Marginalization from education Marginalization

1 Experiencing educational deprivation The first and basic factor that influences Nana‟s attitude towards gender discrimination she faces is educational deprivation. Education, which is important for people‟s lives, has been deprived from Nana and other Afghan women‟s lives. The novel never tells that Nana gets education. The fact that she is a housekeeper and that she is raised by a lowly stone carver father implies that Nana never learns anything in school. Nana had been one of the housekeepers. Until her belly began to swell. When that happened, Nana said, the collective gasp of Jalils family sucked the air out of Herat. His in laws swore blood would flow. The wives demanded that he throw her out. Nanas own father, who was a lowly stone carver in the nearby village of Gul Daman, disowned her. Disgraced, he packed his things and boarded a bus to Bran, never to be seen or heard from again Hosseini, 2008:6. In addition, the ways she sees schooling for a girl when her daughter, Mariam, asks her permission to go to school also strengthens the fact that she never goes to school. Whats the sense schooling a girl like you? Its like shining a spittoon. And youll learn nothing of value in those schools. There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they dont teach it in school. Look at me. Hosseini, 2008:18 The quotation above shows clearly that Nana is an uneducated woman. Unfortunately, Nana inherits her belief and principal about schooling to Mariam. In the end, women‟s illiteracy passes through generations. The only thing she has ever learned in her life is Koran recitation and Namaz prayers, the name of Islamic worship. She was taught by Mullah Faizullah when she was a child. It is described in the quotation below. But Mariams favorite, other than Jalil of course, was Mullah Faizullah, the elderly village Koran tutor, its akhund. He came by once or twice a week from Gul Daman to teach Mariam the five daily namaz prayers and tutor her in Koran recitation, just as he had taught Nana when shed been a little girl. It was Mullah Faizullah who had taught Mariam to read, who had patiently looked over her shoulder as her lips worked the words soundlessly, her index finger lingering beneath each word, pressing until the nail bed went white, as though she could squeeze the meaning out of the symbols. It was Mullah Faizullah who had held her hand, guided the pencil in it along the rise of each alef, the curve of each beh, the three dots of each seh Hosseini, 2008:15-16. What Nana gets is the very basic education stage. Since she is living in an Islamic country, Afghanistan, it is a common and also a must thing to learn Koran and Namaz prayers for every person, both men and women. The limitation of the knowledge that Nana gets makes her know nothing about her rights as a woman as well as how to claim it. Due to her lack of knowledge, she is easily influenced or shaped by the patriarchal ideology. What society believes will be her belief as well. Thus, when she is discriminated, she does not know how she should behave. Finally, acceptance towards the discrimination is the only thing she knows. 2 Becoming the object of patriarchal ideology Patriarchal society always tries to implant their ideology to women. Women become the objects, who are taught to obey men and accept whatever happens to them as their fates. Nana‟s point of view about life becomes the representation of Afghan women, who are discriminated in their everyday life. Being uneducated makes Nana easily influenced by patriarchal thought. First, it is about schooling. Nana sees school as an unimportant thing for women. Second, Nana emphasizes that women should endure sufferings in every condition.