Wesley Harmon
9/22/10
World Lit, 4th period
Nonfiction Success Theme
Resilience is Key
A Review of My Forbidden Face by Latifa
What does being successful mean? Does everyone have the same definition of success? This book is about a 16-year-old girl named Latifa growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan. Latifa is living in the time when the Taliban, who are very recalcitrant, are invading provinces to enforce their way of life and strict, inhumane laws around 1995. My Forbidden Face by Latifa teaches readers that success can have other meanings that we may not realize and having resilience and courage is key during the hard times that this young girl faces in the book.
When we here the word “success”, most of the time, we associate it with having money, a big house, and nice cars. Yes, I also believe that being successful is having a job that pays very well and living in a large house, with a nice car, but I also believe that being successful means to be happy with what you are doing with your life and not just having material wants. My goals in life are to become an architect and design my own house, have a nice family with two kids, and to live in comfortable conditions, both financially and physically. Becoming and architect is very tedious because if you are a good architect, you aren’t just discovered, you have to make yourself become discovered by advertising your name everywhere where your name will be found. Nothing in the book can really help me along this path, but that does not mean it is not useful.
My Forbidden Face is an autobiography that is written is chronological order based off of events during the invasion of the Taliban. Within the first couple of pages, the book blasts off into horrific events that would seem like a nightmare to whoever experienced them. The sentence in the book, “they’ve hanged Najibullah and his brother, on Aryana Square,” just automatically let me know that throughout this book I would be entranced by the terrible events that would occur. I thought that this book was very powerful and enlightening because I had no idea about what was going on in the Middle East before September 11 and it brought to conclude that the Taliban are horrible and so are the followers of Osama Bin Laden.
When I read this book, just one thing that I read about was the belligerent attitude towards women. There were so many decrees enforced by the Taliban that prevented women from doing so many things. They had to wear chadris, which were heavy, hot, dull colored cloaks that would have to be worn by any female that wanted to leave their house. There was a little square cut out for your eyes and nose and it greatly impaired your line of vision and movement. I cannot imagine the trepidation that women must have felt during those times.
The article that we read in class about the man that was living in a good family, that was raised to be a good man, just chose to kill and be involved in drugs. The theme of that article is that the environment around you does not affect the person you will be in the future; it is purely based off of the unbiased choices you make during your life. The book My Forbidden Face is the exact opposite; Latifa was forced to live under these unfair and unethical laws because the Taliban would not let any family leave. I do commend Latifa because she showed great bravery and courage throughout the whole book, and did not let the Taliban change her into a scarred and depressed person; she demonstrated great resilience. The definition of being successful that I picked up from reading this book is being free and being able to make your own decisions, no matter what gender or race you are.
9/22/10
World Lit, 4th period
Nonfiction Success Theme
Resilience is Key
A Review of My Forbidden Face by Latifa
What does being successful mean? Does everyone have the same definition of success? This book is about a 16-year-old girl named Latifa growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan. Latifa is living in the time when the Taliban, who are very recalcitrant, are invading provinces to enforce their way of life and strict, inhumane laws around 1995. My Forbidden Face by Latifa teaches readers that success can have other meanings that we may not realize and having resilience and courage is key during the hard times that this young girl faces in the book.
When we here the word “success”, most of the time, we associate it with having money, a big house, and nice cars. Yes, I also believe that being successful is having a job that pays very well and living in a large house, with a nice car, but I also believe that being successful means to be happy with what you are doing with your life and not just having material wants. My goals in life are to become an architect and design my own house, have a nice family with two kids, and to live in comfortable conditions, both financially and physically. Becoming and architect is very tedious because if you are a good architect, you aren’t just discovered, you have to make yourself become discovered by advertising your name everywhere where your name will be found. Nothing in the book can really help me along this path, but that does not mean it is not useful.
My Forbidden Face is an autobiography that is written is chronological order based off of events during the invasion of the Taliban. Within the first couple of pages, the book blasts off into horrific events that would seem like a nightmare to whoever experienced them. The sentence in the book, “they’ve hanged Najibullah and his brother, on Aryana Square,” just automatically let me know that throughout this book I would be entranced by the terrible events that would occur. I thought that this book was very powerful and enlightening because I had no idea about what was going on in the Middle East before September 11 and it brought to conclude that the Taliban are horrible and so are the followers of Osama Bin Laden.
When I read this book, just one thing that I read about was the belligerent attitude towards women. There were so many decrees enforced by the Taliban that prevented women from doing so many things. They had to wear chadris, which were heavy, hot, dull colored cloaks that would have to be worn by any female that wanted to leave their house. There was a little square cut out for your eyes and nose and it greatly impaired your line of vision and movement. I cannot imagine the trepidation that women must have felt during those times.
The article that we read in class about the man that was living in a good family, that was raised to be a good man, just chose to kill and be involved in drugs. The theme of that article is that the environment around you does not affect the person you will be in the future; it is purely based off of the unbiased choices you make during your life. The book My Forbidden Face is the exact opposite; Latifa was forced to live under these unfair and unethical laws because the Taliban would not let any family leave. I do commend Latifa because she showed great bravery and courage throughout the whole book, and did not let the Taliban change her into a scarred and depressed person; she demonstrated great resilience. The definition of being successful that I picked up from reading this book is being free and being able to make your own decisions, no matter what gender or race you are.
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