By: Priyam Joshi
While growing up in a small, safe, low-crime city in India, I often found it shocking to hear about my mother’s experience of growing up in Bihar during the Bhagalpur Hindu-Muslim riots. Recently, I read about a 16-year-old Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi who was arrested and found myself remembering my mother. I found it hard to imagine, that girls like my mother and Tamimi who were just one year younger than me had lives so vastly different and violent than mine. I realised that there were several social justice struggles that I have faced personally and even studied about in class such as sexist mentalities, environmentalism and racism, but one issue which is often deemed too “grim” or too “dark” for young adults is war. I was curious to see how YA literature plays a role in this subject.
Using the example of two books, I aim to demonstrate that YA war literature, through its realism can serve as important social commentary on the plight of women in such war zones and therefore also draw strong female protagonists who can be ideal role models. The inspiration from these characters as well as the emotional evocation of rage at the presented unfair social conditions can promote readers to learn from mistakes and create a better world.
The two historical fiction YA literature books which I will be analysing are A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The Book Thief, set in Germany during World War II and the Holocaust, is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl who is placed in foster care during the early years of World War II by a mother too ill to care for her any longer. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, we follow the story of Laila and Mariam bound together by marriage, family, and a past in war-ravaged Afghanistan. It depicts the conditions of women during several invasions in the country, especially under the Taliban regime. Both these books have faced debates regarding their categorisation as YA novels because of their subject matter. However, in my opinion, war affects youth even more than adults. As Herbert Hoover said, “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow, and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war” (qtd. in Crowe 159). Today’s kids become tomorrow’s adults who make policies, become voters and make influential decisions. As Crowe explains, “Good YA books about war can help today’s teenagers appreciate the blessings of peace and the horrors of war. And that appreciation will inspire them to do whatever they can to preserve peace around the world” (159). These stories about women’s restrictions to equal education, choices and liberation that restrict their great potentials in the male-dominated world during two of the most violent periods of time in history along with the all-too-real religious fundamentalism, censorship, genocide, despotism and corruption create an exposure which is necessary to make young adults feel angry and uncomfortable in order to promote action.
It is often very easy to alienate ourselves from wars which don’t affect us. But there ARE real people being affected by wars. YA fiction features realism which can be effective in helping teenagers understand that the people being shot and bombed in any war are human beings – they have families and friends, they live and love and they hurt and bleed just as we do. Edwards said it better in his book: “If reading does affect behaviour; it is imperative that YA literature provide realistic pictures of life. Real life is not filled with fairy tale characters and situations. It is a disservice to a young person … to acquaint him with only good, innocuous people in ideal situations”. In fact, a major reason behind the effectiveness of the YA genre IS its realism. Both these books are memorable because they don’t focus exclusively on the horror but on several aspects of the lives of ordinary people living in small towns. Laila’s story features her relationship with Tariq and her parents, her dreams and aspirations for Afghanistan, her schooling and love for poetry. At one point her friend says, “By the time we’re twenty, Gigi and I, we’ll have pushed out four, five kids each. But you, Laila, you’ll make us two dummies proud. You’re going to be somebody. I know one day I’ll pick up a newspaper and find your picture on the front page” (Hosseini 364). It is apparent that both she and her friends had goals and hope for the future, despite the harsh rules being enforced on them. Liesel’s hobbies are very well established herself, at the beginning of the novel she enjoys football and fighting, but as the book progresses she learns to read, and this – along with writing a book of her own – becomes one of her favourite pastimes. Liesel’s friendships with Rudy and Max are also a significant part of the book. These female protagonists aren’t perfect – they lie, they make mistakes. Laila hides her relationship with Tariq, lies to Rasheed about her child’s real father from her parents and Liesel is essentially a thief and often gets into fights with boys at school. However, portraying these female characters as imperfect, realistic and facing relatable problems serves as a tool to humanize these stories, make them seem more personal and challenge the unrealistic, harmful idea of a perfect hero.
