29 this study exposes the feeling of Afghan women and also their opinion towards
Taliban’s rules for Afghan women. It helps the readers understand their feeling and how bad the women
’s oppression in Afghanistan.
B. Suggestions
In addition to the conclusion, the reseacrher proposes suggestions for future researchers and future lecturersteachers.
1. For Future Researchers
The Breadwinner, novel of Deborah Ellis is about women who struggle from Taliban and an eleven-year-old girl who becomes breadwinner for her
family. Taliban leads the country by applying very strict rules. For future researchers, the researcher suggests analyzing the novel from the psychological
aspect. The future researchers might analyze the inner conflict which is experienced by the main character and the supporting character. The supporting
character in the novel is Shauzia. Shauzia is an eleven-year-old girl who also becomes the Breadwinner for her family. Parvana and Shauzia work together in
order to keep their family alive. However, they have different family situation. It might be interesting and thoughtful to compare and contrast these two characters.
2. For Future LecturersTeachers
In this part, the researcher proposes suggestions for future teachers or lecturers who are interested in women
’s oppression. This novel is about the struggle of little girl in being breadwinner for her family and women
’s oppression which is experienced by Afghan women during the Taliban regime. Since
oppression has negative meaning, the teachers or lecturers are expected to be able
30 to build the sensitivity of the students about women
’s oppression. Later on, the teacher can utilize the novel as a subject of learning.
31
REFERENCES
Abrams, M. H. 1985. A glossary of literary terms. New York: Holt, Reinhart Winston Inc.
An- Na’im, A. A. 1998. The Taliban’s war on women: A health and human
rights crisis in Afghanistan. Boston: Library of Congress Catalog. Bressler, C. 1999. Literary criticism: An introduction to theory and practice.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. Ellis, D. 2000. The breadwinner. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
Holman, C., Harmon, W. 1986. A handbook to literature 5
th
ed.. New York: Macmillan, Inc.
Langland, E. 1984. Society in the novel. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Murphy, M. J. 1972. Understanding unseens: An introduction to English poetry and the English novel for overseas students. London: Allen Unwin Ltd.
Woods, H. S., Rohrberger, M. 1971. Reading and writing about literature. New York: Random House.
Bajoria, J., Laub, Z. 2013. The Taliban in Afghanistan. Retrieved November 14
th
, 2013, from http:www.cfr.orgafghanistantaliban-
afghanistanp10551 Cudd, E. A. 2004. How to explain oppression: Criteria of adequacy for
normative explanatory theories. Retrieved November 14
th
, 2013, from http:kuscholarworks.ku.edudspacebitstream180876051How20to
20Explain20Oppression20post20print.pdf Wall, L. 2014. Gender equality and violence agains
t women: What’s the connection. Retrived June 29
th
, 2015, from, http:www3.aifs.gov.auacssapubsresearchsummaryressum7ressum7.pd
32
APPENDIX 1 SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL
The Breadwinner is a novel by Deborah Ellis
which is published in 2000. The story is about an eleven-
year-old girl, Parvana, who becomes a breadwinner for
her family and who can make a living for the whole
family. She becomes the breadwinner for her family
because there is no one else in the family. She becomes
the Breadwinner because she is the only one who is
accustomed to be outside. She is accustomed to be outside because she always accompanies her father when he goes to work in the market.
Since the Taliban has ordered all women to stay inside and only men who are allowed to go outside, Parvana’s father is the only one in the family who can
go out of the house to work or do things outside. Parvana accompanies her father to work in the market. Her father needs her because her father has lost his leg
33 during the war. However, while she is in the market, she is not allowed to do
anything even to look at the customers. So, she only sits in the market all day waiting for her father to finish his work. Her father works as a letter reader and
writer. Most Afghans cannot read or write. One day, after arriving at home, Parvana’s mother and Parvana’s older sister
are cleaning the house. Her older sister, Nooria, asks her to fetch the water while she and her mother prepare for dinner. After having dinner, suddenly, soldiers
come to their house and arrest her father without any specific reason. The soldier only says that Taliban knows about her father
’s education. Her father goes to school in London so her father could speak English and the Taliban forbids it and
arrests him. As her father has been arrested, there is no one in the house who can go to
work. Her mother is sad and refuses to talk to anybody in the house. Parvana’s
older sister makes them breakfast. In the third day after her father ’s arrest, they
are out of food. Her older sister asks her to go to the market and buy bread, rice, fruit, and vegetables. However, she does not manage to buy them all. While she is
in the market, the soldier has caught her and hit her. While she is hit by the soldier, she shouts to the soldier and asks him to stop hitting her. The soldier is
surprised and Parvana has a chance to escape. She runs away until the soldier cannot catch her. She meets Mrs. Weera on the street. Mrs. Weera and Parvana go
back home together.
34 Mrs. Weera is her mother
’s friend. She only lives with her grandson. After Parvana and Mrs. Weera arrive at home, Nooria tells Mrs. Weera about her
father ’s arrest and her mother’s condition. Mrs. Weera has talked to her mother,
finally her mother wants to talk them all again. Mrs. Weera stays one night at Parvana’s home and has a discussion with her mother. In the next morning, when
Parvana wakes up, they tell Parvana about their plan. Since there is no man in the family, someone must go outside to work and buy things. So, Mrs. Weera and her
mother make a plan about disguising her into a boy. At first, Parvana does not agree to their plan. She refuses to do it and asks
her older sister to do it because she is the oldest. However, after having a discussion with Mrs. Weera, Parvana decides want to do it. She agrees to disguise
herself into a boy. Her mother c uts her hair and put her older brother’s clothes on
her. She wears her older brother’s clothes because he has died.
