Why is Amineh so lonely?

Amineh feels a pervasive sense of loneliness throughout the novel. Why do you suppose this is? Was there anything she could have done to help herself? As the book ended, did you feel she’d found a key to happiness, or do you believe her life will continue much as it always has?

Amineh was like I think many women: she wanted to be loved, respected and appreciated. Not being able to find this because her husband was not able to deal with his emotional side as well as his intellectual one, Amineh was doomed to loneliness in that marriage. She kept thinking it was herself when really Farzah didn't help much. That's why I loved Patrik so much because he could see who Amineh. I wished he had married her first.

Obviously because she has lost her parents. It is implied she had a wonderful relationship with her mother especially when it came to the roses, and her father she just adored. When she had to live with her grandmother, I think she lost a lot of self- esteem. If anyone has ever been in a relationship like that, all you want is to be accepted and loved and know that you are valued as a person.

Amineh is lonely because she has always carried a guilt that she is not good enough and so she has to work harder and harder to become the kind of wife she thinks Farzad wants. She never realizes that she is everything to Farzad until after he is gone. She also never discovered that she was NOT the cause of her parents’ death until much later in life. These factors cause her to feel alone with her guilt until late in the book.

Amineh is lonely because, except for one or two instances early in her marriage, she doesn’t feel particularly close to her husband, yet she longs for it. She feels Farzad looks down on her intellectually and is remote in his feelings for her. Fortunately she has her other family and friends, such as Ava, to help her feel loved.

Guilt and loss have shaped her life. On top of that, having a constantly critical grandmother would make her feel unworthy of love. She needed a loving, nurturing person to bring her out of that loneliness and she did not get that from her husband.

Amineh's past and present marital situation contributed to her view of herself - her feeling of loneliness.
She wrestled with her self-worth throughout the book but eventually came to realize she was a good person that deserved to be happy. She learned to love herself in the end and enjoy herself.

Her grandmother stole her confidence and created such self doubt and guilt. Her insecurities left her questioning whether she was deserving of love and happiness

I agree that Amineh's upbringing and the lack of confidence she developed had a lot to do with it, but I also think some of it was her own fault for tolerating her loneliness. She had options, I'm sure she could have fostered more friendships with other women.

Some people just seem to be stuck - stuck in their heads, stuck in bad situations - and can't seem to break out of the cycle. I'd like to think that Patrik would help her get beyond her lack of confidence and help her be less lonely, but I somehow I don't really think she'll get there.

Amineh started with a lack of confidence and then went into a marriage where she was left out of Farzad's world.

I feel like she is constantly searching to fill a void. As she mentions in the book she is somewhat jealous when she first meets Farzad's family and the closeness they have. I feel like after her parents death her family never provided each other with support and that carried into Amineh's adult life. Her grandmother was a mean woman who stole Amineh's self esteem. In my opinion, marrying Farzad was a way to try to fill that void, as well. She quickly realizes that he isn't providing that support, as well, as she is left out of many things that are going on.

Amineh feels lonely as it seems that she takes her lifetime to come into herself and her needs and what she wanted.
Losing her parents at a young age and then having a grandmother who stole/destroyed her self esteem and confidence instead of bolstering and comforting at a terrible time in her life and put her in a vulnerable position in what to expect from others and then marrying a man who was more often more concerned about his career than the emotions of his wife or at least did not see that she needed more emotional involvement.

I agree, it seems we all agree: her losses, her sense of guilt, reinforced by her grandmother and the resentment of her sister, gave her a low sense of self-esteem—not to mention, just as she is coming into womanhood, the rising of a regime that wants to keep women out of the larger world, to deny them power and self-direction. She hoped her marriage would fill the void of loneliness, but as her friend Ava observes much later, if you don’t love yourself, nothing can fill that void. She did not have the confidence to reach out and express her needs to Farzad, to develop an intimacy over time; she took minor rebuffs to heart more than Ava would have, and nursed resentments as much as her sense of guilt.

I think she was lonely because she kept herself from getting too close to anyone because she was fearful she would lose them. Farzad wasn't a very nurturing husband and I thought she felt more lonely around him because he wouldn't let her in to his world.