In Chapter 12, Parvana goes to the market with her mother and faces the hatred of her own people regarding Leila's School of Hope. I can't imagine the mental toughness that Parvana must have had to muster to overcome the fear for her mother, the fear for her school, the fears that her newly established life could be compromised by the hatred of the people around her. In chapter 10 Parvana learns that Nooria is going to America and that in her entrance letter she stole aspects of Parvana’s life to make her story more emotional. Parvana is naturally furious, and this point in the story made me furious too. It just seems SO unjust! You would think with all the other stuff that Parvana has to deal with that her sister would at least treat her well, but no, this is not the story tat Ellis is writing. I think Ellis intentionally chooses to infuse her story with realism, to have sisters that fight is much more realistic than creating the perfectly loving family and expecting her readers to believe that surviving a war somehow makes people noble and selfless. Nooria is selfish, but she is also somewhat with cause. Her success and immigration to America could mean that her family can guarantee survival. However, at the same time, Ellis is careful not to cast Americans as the saviors for Parvana and her family.
In chapter 8 it really focuses on Parvana’s interrogation, (or torture if you prefer) in the American prison. She can’t sleep, she is forced to stand in uncomfortable positions for long periods of time, at all times she is made to feel powerless and vulnerable. I think something that I hadn’t appreciated until Parvana stated it is how lonely it would be to not only go through this kind of torture, but also to step out on the other end and be irrevocably changed and for the rest of your life to know that it will be a gap between yourself and other people. To know that the horrors that you have experienced are things that people cannot or will not choose to connect with you over. That would be a terrifying and lonely reality to come to face. In the American prison, Parvana constantly tries to distract herself, otherwise “all she could focus on was pain, fear, loneliness’ and exhaustion” (84). This really connects to Parvana’s comments about the American prisions made earlier in the book:
“Everybody had heard the stories. Everyone knew somebody who had disappeared behind the walls of one of these places. Sometimes they came out again, angry and vowing revenge. Sometimes they came out trembling and scuttled off into the corners to mumble to themselves. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody. It was a secret that everybody knew. What went on behind the prison walls was bad. Parvana had seen the scars, the marks of torture. The peddler who pushed his cart through the refugee camp each day would show his scars to anyone… ‘This is not the Taliban’ he said ‘ This is from the ones who saved us from the Taliban. Who will save us from the saviours?’” (23-24)
This is where I would like to discuss the Documentary “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” and relate some significant quotations from it back to this book. The documentary is horrific, and while “My Name is Parvana” filters out many of the more gruesome or obscene torture tactics, this documentary does not. I feel like it helped be to fill in between the lines and recognize what Ellis is alluding to excepts such as the one above. What went on behind the walls of Abu Ghraib and places like it was more than bad like Parvana notes above; it was inhumane, unjust and horrific.
Some of the quotes from the documentary that I found particularly insightful are listed below:
“We listened as his soul cracked”
“There is a hole in this investigation. It’s a black dark hole that says, COVERUP.”
“We blur the distinction between ourselves and the terrorists”
“It reminded me of Goldings Lord of the Flies. That animalistic, that dark element in each of us is just brought out, its just a matter of: are the elements right?”
Parvana has guts. She has survived an almost impossible existence under the rule of the Taliban and now she is surviving torture at the hands of Americans. Her story is tragic, yet at every turn Parvana proves herself a survivor. I doubt that I would fare as well if I were in her shoes.