Since Parvana is able to go outside now, Parvana works hard and earns money as much as she can. While working in the market, she meets her friend
who also disguises herself into a boy. The Talib’s rules have changed the girls to
change their identity in order to be alive. Parvana also works as a letter reader and writer like her father does. However, only working as letter reader and writer
cannot earn much money. So, she joins her friend to work as bone digger. Since working as bone digger is dangerous, she only works for a week.
Parvana spends days outside, she works as hard as she can. One day, her mother tells her that her older sister is going to get married with a man in Mazar-I-
35 Sharif. That place has not been attacked by Taliban. Her mother tells her that she
and others are going to Mazar-I-Sharif including Parvana. However, Parvana refuses to go because she is sure that one day her father will come back to the
family. Finally, her mother agrees to leave Parvana in Kabul with Mrs. Weera. Then her mother, Nooria, Maryam, and Ali go to Mazar-I-
Sharif to meet Nooria’s future husband.
After her family left her, Parvana is sad so she decides to take a rest for few days. After resting for few days, she goes back to work in the market. One day,
she goes home late and it is raining. She decides to stop at an empty building and wait for the rain to stop. At that building, she hears someone is crying. Then, she
asks the person about hisher position because it is dark in the building. Since that person does not answer Parvana, Parvana finds her matches. She strikes her
matches. Finally, she sees a person near the wall. After introducing herself to that person, Parvana takes that person home. At home, that person introduces herself
to Parvana and Mrs. Weera. That person is Homa. She is from Mazar-I-Sharif. She tells Parvana and Mrs. Weera that she has just lost her family because the
Taliban has attacked there. Parvana is shocked. At night, she cannot sleep, because she knows that her family now is in trouble and she does not know where
they are now. After hearing Homa’s story, Parvana is sad, so she decides not to work for
few days. She is resting at home. Being home without doing anything make her bored. In the next day, she decides to go back to work. One day after working, she
sees two men in front of her house. She enters the house and she sees her father
36 lays down in the Toshak. Parvana is happy because her father is back. After
thanking the two men who bring her father, Parvana tells her father about Nooria’s marriage. Then, her father decides that he and Parvana are going to the
refugee in Mazar-I-Sharif to find her mother, Nooria, Maryam, and Ali.
37
APPENDIX 2 BIOGRAPHY OF DEBORAH ELLIS
Deborah Ellis was an award-winning author, a feminist, and a peace activist. Deborah penned the international bestseller The Breadwinner. Deborah Ellis was
born in Cochrane, Ontario, Canada, in 1960. She lived up in Moosonee right close to James Bay for the first couple of years of her life. Her parents were working at
a hydro outpost up near Abitibi Canyon which did not exist anymore. Then they moved to South when Deborah was a little kid. She and her parents moved to
several places due to her parent s’ work. Deborah Ellis has one sister who two
years older than her. All her public school took place in Paris. She grew up in a small town. Deborah started writing since she was 12 years
old. In that age, she had a thought of being a writer. However, at the age fourteen, she got put into a psychiatric hospital; she stayed there for couple years. In high
school, she joined the Peace Movement. This Peace Movement group was an
38 organization of men who were jerks. Since Deborah was isolated, it took some
time for her to realize the fact that those men were jerks. In her journey of being a writer, she got lots of rejections. It was a long road
for her to be an author. Once she got her book rejected, she’d always have the sense that maybe the next one or the next one after that would be the one that
would do it and finally she got one. Deborah usually started writing from a question. Like in her
book, “Looking for X”, that book came from a question. The question was, “What would it be like to be the daughter of a stripper?”
Deborah has travelled to many exotic places including Pakistan. She spent her time in Pakistan by helping in refugee camps in 1997. She began to write her
book The Breadwinner after her visit in the refugee camps. In the camp, she met a woman who was a member of Afghan women’s organization. She talked to a
woman whose daughter was still in Kabul, Afghanistan. The woman told her about how her daughter
’s struggle in order to keep the family alive. That woman cut her daughter’s hair so she could disguise herself into a boy and could go
outside freely. It stunned her to listen to that kind of story. Since then, she heard that there
were few kids who have done that same type of thing. The Breadwinner was not selling in English speaking country. Deborah noted that there was a South
American edition in Spanish, and the book had also been purchased for markets in Italy, Greece, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Japan, Croatia, India, Sweden, and
Switzerland.
39 Deborah is a passionate advocate for the disenfranchised. She “walks the
talk,” donating most of her royalty income to worthy causes — Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, Street Kids International, the Children in Crisis
Fund of IBBY International Board on Books for Young People and UNICEF. She has donated more than one million dollars in royalties from her The
Breadwinner books alone.
Adapted from: http:deborahellis.com
http:deborahellis.weebly.combiography.html http:www.umanitoba.cacmprofilesellis.html
40
APPENDIX 3 LESSON PLAN
BASIC READING I Subject
: KPE 110 Basic Reading I
Topic : Women
’s Oppression
Meeting : 1 meeting
Semester : 2 of English Language Education Study Program
Time Allocation : 2x50 minutes class meeting
Material : Literary text; prologue page 7-17
A. Basic Competences:
