(AGG) Losses can affect a person’s life and how they act by the decisions they make. (BS-1) With Baba-jan and Nur gone, Najmah has to step up and be more mature to keep her and Mada-jan safe and alive. (BS-2) Najmah has seen her mother and baby brother die right in front of her and she has to handle herself. (BS-3) Najmah knows that if she goes back to her homeland she has a chance of saving her farmland. (TS)
In Under The Persimmon Tree, Najmah’s losses has changed and shaped her throughout the novel which has affected her decisions. MIP-1) Najmah has to step up and become more mature in order for Mada-jan and herself to survive. (SIP-A) Najmah has changed and become a mother to Mada-jan because she has witnessed Baba-jan and Nur get taken away. (STEWE-1) Najmah wants to tell the Taliban to leave, but Najmah knows that if she does she will get beaten. ” No! ‘I shout, and Mada-jan holds me against her, keeping me from running after him. The Bukri cries out in a bleating that sounds like a human baby, and I want to snatch her away from this leopard” (Staples 17).
Najmah wants the Taliban to go and not take anyone or anything else like her father or other food because if they do then she will be alone with her pregnant mother and then Najmah will have to do most of the work like getting the food and water from the river. (STEWE-2) Najmah knows that after Baba-jan and Nur leave she has to be more mature, ” No I will go,’ Baba-jan says, turning back to face the Pashtun talib without raising his voice, ‘Your son, too,’ says the man. He wants to fight, and we wouldn’t want to disappoint him.
‘He’s just a boy,’ Baba-man says again, and the man raises the butt of his rifle as if to strike Baba-jan in the face” (Staples 17). Najmah witnesses her father and brother get taken away by the Taliban and now Mada-jan and Najmah have to survive on their own together, but since Mada-jan is pregnant, Najmah is the only strong one that can do the heavy and hard work. (SIP-B) Najmah has to be a mom since Mada-jan is pregnant. STEWE-1) Najmah has matured and wants Nur back because she needs his help, “I have forgotten my childish quarrels with Nur I am no longer angry with him for scaring me about the leopard, and for saying I can’t carry water as far as he can. It’s as if these things never happened, and all I want is to see the top of his head and Baba-jan’s as they trudge up the hill, carrying water from the Baba Darya” (Staples 37).
Najmah forgives Nur because she knows that she has to step up and be a leader since Mada-jan can’t do a lot of work cause she is pregnant. STEWE-2) Najmah can’t just lay around all day like she did before Baba-jan and Nur were taken,”Lawaken the morning of the next day and decide I have to do something or we surely will die, even if the Taliban do not come back” (Staples 37). Najmah decides that she has to do something since Madajan is pregnant and can’t do anything, Najmah has to step up and become the mom and work harder than she ever has. (CS) Najmah’s actions in helping Mada-jan changed her into becoming a more mature and hardworking girl and is not relying on her parents anymore.
Second Body Paragraph: (MIP-2) Najmah has been impacted by witnessing Mada-jan and Habib die. (SIP-A) The traumatizing events have changed her and impacted her life throughout her journey to find her brother and father. (STEWE-1) Najmah can’t do anything but watch her mother and baby brother get blown up, “I know || cannot make it to the house, and I run to hide among the boulders alongside the path. The ground jumps crazily beneath me, and I lose my footing. As I fall l pull the bundle of my quilt wrapped inside my chadr on top of me.
Slivers and chunks of rock shoot out around me and then clatter down like hail. After the deafening thumps and roaring of the explosions, suddenly | hear nothing. My ears feel as if someone clapped them hard, and the pressure in my head is terrible. I try to draw air into my chest, but it will not expand” (Staples 66). Najmah runs down to try and save Mada-jan but she knows that she can’t make it in time so she lays down hopelessly under cover so that she doesn’t die either by the bomb or fragments of rock or other objects that might injure her. STEWE-2) Najmah gives up on life because everything that she has loved is gone,” I sit in the dirt beside them quietly, not crying, not thinking, not even aware that I am breathing, and it occurs to me that I might be dead, too. I must have sat for a long time, although I have no recollection of the time passing” (Staples 83).
