Breadwinner: A Background Analysis

The Breadwinner is an animated film set in Afghanistan about a young

girl named Parvana, who must find a way to save her imprisoned father
while being the breadwinner of the family (hence the title), all the while
being a girl in a strict patriarchal society. The keywords are strict
patriarchal society.

During the course of the movie we see that in the country, women and
girls are very lowly regarded and are majorly disrespected. They are
banned from travelling without a male companion and are subject to
forced marriages with little to no voice in deciding. That is what led
Parvana, through the help of her older sister Soraya, to disguise herself as
a boy to keep the family standing. Apparently, Parvana was not the only
one with that idea. A friend of hers, Shauzia, recognized her and together
they persevere as boys, Aatish and Deliwar respectively.

Afghanistan, the land of setting, holds a rather complicated history which

involves rise and fall of power of various empires, like, say, Darius III
(Achaemenian dynasty), which was subdued by Alexander the Great and
his successors, the Seleucids, which brought Greek culture into the land,
and the Mauryan empire from India, bringing Buddhism, to the eventual
Islamization by Arabic empires in 642 CE. This constant change of
power led Afghanistan into being titled 'the graveyard of empires'.

Islamization brought way to the Sharia (Syariat) laws, which are

regulations that are derived from Quran and Hadits. Among those
constitutions are laws regarding rules for women and children as stated in
the following passages:

"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the
believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad).
That will be better, so that they may be recognised and not annoyed.
Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful."

— Qur'an, Surah 33 (Al-Ahzab), Verse 59 (Translation by Pickthall)

"And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their
private parts, and not to display their beauty except what is apparent of
it, and to extend their scarves (khimars) to cover their bosoms (jaybs),
and not to display their beauty except to their husbands, or their fathers,
or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons, or their
brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their
womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from
the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the
nakedness of women is not apparent, and not to strike their feet (on the
ground) so as to make known what they hide of their adornments. And
turn in repentance to Allah together, O you the faithful, in order that you
are successful"

— Qur'an, Surah 24 (An-Nur), Verse 31

When the Talibans rose to power in 1996, they took over three quarters of
the land. Being a very strict organization when it comes to religious laws,
they enforced a strict interpretation of the Sharia law. This is the
central plot of the movie, shown in various scenes. We can recall that
Idrees, a young man who joined the Taliban to war against their foes, put
Parvana's father to prison, and later on we see that he was about to be put
down for refusing to fight for their cause. Parvana and her mother tried to
liberate him, but can do very little as the people treated them as though
they were nothing because of their gender, which was considered
insignificant and it was a taboo for them to try to stand up for themselves.
Even the compassionate ones are reluctant to do simple things (e.g doing
transactions, as with the fruit seller) with them in fear of being
imprisoned as well. That was a picture of the strict societal law erected
there at the time, under the Taliban. It was through an act of compassion
and sacrifice (by the man Razaq, Idrees' companion who served as an
antithesis/foil to his character.)

To conclude our analysis, we will recap. The movie, which was set in
Taliban era Afghanistan, told of the struggles of a young girl, her mother,
and her older sister to survive and liberate a male figure in their family
while opposed greatly by the strict law erected by the Talibans. In order
to thrive in a strict patriarchal society, Parvana, the daughter, must
assume the identity of a boy to earn living for her family, and to find a
way to get her father back.