Summary of the Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Instaread

Author:. Instaread [Instaread]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: iDreamBooks Inc
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Shekiba

Like her great-great-granddaughter Rahima, Shekiba is independent and strong. She, too, experiences the privileges of living like a man. From her teenage years managing her father’s farm to her early adulthood guarding the king’s harem while dressed as a man, Shekiba enjoys the freedom she feels when she performs “men’s work.” One thing that defines Shekiba is her sense of being split in two, or between two identities. Shekiba has spent much of her life somewhere in between two genders. As a teen, she feels more like a son than a daughter. Her experience makes her feel that she has always been part woman, part man. She values the mobility her amorphous gender identity permits. Even the appearance of Shekiba’s face, which is half beautiful and half repulsive, leads her to experience the world from an in-between place. She is at once admired and shunned for her appearance by both men and women.

Shekiba is a symbol for the country of Afghanistan. As her life and Rahima’s life both indicate, Afghanistan has undergone dramatic political and cultural changes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From the era of Great Britain’s and Russia’s colonial occupations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to Taliban rule and subsequent twenty-first-century interventions by the United States, Afghanistan has long been subject to the whims of both insiders and outsiders who have competed for power and influence over its people, culture, and resources. Like Shekiba, Afghanistan has been used and abused. Shekiba, however, is a survivor. In this way, she is a powerful figure for a country whose people have struggled to survive amid a century of unending exploitation and war.

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