the people in the narrative move Holman and Harmon, 1986: 465. However, setting of social circumstances in I Am Malala that are analyzed are tradition,
religion, and family.
a. Tradition in I Am Malala
The Swat people call themselves as Pashtun, an ethnic group who lives in Afghanistan and North-Western Pakistan. As Pashtun, they are obliged to use
Pashtunwali or a set of unwritten Pashtun‟s traditional code of conduct. They are
honor nang, revenge badal, chivalry and bravery gayrat, hospitality melmastia, and gender boundaries purdah and namus Rechman, 2015: 299.
If they violate it, they will get a punishment based on Jirga or council of elders. However, this study will only deal with three codes of Pashtunwali that are
founded in the autobiography I Am Malala, they are nang, badal, and melmastia. First is nang or honor. This code obliges Pashtun people to defend their
honor as a group or individual when someone offends it, “We fight and feud ourselves so much. But we always come together against outsiders who try to
conquer our lands” Yousafzai, 2013: 3. Besides, they should protect their honor because their biggest fear is losing their face in society. For example, as Pashtun
women, they should protect their honor by hiding their face whenever they leave their house. If they are not, it will bring a shame to the family. Therefore, when
Malala does not cover her face, her male cousin is angry with her because Malala‟s action will bring a shame to her family.
One of my male cousins was angry and asked my father, „Why isn‟t she covered?‟ He replied, „She‟s my daughter. Look after your own affairs.‟
But some of the family thought people would gossip about us and say we were not properly following Pashtunwali Youzafzai, 2013: 30.
The sentences above show that each member of family in Swat should
keep their honor. When they break this code, they will be easily given a warning or punishment from their family member. The worst thing is that their family
chooses to kill them rather than let them free to live with a shame in society, like in the case of Seema. Seema is a 15 years old girl who has been poisoned by her
family after she is in love and flirts with a boy. Her family thinks that Seema‟s
action of falling in love and flirting with a boy creates a shame to her family. There was a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl called Seema. Everyone knew
she was in love with a boy, and sometimes he would pass by and she would look at him from under her long dark lashes, which all the girls
envied. In our society for a girl to flirt with any man brings shame on the family, though
it‟s all right for the man. We were told she had committed suicide, but we later discovered her own family had poisoned her
Yousafzai, 2013: 31. From the example above, it shows that as a daughter who lives in Swat,
like Seema, she cannot be an individual who is independent, but she must be an honor for her family. Therefore, it is an obligation for her to protect her family‟s
honor by having a behavior that is based on the tradition or Pashtunwali. If she breaks the tradition, she is justified to be punished in order to restore her family‟s
honor in society. In this case, her family prefers to kill her rather than let her live with a shame in society,
“In our society for a girl to flirt any man brings shame in the family, though it‟s all right for the man Yousazfai, 2013: 31.
Second is badal or revenge. This code is done to pay back what their enemy do to them, “If a man in one family killed or hurt by another man, revenge
must be exacted to restore nang ” Yousafzai, 2013: 33. For example, when
Safina steals Malala‟s favorite toy, as a payback, Malala also steals Safina‟s toy.
She kept eyeing up the pink plastic pretend mobile phone my father had bought me, which was one of the toys I had... one day it disappeared. A
few days later I saw Safina playing with a phone exactly the same as mine. „Where did you get it? I asked. „I bought it in the bazaar,‟ she said. I
realize now she could have been telling the truth but back then I thought, She is doing this to me and I will do the same to her Yousafzai, 2013: 32.
Another example, when Sher Zaman‟s family becomes embroiled in a dispute with their cousins over a small plot of forest, he and his two brothers are
killed by his uncle. This is because Zaman‟s family has already stolen a small plot of forest from them Yousafzai, 2013: 34. Therefore, they kill them as form
of revenge. Although some Pashtun people do not believe in badal because it will create violence, some others still believe in it. They believe that if they do
something bad to other people, the offended people will take their badal. Therefore, as a form of their preventive action, they prefer not to do something
bad to others. In the end, this code becomes a good system to decrease the number of crimes
in their areas, “Our people say it is a good system, and our crime rate is much lower than in non-
Pashtun areas” Yousafzai, 2013: 34. Third is Melmastia or hospitality. This code obliges Pashtun people to
provide their best hospitality to the guests. For Pashtun people, a guest is considered as blessing, “We live as we have for centuries by a code called
Pashtunwali, which obliges us to give hospitality to all guests” Yousafzai, 2013:
6. Therefore, when there is a guest in Malala‟s house, her family serves him with their best hospitality though at that time her family‟s condition is very poor.
We lived in a shabby shack of two rooms opposite the school. I slept with my mother and father in one room and the other was for guests. Our home
was full of people visiting from the village” Yousafzai, 2013: 9. This is because Pashtun people believe that hospitality is important in their culture
Yousafzai, 2013: 9.
