Being shot for using your voice to stand up for equality. In the book I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai, She utilizes multiple literary elements to organize her book. She applies metaphors, imagery, perspectives, and chronology of events.
Malala Yousafzai the author utilizes similes to organize parts of her book. The Taliban were a group of mad men destroying the town, “It seemed to us that the Taliban had arrived in the night just like vampires” (111). This quote is trying to emphasize the degree that people in Pakistan were unaware of the appearance of the Taliban. She is caught off-guard, wanting to compare the approaching of the Taliban to vampires, sneaking through the nights and days. One who is shot for her using her voice, “He knows people says its his fault that i was shot, that he pushed me to speak up like a tennis dad trying to create a champion, as if i dont have my own mind” (305). Malala’s father should have not encouraged her to be more of a protestor. Malala does sustain, although everything that she announce came from her self knowledge. People never took into consideration about the taliban,“My father spoke like a lion, but i could see in his heart he was worried and scared” (230). Malala and her father are anxious thinking about what is going to happen after receiving a letter from an anonymous person talking bad about the school for girls. The father is seen as a person to put comfort to his family and be the front of attention. She exerts similes to compare her work to help evaluate her change in speaking skills.
Metaphors is another rhetorical device that the author uses to compare one thing to another by not using like or as. Malala compares books and pens to power, “Let us pick up our books and our pens, I said. They are our most powerful weapons” (310). Malala is stating that every child deserves education and should stand up for his or her rights. She never refers to violence as being the solution to solve everything, but you can resolve everything literally instead of physically. The pens are referred to as weapons to used to get rid of the taliban. The taliban were trying get rid of everything, “We felt like the taliban saw us as little dolls to control, telling us what to do and how to dress. I thought if god wanted us to be like that he wouldn’t have made us different” (124). Taliban’s were trying to get rid of anything that children associated with that gave them happiness. They consider themselves to have all the power and those that betray them should suffer the consequence. Swat was flooded by the River Swat causing power outage and things to be washed away, “Our own street was on a hill, so we were a bit better protected from the overflowing river, but we shivered as the sound of it, a growling heavy heavy-breathing dragon devouring everything in its past” (201). The feeling of being on top does not feel as safe as still being able to hear the river. The comparison of the dragon and being safe is to help hear the sound. Metaphors help to evaluate the understanding of the world around us in which the author is trying to do so.
The author uses perspectives to show her point of view of other recent or past events that have happened. She talks about the tragedy of 9/11, “We didn’t realize then that 9/11 would change our world too and would bring war into our valley” (57). Osama Bin Laden had been killed giving Pakistan to feel guilty and embarrassment. The taliban can be compared to diary of Anne Frank she kept during the Holocaust in this case Malala is going through the takeover of taliban’s, Malala was writing a diary and did not know how to begin, “He told me about Anne Frank, A thirteen-year-old Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam during the war” (155). They felt betrayal the same way Pakistan felt towards America. Malala and Anne Frank are recording dark and dangerous experiences. The Nazis Germany did not want to speak up just like the people in Pakistan, “First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist” (140). The Nazis Germany event was the exact same situation that the people in Pakistan were going through. No one was willing to speak up for what they believed in. The overall effect of perspectives is for the author to have a purpose in her voice to make it clear from other readers to be able to understand what her perspective is.
Imagery is another device the author utilizes to make the reader feel like they are in that situation or to help clarify the setting. Malala describes her scenery of her home, “My family, the Swat Valley, is a heavenly kingdom of mountains, gushing waterfalls and crystals clear lakes” (151). Malala wants to show that it is hard for her to leave her country because it is not safe through all scenery she has from her home. The only way for her to return home is when it becomes safe. The country is starting to be more strict, “Oh the road we passed dusty-faced children bent double with huge bundles of grass on their and men lending flocks of shaggy goats that wonder hither and thither” (60). Showing that children were not attending school and receiving proper education because they were in need to help their family. Children needed to receive proper education and to show a visual representation of what kids go through will probably give children the opportunity to have education. Malala was on her way home from finishing an exam when, “My left eye bulge half my hair was gone and mouth tilted to one side as if it had been pulled down so when i tried to smile it looks more like a grimace” (145). Everything that happened resulted in a shock for Malala’s family and to think that taliban’s were back was even more horrifying. Although she has gone through a lot she still manages to be the same person nothing has changed. Imagery creates a more explicit image for the reader to keep in mind about the value meaning the author is trying to show.
Creating a sequence of events will help the reader to examine what was going on to give a more sense of thought. Malala’s mother was pregnant with her, “within a few months my mother was expecting. Their first child was born in 1995, was a girl and stillborn” (53). The mother gave birth to her at home since she was unable to afford going to a hospital. At the time there were no hospitals or at least a close one. Things in Mingora were building up to get worse and worse, “At my school classmates were terrified” (230). Students were afraid to attend school they thought they were being threatened. Rumors had been spreaded causing no one to go to school. Malala being shot was a tragedy not only was she shot but as well as people she cared about her friends, “I was lying on Moniba’s lap, bleeding from my head and left ear” (245). Two taliban men stopped the bus that Malala and her friends were riding on, asking for Malala and shot her. She was shot for her accusation on education for women she wanted there to be as equal of right for women to attend school just as much as men are able to attend school and do other things. Chronology of events is a method of organization using flashbacks and flashforwards to show things that already happened or just happened.
Overall, in the book I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban shows how the author utilizes multiple rhetorical devices to organize her book. Malala Yousafzai applies metaphors, similes, imagery, perspectives, and chronology of events. The author’s organization is to help evaluate certain meaning and signify different terms. The different rhetorical devices are put to use differently as they all have a degree of organizing a book.