In their process of showing unique characters on the path of identity formation in different contexts, these YA books also serve as important social commentaries. Using historical fiction as a background and the different ideologies of the characters, authors can present and critique existing social norms and provide unheard perspectives. Consequently, in both these books, using Laila and Liesel in their respective contexts, Hosseini and Zusak inform about and challenge gender stereotypes, social norms and extreme political rules. A Thousand Splendid Suns depicts the plight of women behind the walls of Afghanistan “one invader after another” within a thirty-year swath. The issue of feminism and gender equity has been raised through the character of Mariam and Laila. Socio-cultural extremism and religious elements continue to pose serious obstacles towards the development of women in Afghanistan. These constraints and impediments had an immensely devastating impact on their lives, and most often result in severely impairing quality of life and even reducing female life expectancy. There is a history over the centuries of subjugation of Afghan women. This history has been traced by Hosseini (Singh 88). Mariam had to marry Rasheed a shoemaker who is many years elder to her because her father and his wives force her to do so. Laila had to marry Rasheed because she was orphaned and pregnant. Both situations are untenable in her society. “It’s our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have. Do you understand?” (Hosseini 18). The popularity of this declaration is seen as the point that Hosseini becomes representational, it means that his characters are the representation of all individuals who are living in the same situation around the world (Singh 92). Contrastingly, through his perspective, women can also be seen as integral to the rebuilding of the Afghan nation which is explicit in a dialogue that Laila’s feminist father tells her: “I know you’re still young, but I want you to understand and learn this now, Marriage can wait, education cannot…when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila. No chance” (Hosseini 103). Hosseini’s western ideology developed during his teenage years in the USA is reflected when he uses Babi to promote his idea of a modern, equal society.
The Book Thief has been acclaimed for its representation of trauma, its depiction of the horrors of the Holocaust, and its portrayal of wartime violence against civilians in general and children in particular (Abate 51-52). The novel opens in January 1939 as a nine-year-old Liesel is being delivered to foster parents after her communist father has already been taken away by the Nazis, and it ends with the conclusion of the war. The loss of human life, from combat, malnutrition, disease, civilian bombing campaigns, and the brutality of the concentration camps is pervasive (Abate 53). For instance, on the very first page, she witnesses her younger brother, Warren, die from malnutrition and illness. However, the book makes the plight of Jews clear: “You could argue that Liesel Meminger had it easy. She did have it easy compared to Max Vandenburg. Certainly, her brother had practically died in her arms. Her mother abandoned her. But anything was better than being a Jew” (Zusak 161). While The Book Thief doesn’t show the oppression of women to the same extent and intensity as A Thousand Splendid Suns, there are still several instances which indicate the presence of gender inequality. A few of these were the gender-specific responsibilities (Rosa had to support her family by doing laundry), the verbal abuse that Liesel receives just because she is a girl and most importantly the harsher treatment of female Jews as compared to male Jews. While women’s experiences during the Holocaust were not entirely different from those of men, it would be false and misleading to assert that they were identical. There were many instances in which an individual’s ordeal was shaped by his or her gender such as the gender-specific humiliation of women forced to undress in front of strange men and their frequent sexual harassment is hinted in the book. Kokkola admits that children’s literature portraying the Holocaust “inevitably forces readers to undergo a certain degree of suffering” (qtd. in Yarova 57). The Book Thief’s magical storyteller and the bibliotherapy reflects Zusak’s childhood as an avid reader and of hearing World War 2 stories from his German mother.
A part of being a social commentary is the book’s representation of genders. Both these novels succeed in drawing well-developed female protagonists who are in charge of their own destiny. They serve as role models and also set an example for boys about what strong women look like. It has often been suggested that the media plays a significant role in the development of the female gendered identity. Every form of media from film to advertising to popular music has been criticized for presenting insidious messages about femininity to society. Not only do these messages shape and sometimes distort the way males view females in our society, but also they can shape the way females define themselves (Jacobs 20). Therefore, characters like Liesel, Laila and Mariam are definitely a step forward. Liesel is a well-developed character with solid goals, beliefs and hobbies and a range of strengths and weaknesses. She may not always be in control of her own destiny because of the politics but tries to take charge of her destiny at a smaller scale (For example → She asserts her position with the neighbourhood children by beating them up, when she’s hungry, she decides to go and steal food with some friends). She challenges gender stereotypes by getting into physical fights, playing football and being dirty. She has to work for the things she wants. She has regular nightmares about the trauma of her past, she wets the bed at an age that most children have grown out of it and she expresses her affection by swearing at