Analysis Of The Breadwinner By Deborah Ellis

During the reign of the Taliban, women were subjected to silence while injustice flared through the Middle East. Forced to stay submissive to their superiors, women had no rights nor freedom to surpass society’s upbringings. The main intention of the three novels eliminates the withholdings of education from certain groups. Without these fundamental regulations in women’s favor, the value of peace is threatened.

In the novel, ‘Parvana’, written by Deborah Ellis, the characters experience a diverse amount of changes that greatly affect them. Some extravagant changes that occur include Parvana’s father being arrested, Parvana changes into a boy to work, Parvana and Shauzia dig up bones and then Parvana’s father return home after being arrested by the Taliban. These changes clearly impact Parvana as well as other family members in similar and different ways.

When you walk through the streets and enter into the houses of the village, you will notice boys and girls from the same family and parents but with a big difference between their lives. You will see the boy with ultimate freedom and many options to live the kind of life that he wants but to the other side you will face a girl with a desperate and hopeless smile with many wishes and dreams that are always wishes for her. Instead of having pen and books in her hand, she is doing all the type of hard and physical work all her life. She is always silent and powerless against the harsh rules of life. Furthermore, when it comes to the rest of her life. She cannot select the partner of her life with whom she spends the rest of her life. She never had a book in her hand or learned in school, to know that how she can have her freedom and can chose whatever she wants for herself. She never went to school and learned that how powerful she is and what big things she can do. That is the kind of life that a girl has in province of Wardak, Afghanistan. Lack of girls' school is a big problem in the Wardak, Afghanistan, and in order to solve it religious leaders and seniors of the province, and government can have a big role.

In the beginning of the book, during the late 50’s and 60’s, the richer women of Afghanistan are fairly equal to the men. The poorer/religious women are rarely in a position of power and must obey their husbands or male relatives. However they have the freedom to go where they like without a male escort. One of the characters, Mariam, is walking through a rich neighborhood, noticing the women with their makeup on and nothing on their heads. This is a very public society. These women can smoke and have office jobs. Mariam compares them with herself, who has no education, has had no power over her life, and must wear a burqa everytime she goes outside. Mariam is

In this novel the author, Hosseini, uses a powerful bond between the two main character to give a reader a deeper understanding about the way women are viewed and treated in Afghanistan. These two main characters are used to represent the different perspectives from which women in are viewed. The first character we meet is Mariam, a woman from an unloving and poor past. She portrays the old ideas of abuse and mistreatment towards women. Conversely, the other main character Laila, a young woman who came from a more modern and loving family, is used to represent progress towards the equal treatment and education of women. These two women obviously come from different backgrounds but are brought together through

The Taliban creates separate facilities for the men and women and does not attempt to hide the fact that working conditions are far worse for the women. During the initial arrival of the Taliban in Kabul, Mariam, Laila, and Rasheed experience a level of hopefulness. They have all heard that the Taliban brings peace to the territories they conquer, and Kabul is ready for relief after years of war. Mariam and Laila’s hope quickly disappears when they learn their lives will have more restrictions now than ever before. According to the Taliban rule, women are no longer allowed in public without a male relative, and they must always wear burqas when traveling.

This shows that women were nervous to be seen by the men who had all of the power. They were in fact afraid of being seen. In the book “I Am Malala” by women rights advocate Malala Yousafzai she tells her life story. She begins in her childhood where she started to see the inequality enforced by the Taliban. As she grows up she starts to see her rights be taken from her like her right to an education.

Before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan many women had civil rights similar to the woman in America. (“Women in Afghanistan: the back story”) Horia Mosadiq, only a young girl when Russia invaded Afghanistan, spoke about her experiences as girl, “I remember my mother wearing miniskirts and taking us to the cinema. Those days were beautiful.” Afghan women were able to vote in 1919, and by the 1950s, women were finally equal to men with the removal of purdah, a social and religious practice of female seclusion. However, by the time the War in Afghanistan in the early 80s had started, the injustices against females soon grew in staggering numbers. (“Women in Afghanistan: the back story”) 'Afghan women were the ones who lost most from the war and militarization.' (Horia

My class has finished reading the story The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis this story. Is based on a true story about a girl who cut off her hair to look like a boy so. Her family didn't starve and die while her father was in prison. And in this story, Parvana and I have many similarities and differences.

