The Story of Zahra depicts characters who struggle with sexual repression because of strict societal standards, resulting in shame that leads to violence. Such violence may be directed toward the self or others, but in either case, the novel suggests, women bear the brunt of it.

Zahra learns in childhood to associate sex and guilt, accompanying her mother on her illicit liaisons with her lover. Zahra’s rape by Malek exacerbates this anxiety and shame, as society prizes female chastity and teaches her that she ought to have prevented her own assault. The shame she carries from her rape motivates various self-destructive decisions, including her acceptance of Majed’s offer of marriage, as she feels that she has no other choice and may not even deserve one. Just before agreeing to marry Majed, she thinks of herself, “This is Zahra—a woman who sprawls naked day after day on a bed in a stinking garage, unable to protest at anything” (40). Her self-loathing also causes her to pick at her face, inflicting a small violence upon herself even as (and because) greater ones continue to breach her safety and well-being.

By contrast, the men in the novel tend to project their shame outward and visit violence on those around them. Like his wife, Majed has a long history of sexual repression. When Majed begins masturbating frequently, he hears from both doctors and his mother that such a habit will affect his mind and bring illness and destruction upon himself and his family. Marriage offers itself as a potential “solution” (by providing Majed with a societally approved outlet for his sexual urges), but it also raises the possibility of exposure; he says, “My greatest fear was that, when I eventually married, my wife would discover my secret” (81). Instead, Majed discovers that Zahra is no longer a virgin and channels his own shame into berating and then raping her. His reaction illustrates how strict sexual mores can interact with misogyny, as Majed treats Zahra as the embodiment of his own guilt.

The war brings with it a loosening of social norms that facilitates sexual inhibition. Ahmad, for example, stops repressing his sexual desires, even while Zahra is present. As she hears Ahmad moan in the next room, she thinks, “Doesn’t the fact of this bother you, even as you masturbate? Did Majed and Malek feel as you do as they took their pleasure on my body while it remained stiff as wood and I sensed a clammy chill in every pore?” (165). Zahra’s words reveal how thoroughly she has come to associate sex with violence, yet Zahra too finally experiences pleasure outside of social norms, finding freedom she has never known in her relationship with the sniper. She reflects, “This war has been essential. It has swept away the hollowness concealed by routines” (162). Zahra here suggests that the war has obliterated restrictive sexual mores, but the conclusion to her affair with Sami reveals that the liberation the war promises is at best incomplete and at worst illusory. For women, at least, traditional mores remain very much in place.