Independent Characterization of Maryam Mazar
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tradition. She grows to be a disobedient woman and does not want to follow the tradition since she wants to be free.
We never really escape. All I ever wanted as a child, a young woman, was to be free of etiquette and tradition, arranged marriages and everything just
so. All I found was another world where I had to work out the new traditions, habits, how to appear just so. Isn’t it silly? 222
This quotation really represents how Maryam tries to escape from the tradition.
She wants to be free from rules and obligation. ‘But do we have what we need, or know what we want? Or do we just do
as we’re told? I asked. ‘Look at those mountains. Why can’t we just go there one day and walk along the valley floor, all the way to Afghanistan?
I’d like to sleep in the poppy fields.’ 58
She does not want to do something that someone tells her to do, she wants to do
what she thinks need to be done and what she really wants to do. Maryam also disagrees with the tradition of getting married with someone.
She does not like women’s life being decided right after they were born in this world. She assumes that woman may choose the right man for them.
She spoke first of Mairy, who at nineteen is three years older than me, and already has three noisy children by our cousin Reza. At her birth, Mairy
was out on Reza’s knee as his future wife. I know this unusual, but I have always felt it must be a terrible thing to have your life decided moments
after your first breath. 37
However, Maryam realizes that it is hard to change the tradition. She realizes that
people should live along the tradition, but only for those which is made for good reason.
She didn’t meet Sara eye. “Customs die hard here as elsewhere. Judgements are made for good reason and are difficult to change, however
much time passes. They are the boundaries we must live within.” Her shoulders hunched in the cold. 255
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Maryam states there are many types of freedom, but one thing for sure is that she believes money cannot give her the real freedom she wants.
‘Sometimes. But there are many types of freedom and each has its price: freedom to love, to travel, to belong. For each freedom we choose, we must
give up another.’ ‘Your family was rich. They could afford your feedom.’
‘I’m not sure. Some freedoms can be a gift of hate as much as love.’ Maryam felt the blood rise in her cheeks and remembered her father’s last words to her:
She can go by herself…She is no daughter of mine.
133 Maryam also believes that each freedom she chooses has its price, means that
every decision that she takes has its own risk, and Maryam chooses to be an independent person because she does not want her life being influenced by
traditions.