Feminism has revolutionized the rights of women around the world. From having almost no rights to suddenly being set free, the women of Afghanistan have faced a drastic change in their lives. After the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, the women of Afghanistan have gained new liberal rights that were once lost under the Talban’s rule. However, the women lack protection to be able to safely use these freedoms and continue to be abused for not complying with the rules of the past. These new liberal rights will set the path for the women of Afghanistan towards equality.

Many women during this time faced harsh treatment characterized by abuse and lack of equality. Although the Taliban feel that their treatment of women is justifiable through Sharia law however, there is nothing within that states that this treatment was justifiable. It is said that the treatment of women at the time was “consistent” with treatment in rural areas of Afghanistan that had been going on for centuries. Women in Afghanistan before the Soviet occupation and the Taliban was fairly progressive and in comparison to other countries such as the United States and England. They were able to vote and dressed in what many would call the latest fashion at the time and not on the conservative side. After the occupation of the Soviets and into the rule of the Taliban, women were not being granted the same status as men. It is common that when most people around the world think of women in Afghanistan they think of a woman in full body burqas. However, before the conflict in 1970’s Afghanistan had been relatively progressive. According to the article Women in Afghanistan: The Back Story, “Women were able to vote in 1919 and in 1950s purdah, gender separation, was abolished and in 1960s a new constitution brought equality to many lives and political participation.” Through Soviet occupation in the 1970s, civil conflict between Mujahedeen groups, and government forces this progression changed. Under Taliban rule, women in Afghanistan had their rights increasingly rolled back. The Taliban once in rule enforced their own version of Islamic Sharia law. This began with women and girls being banned from: going to school or studying, from working, from leaving the house without a male chaperone, from showing their skin in public, from accessing healthcare delivered by men, and from being involved in politics or speaking publicly. These bans were a complete change from what rights were

I think that Parvana’s choice to let her mom disguise her as a boy, so that she could go to the Market to buy her family food. Is a great choice that I agree with. I agree with Pravana's choice because, even though she is scared, she is still willing to provide for her family. I admire her because she is brave and risks being caught every day! When Parvana is in the market she has to be calm and also has to be careful not to tell other about her disguise. In my family I have a sister with Type One Diabetes who has to be brave all the time. As a family we support her everyday and have to make sure she is safe and well looked after. We have to be courageous as a family in the face of trails just as Parvana’s family is.

Growing up as a female in Afghanistan in the 1900’s was extremely hard being that the Taliban had then taken over and emerged as a political force and began to establish order. Women were equivalent to slaves, they were denied education, and they were financially dependent, where they couldn’t make money of their own. Prior to the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan women truly suffered.

The moment, Deborah found out about the Taliban in 1990 she knew what she had to do as stated in her biography. On page 12 it explains that women without a male chaperone would be beaten. This means they couldn’t work, shop, or go anywhere without their husband or any other relation. According to the article Women’s Rights In Afghanistan it voices, “There were many other ways their rights were denied to them. Women were essentially invisible in public life, imprisoned in their home.” The author uses this to advance her plot because if women were allowed in the public or to work Parvana would never have become a boy so she could just rely on her mom fully. It later states, “The Taliban are now notorious for their human rights abuses. The group emerged in 1994 after years of conflict.” They would beat and kill women and men that disobeyed their strict rules which made the threat very real for Parvana which also made her more cautious of almost everything. In The Taliban article it states, “She insisted on a seat at a recent gathering, where women usually have no place.” Women were not able to get into gatherings so also couldn’t publish anything which made it almost impossible for Parvana’s mom to make money so as a result Parvana had to become a

Women are equals to men and provide a valuable resource; therefore, they should not be inferior to men. In Afghanistan, before the Taliban, women were “70% of schoolteachers, 50% of government workers and university students, and 40% of doctors in Kabul” (Bureau of Democracy). Also before the Taliban, women were free to do as they chose, men and women were both free to dress as they liked and they could move freely about. The Taliban “cruelly reduced women and girls to poverty, worsened their health, and deprived them of their right to an education” with the false pretense of protecting women (Bureau of Democracy). Much like the Taliban, the theocratic Republic of Gilead also repressed their women during a time of war, a time of religious war. The clothing they wear, the “white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us [them] from seeing, but also from being seen” demonstrate their subordination to men (Atwood 8). While men in the time of the Taliban and the theocratic Republic of Gilead can easily be educated, “the Taliban closed the women’s university and forced nearly all women to quit their jobs…The Taliban ended, for all practical purposes, education for girls” (Bureau of Democracy). As a parallel, the Republic