Chap­ter 2 of The Bread­win­ner begins with Parvana’s dai­ly rou­tine, marked by the con­straints of liv­ing under the Tal­iban’s oppres­sive regime in Kab­ul. Parvana’s moth­er and Noo­ria are busy with clean­ing, while Parvana’s father rests after tend­ing to the younger chil­dren, Ali and Maryam. Par­vana returns home, car­ry­ing bun­dles, and is imme­di­ate­ly instruct­ed by Noo­ria to fetch water, a task she resents deeply. The chore requires mul­ti­ple trips, and Par­vana feels the weight of the respon­si­bil­i­ty press­ing down on her, as she is bur­dened with house­hold duties while the rest of the fam­i­ly car­ries on. This heavy respon­si­bil­i­ty is a reminder of the gen­der roles forced upon her by the Tal­iban’s laws, as her dai­ly exis­tence becomes con­fined to tasks that lim­it her free­dom and inde­pen­dence.

As Par­vana nav­i­gates these respon­si­bil­i­ties, she reflects on their small liv­ing space, which once con­tained more com­forts but now feels bar­ren and iso­lat­ed. The only remain­ing pos­ses­sions in their home are a tall wood­en cup­board and two toshaks, a stark con­trast to the life they once knew. Par­vana is haunt­ed by the loss of her pre­vi­ous life, one filled with edu­ca­tion, friend­ship, and the nor­mal joys of child­hood. Now, in this cramped and emp­ty space, she feels cut off from the world, her desire for con­nec­tion grow­ing stronger with every pass­ing day. The emo­tion­al iso­la­tion Par­vana faces mir­rors her phys­i­cal con­fine­ment, as she can­not step out­side and engage with the com­mu­ni­ty she longs to be a part of. It high­lights the intense per­son­al sac­ri­fice the fam­i­ly endures as they strive to sur­vive under an oppres­sive regime.

The rela­tion­ship between Par­vana and Noo­ria adds anoth­er lay­er of ten­sion in their already dif­fi­cult home life. Nooria’s atti­tude and her flaunt­ing of her longer hair become a point of irri­ta­tion for Par­vana, who resents her sister’s sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty. When the top­ic of sell­ing clothes aris­es dur­ing a dis­agree­ment, Parvana’s frus­tra­tion boils over. She feels her moth­er sides with Noo­ria, and her attach­ment to a beau­ti­ful shal­war kameez giv­en to her by her aunt fur­ther deep­ens the emo­tion­al con­flict. This piece of cloth­ing sym­bol­izes a con­nec­tion to the past, a reminder of a time before their lives were over­shad­owed by hard­ship. For Par­vana, the cloth­ing is not just a pos­ses­sion but a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of every­thing they’ve lost, mak­ing her attach­ment to it emo­tion­al­ly charged and sym­bol­ic of the strug­gle they endure in a world that has become increas­ing­ly hos­tile and oppres­sive.

Lat­er, the fam­i­ly gath­ers for a meal, and Par­vana finds some com­fort in the momen­tary peace of shared sto­ries and laugh­ter. Her father tells a tale of Malali, a young girl whose brav­ery inspired Afghan troops dur­ing a bat­tle, empha­siz­ing the val­ues of resilience and courage. The sto­ry­telling serves as a brief respite from the harsh­ness of their dai­ly lives, help­ing the fam­i­ly feel con­nect­ed to Afghanistan’s rich his­to­ry and to each oth­er. How­ev­er, their fleet­ing peace is shat­tered when Tal­iban sol­diers sud­den­ly enter their home, accus­ing Parvana’s father of har­bor­ing for­eign ideas due to his edu­ca­tion in Eng­land. The sol­diers vio­lent­ly seize him, and the fam­i­ly is left in shock and fear. Parvana’s moth­er tries des­per­ate­ly to pro­tect her hus­band, but the sit­u­a­tion esca­lates quick­ly, and the sol­diers drag Parvana’s father away, leav­ing the fam­i­ly dev­as­tat­ed and help­less.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in an emo­tion­al and trau­mat­ic moment as Par­vana and her fam­i­ly are left reel­ing from the raid. Par­vana, unable to stand idly by, attempts to pro­tect her father but is over­pow­ered by the sol­diers. The vio­lence, chaos, and fear that fol­low mark a turn­ing point in their lives, as they are torn apart by the ruth­less actions of the Tal­iban. Parvana’s fam­i­ly is left shat­tered, unable to com­pre­hend the sud­den loss of their father, and the emo­tion­al weight of this event lingers heav­i­ly in the air. The chap­ter ends with Par­vana and her younger sis­ter, Maryam, hold­ing on to each oth­er in a moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and despair. This poignant image under­scores the strength of fam­i­ly bonds amid the hor­rors they face, while also illus­trat­ing the pro­found sense of loss and insta­bil­i­ty that comes with liv­ing under the rule of an oppres­sive regime. It high­lights the emo­tion­al cost of war, not just in phys­i­cal destruc­tion, but in the psy­cho­log­i­cal toll it takes on indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies caught in its wake.