarof technically means to put others first, but in practice, for example, it means guests refuse food, hosts insist, and one side eventually gives in. It’s not an American thing, and Darius has never gotten the hang of it.
As Darius sees Yazd for himself, he realizes that both he and Trent have been ignorant about what Iran is really like. Cacti are native to the Americas, for one, and many Iranian cities are modern. Introducing readers to the taarof practice helps Darius explain one more way that he feels less Persian, as taarofing isn’t something Americans really do. However, not being skilled when it comes to a taarof doesn’t actually make Darius less Persian: it just reflects that he was raised in the United States.
Themes
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Mom tells Dayi Jamsheed to let Darius help. The two argue in Farsi while Dad gets out of the SUV and meets Darius’s eyes. They shrug at each other, and when Jamsheed finally gives in, Darius takes a few pieces of luggage from him. As Darius follows Mamou up the driveway, he asks where Babou is. Mamou says he’s in bed; he’s been sleeping a lot lately. It feels weird to meet Mamou and not Babou, and Darius is scared. Entering the house, Darius kicks off his shoes and follows Mamou down a hallway lined with family photos. She shows him his room and asks if he’s hungry. Mom isn’t here to help Darius taarof, but Mamou listens when Darius says he wants to shower and nap.
Darius and Dad share a moment of connection here, as non-Farsi speakers who don’t entirely see the point in this taarof: the luggage has to get inside one way or another. Later, when Mamou takes Darius at his word that he wants to shower and sleep, it suggests that elements of Iranian culture may be more fluid than Darius thought. Part of this may be Mamou trying to make Darius feel more welcome, knowing that he’s not accustomed to having to taarof. Either way, this makes Darius feel loved, respected, and more at home.
Themes
The room is small and features more family photos, including one of teenage Mamou that Mom also has framed at home. Darius starts to undress and studies the ensuite bathroom, which has a Mamou toilet: a porcelain bowl set in the floor that you squat over to use. He braves the toilet, showers, and finds a box fan in the corner to move some air around the stuffy room. The fan, though, won’t stay still; it dances across the floor toward Darius. No matter how he turns it, it dances around to face him. Clearly, the Dancing Fan is evil. Darius holds it in place with his suitcase and gets in bed, facing the wall.
Squatting toilets like this one are pretty common in the Middle East and Asia, though they’re virtually unheard of in the U.S. Along with the taarof custom, Darius is already experiencing some culture shock: he’s discovering how things differ in Iran, and it’s unsettling for him. The Dancing Fan, of course, doesn’t help, as it seems more actively nefarious than the squatting toilet.
Themes