people. At the same time, she also displays a considerable maturity and intellectual capacity that isn’t always seen in the traditional stereotypes surrounding young girls, and her story is far more political than the plotlines given to most young girls as well. The fact that she is a young girl doesn’t substitute for her personality. Liesel, unlike so many young heroines, resists romance. Instead of being positioned in relationship to romantic partners, she has three male best friends – Rudy, Max and Hans, as well as two females of great importance to her life, Rosa and Ilsa Hermann. As for Liesel, she is a life-saving heroine and inspirational rebel. A Thousand Splendid Suns can also be read as a “female bildungsroman” and the growth of these two girls into maturity, marriage, and maternity aptly illustrates the travail of Afghani women. Hosseini’s two women are strategic contrasts physically, socially, and psychologically. Socially, Mariam is from the rural lower class; Laila, the urban middle class. Psychologically, Mariam is accustomed to humiliation; Laila, to consideration. Physically, Mariam’s features are “unshapely,” “flat,” “unmemorable,” “coarse,” while Laila is a green-eyed blond beauty. However, these don’t end up being the shining, defining characteristics of these women. Mariam’s life features a constant theme of the lack of love and belonging because of her being a harami (illegitimate child), self-blaming for her mother’s suicide, abandonment by her father Jalil, and abuse by her husband when she is unable to bear him a child. But she has a remarkable ability to endure and persevere through suffering. After finally finding a sense of belonging with Laila and her daughter, Mariam makes the ultimate sacrifice, giving up her own life so that those she loves can be free. Despite an unfair life, her spirit is inspirational, before dying she “thought of her entry into this world … an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back” (Hosseini 360). Laila, on the other hand, is curious and intelligent: she retains a strong sense of Afghanistan’s culture and is hopeful for its future. She is also bold and prone to risk-taking, as evidenced by her love affair with Tariq as a teenager, by her plot to escape Rasheed, and by her constant commitment to make it to the orphanage to visit her daughter Aziza despite the possibility of beatings by the Taliban. At one point, she actually sits in her room, poised with a sharp object with which she intends to abort an unwanted pregnancy, and in the end, cannot commit the act — she knows it is not the child’s fault to have been conceived and he is only worthy of her motherly embrace.
By representing females who are defined by their strength, intelligence and emotional maturity who still make mistakes and learn from them, these books provide the readers with ideal female role models (Jacobs 20). Another one of the chief values of YA literature is its capacity to offer readers an opportunity to see themselves reflected in its pages. Young adults have an all-consuming need to belong. Thus, for girls like Tamini, to see oneself in the pages of a YA book is to receive the reassurance that one is “not alone after all, not other, not alien but, instead, a viable part of a larger community of beings who share a common humanity” (Cart). Therefore, characters who make human mistakes, express emotions such as jealousy and sadness are relatable for the readers. This impacts their self-esteem in a positive manner. Additionally, YA literature “can foster understanding, empathy, and compassion by offering vividly realized portraits of the lives – exterior and interior – of individuals who are unlike the reader” (Cart). In this way YA literature readers form holistic, humanistic perspectives of those who – if not for the encounter in reading – might forever remain strangers or – worse — irredeemably “other.” Another value of young adult literature is its capacity for telling its readers the truth, however disagreeable that may sometimes be, for in this way it equips readers for dealing with the realities of impending adulthood and for assuming the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Both works follow the traits of the YA genre and deal with issues such as loss of parents, problems in relationships and neat-but-not-always-happy endings in an honest manner.
A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Book Thief appeal to our sense of justice, they make us angry at the treatment of women in such regimes, help us humanise and remove stereotypes of people in war and give us incredible female role models. Thus, it is imperative that they are categorised as not just YA literature but essential YA literature.
Establishing and maintaining peace isn’t easy, maybe it’s even impossible, but the lessons taught by good war literature may help today’s teenagers think twice before “merrily going off to war or thoughtlessly calling for the annihilation of foreign countries that have infringed upon our national interests” (Crowe 160). Reading war books may help teenagers realize that it isn’t just politics, it’s people screaming in pain, children crying for dead parents, parents weeping for children lost due to “collateral damage.” When they read good war books, young adults will also learn that their ‘potential enemies’ are human beings just as they are (Crowe 159). War is a permanent feature of human life on earth, and will no doubt continue to break out in some shape or form – whether large scale or on a local and even personal level. It is an optimistic position but writing and reading such books gives the hope that we won’t make the same mistakes, and in many ways is a mark of respect to the lives sacrificed. The generations before us had to learn the lessons of war the hard way. Let’s hope that with the help of books like A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Book Thief, today’s generation can learn the same lessons without the same pain.
Take Back the City. 