In 2012, a 15-year-old Pakistani girl was shot in the head by Taliban forces for attending school. She miraculously recovered, continued her campaign for women’s education rights, and became a global figure for the cause. In her autobiography I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai recounts her memories of living in Pakistan, shares how her family and culture has shaped her, and inspires others with her recovery from the Taliban attack. In her memoir, she effectively conveys her experiences and encourages others to empathize with the feminist cause by including details from childhood anecdotes and using imagery. The anecdotal details illustrate her personal outlook of morality and encourage others to act kindly, while the imagery gives a more forceful effect on the horror she has endured.
Yousafzai includes childhood anecdotes to illustrate her moral philosophy and to inspire others. At one point, she recalls her childhood habit of stealing. Yousafzai writes about getting revenge upon a classmate whom she believed stole from her, “I thought, She is doing this to me and I will do the same to her.” When Yousafzai’s family reprimanded her, she was so ashamed that she decided to never steal or lie ever again. She felt that she had to regain her family’s respect and explains, “I think everyone makes a mistake at least once in their life. The important thing is what you learn from it. That is why I have problems with our Pashtunwali code. We are supposed to take revenge for wrongs done to us, but where does that end? […] There is no limit.”
This new philosophy juxtaposes her previous ‘an eye for an eye’ mentality. The fact that she made a conscious decision to choose virtue suggests that anyone can choose to be good. Yousafzai’s choice to reveal past flaws humanizes the legendary, famous version of herself to further inspire those who desire to strengthen their character. Later, she shares how Pakistan’s political tensions have shaped her childhood; because her father was an educator, Yousafzai’s family had received constant threats from the Taliban before she was shot. She says, “I’d imagine that on the way home a terrorist might jump out and shoot me on those steps.
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I wondered what I would do. Maybe I’d take off my shoes and hit him, but then I’d think if I did that there would be no different between me and a terrorist. It would be better to please, ‘OK, shoot me, but first listen to me. What you are doing is wrong. I’m not against you personally, I just want every girl to go to school.’” Again, her refusal to retaliate violently shows unique dignity and poise, and it is almost shocking how passionate she is for women’s rights to education. Yousafzai shows that even before the Taliban attacked her, she was willing to risk her life for this cause and able to recognize good in everyone, even her shooter. By including these details, Yousafzai not only exhibits her extreme capacity of emotion and her ideal philosophy, but also emphasizes the importance of kindness.
By incorporating vivid imagery into her autobiography, Yousafzai conveys the weight of the experiences she has been through. For example, the descriptions of the Taliban bombings of schools were horrifically grotesque: one classmate “had seen a Taliban holding up the severed head of a policeman by its hair, blood dripping from the neck.” She also paints a picture of the condition her school was in after leaving the Swat village for 3 months, “There were cigarette stubs and empty food wrappers all over the floor. Chairs had been upended and the space was a mess.
My father had taken down the Khushal School sign and left it in the courtyard. Underneath were the rotting heads of goats. […] Bullet casings littered the floor. The soldiers had made a hole in the wall through which you could see the city below. Maybe they had even shot at people through the hole. I felt sorry that our precious school had become a battlefield.” The fact that Yousafzai’s school was targeted by the Taliban and used as a home by the Swat soldiers is symbolically sorrowful. Since most readers have never experienced war in their hometown, they are shocked at the imagery and sympathizes with Yousafzai and those who suffered amidst the constant warfare in the village.
Through her memoir, Malala Yousafzai seeks to share her personal outlooks on hardships, and to encourage development in the feminist movement and Pakistan’s state of chaos. The fact that she recovered from a fatal attack and continued to peacefully campaign for women’s rights is deeply moving; her perseverance is truly captured in grim circumstances. By describing the impact her childhood and family figures had on her and using imagery to place the reader in her shoes, Yousafzai portrays the world as she sees it and motivates others to stand for their rights, too.
References
- samploon.com – Who is Malala Yousafzai?
- bbc.com – Malala: The girl who was shot for going to school
- nobelprize.org – Malala Yousafzai – Facts
- ed.ted.com – Malala Yousafzai: The girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban
- cnn.com – Malala Yousafzai Fast Facts
- biography.com – Malala Yousafzai
- britannica.com – Malala Yousafzai
