Cover of The Breadwinner

    The Breadwinner

    by testsuphomeAdmin
    The Breadwinner

    In the sec­ond chap­ter of “The Bread­win­ner,” we wit­ness Par­vana’s dai­ly life under the oppres­sive regime of the Tal­iban. Moth­er and Noo­ria are busy clean­ing while Father takes a moment to rest after kiss­ing the younger chil­dren, Ali and Maryam. Par­vana returns home with bun­dles and is quick­ly instruct­ed by Noo­ria to fetch water, a task she resents because it requires mul­ti­ple trips to the water tap. This respon­si­bil­i­ty weighs heav­i­ly on her, as she feels bur­dened by the chores that fall sole­ly on her shoul­ders.

    As Par­vana strug­gles with her duties, she reflects on her fam­i­ly’s small liv­ing space, devoid of the com­forts they once had. The only fur­nish­ings left are a tall wood­en cup­board and two toshaks, a stark reminder of their loss dur­ing the war. Par­vana longs for con­nec­tion and friend­ship, but her fam­i­ly’s iso­la­tion leaves her feel­ing lone­ly and unac­knowl­edged.

    The house­hold dynam­ics reveal ten­sions between Par­vana and her sis­ter Noo­ria. Noo­ri­a’s supe­ri­or atti­tude and the way she flaunts her longer hair irri­tate Par­vana. As they clean, an argu­ment about sell­ing clothes leads to Parvana’s resent­ment boil­ing over, par­tic­u­lar­ly direct­ed at Noo­ria and their moth­er, who seems to side with her daugh­ter. Par­vana is par­tic­u­lar­ly attached to a beau­ti­ful shal­war kameez giv­en to her by her aunt, high­light­ing the emo­tion­al weight of their pos­ses­sions amidst pover­ty.

    As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, the fam­i­ly’s meal­time serves as a brief respite, filled with laugh­ter and sto­ries from Father about their rich Afghan his­to­ry. His sto­ry­telling empha­sizes val­ues of brav­ery and resilience, as he recounts a tale of a girl named Malali who inspired Afghan troops dur­ing a bat­tle. How­ev­er, this moment of peace is shat­tered when Tal­iban sol­diers burst into their home.

    The sol­diers vio­lent­ly seize Father, accus­ing him of har­bor­ing for­eign ideas due to his edu­ca­tion in Eng­land. Par­vana’s fam­i­ly responds in pan­ic: her moth­er des­per­ate­ly tries to pro­tect her hus­band, while the chil­dren are ter­ri­fied. The scene esca­lates into chaos—Parvana attempts to defend her father but is over­pow­ered. Ulti­mate­ly, the sol­diers drag Father away, and in their wake, the fam­i­ly is left shat­tered and in dis­be­lief, high­light­ing the stark real­i­ty of life under Tal­iban rule. The chap­ter clos­es with a pow­er­ful image of the sib­lings, Par­vana and Maryam, cling­ing to each oth­er amidst the tur­moil, under­scor­ing the bonds of fam­i­ly and the loss of their sense of safe­ty.

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    Cover of The Breadwinner

    The Breadwinner

    by testsuphomeAdmin
    The Breadwinner

    In Chap­ter Two, the nar­ra­tor recounts their expe­ri­ence at the Min­istry after tak­ing the Lon­don Under­ground with Gra­ham Gore, who, despite being an expat from a dif­fer­ent time peri­od, adjusts well though he ques­tions mod­ern con­cepts such as dat­ing. While Gore’s demeanor sug­gests open­ness, the nar­ra­tor feels their rela­tion­ship is com­pli­cat­ed by the emo­tion­al bag­gage of both their his­to­ries. After arriv­ing, Gore is escort­ed to meet oth­er expats, while the nar­ra­tor meets with Quentin, their han­dler, who ques­tions the men­tal sta­tus of the expats, includ­ing Gore.

    Quentin express­es con­cern over Gore’s cog­ni­tive under­stand­ing of the cur­rent time, reveal­ing that he pre­vi­ous­ly assumed his expe­di­tion had sur­vived. The chap­ter reveals the chal­lenges of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with peo­ple from vast­ly dif­fer­ent eras, as oth­ers like Regi­nald-Smyth strug­gle with their grasp of mod­ern life. Dur­ing a meet­ing with the Vice Sec­re­tary Adela, dis­cus­sion of expat wel­fare high­lights the project’s ambigu­ous moral­i­ty as they face poten­tial insan­i­ty or worse due to time trav­el. Simel­lia, anoth­er bridge, shares her own expat’s strug­gles, empha­siz­ing the over­ar­ch­ing theme of psy­chic trau­ma and adjust­ment.

    The nar­ra­tor explores their per­cep­tion of Gore as charm­ing yet dis­ori­ent­ed, dis­cov­er­ing how he emo­tion­al­ly nav­i­gates the mod­ern era as they dine togeth­er. Their con­ver­sa­tion about the oth­er expats reflects the cul­tur­al dis­so­nance, with Gore’s attempts to fit in often lead­ing to humor and insight into his char­ac­ter.

    As Gore strug­gles with the expec­ta­tion of adapt­ing to a mun­dane life, he express­es desires for a dog, a sug­ges­tion met with skep­ti­cism. Their insights into famil­ial and social iden­ti­ties remain com­pli­cat­ed, as the nar­ra­tor grap­ples with her own mixed-race back­ground while edu­cat­ing Gore on con­tem­po­rary soci­etal norms. The chap­ter reveals the nuanced com­plex­i­ties of adapt­ing dif­fer­ent lives, show­cas­ing the bal­ance between main­tain­ing indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and inte­gra­tion into a new world while delv­ing into nos­tal­gia and iden­ti­ty. The rap­port they build, despite their his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al dis­par­i­ties, hints at a friend­ship that might tran­scend those bound­aries.

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