Najmah has realized that after her family have all left, she has no one that can take care of her, so she feels dead and she doesn’t have anyone to tell her where to go. SIP-B) Najmah is still in shock by what has happened to people because she doesn’t want to lose another person in her life. (STEWE-1) The effect that Najmah has suffered is she doesn’t want to speak,” They speak to me and try to make me feel welcome. But I feel as if my tongue has been locked inside my mouth since the moment I saw my mother airing the quilts just before the bombs fell. I try to communicate, but although the words form inside my head, my tongue and lips will not cooperate” (Staples 88). Najmah’s whole family has either been taken away by the Taliban or blown up by bombs.
Since these events have happened and she witnessed both of them, she is afraid that if she speaks to another person a lot and stays with them, she will get connected to them and then it will be harder for her to leave. (STEWE-2) Later on in Najmah’s journey, she still doesn’t want to talk to Akhtar and Khalida,” I feel I must keep my distance from Khalida and Akhtar because I know I will leave them soon. If Akhtar leaves first, I am afraid I will have to stay and help Khalida. And so | keep my silence as well as my distance and I watch very carefully for the chance to leave first” (Staples 151).
Najmah is worried that if she comes into contact with Akhtar he will make her stay with Khalida and she won’t have another chance to leave for a while. If Najmah does keep her distance then she will be able to look for a way to escape so that she can hopefully find her father and brother. (CS) Najmah’s life just keeps getting tougher for her especially losing her family. Third Body Paragraph: (MIP-3) Najmah is determined to return home and save her family’s land instead of going to America with Nusrat. (SIP-A)
Najmah’s encounters has led her to this decision because she has been through alot and she knows it would make Baba-jan proud. STEWE-1) Najmah is alert and ready for whatever happens but she knows that if she doesn’t go back home the land will be taken, “I hear footsteps and a man speaking angrily, and I know it is my Uncle. My heart leaps into my mouth. I know Bibi Nusrat will not tell him I am here. But what if he forces his way inside? I turn out the light in my room and slip out into the hallway to listen” (Staples 241).
Najmah knows that if she gets caught by her uncle she will have to go back home and he will surely have her forced into marriage. He will take her father’s land and she will be sent away so he can have the land all to himself. STEWE-2) Najmah and Nur both know that they have to return to Golestan,”We have no choice but to return to Golestan,’ says Nur quietly. ‘Uncle or someone else surely will take our land if we don’t go back. It was our father’s last wish that we keep our farm from the hands of the Taliban or Uncle” (Staples 256). Najmah can’t stay with Nusrat because she has to go back to Golestan and protect their farm land from enemies or other people that will take their land. Her father’s last wish was to keep the land for generations to come, but she can’t if she doesn’t go back and protect it.
This powers her to keep striving forward. (SIP-B) Najmah cannot live anywhere else other than her homeland. (STEWE-1) Najmah didn’t want to go to America because she felt that she wouldn’t see anything that she remembered from her homeland, “Can you see the stars in New York? ‘ Najmah asks after a moments silence. ‘Yes,’ says Nusrat, “you can see the stars in New York. The city lights are bright, so the stars seem dim. But there are many other things to see in New York. ‘But you cannot see the mountains,” says Najmah” (Staples 247).
Najmah doesn’t want to follow Nusrat to New York because there are no stars and the stars give her a sense of guidance and safety. When she doesn’t see the stars she feels lost. Najmah also wants to see mountains and there are no mountains in New York and mountains make her feel like she is at home. (STEWE-2) Since Najmah can’t travel back to Kunduz alone she is asking Nusrat to wait with her until her father or brother come, because then it will be safer to travel, “‘You cannot go back to Kunduz alone. Your uncle would take your father’s land and you would have nothing. ‘He will take the land if I stay here,’ says Najmah. ‘That is why I must find my Baba-jan and Nur. ‘ Najmah folds her arms in front of her and sets her jaw in a way that has become familiar to Nusrat” (Staples 248). Najmah is committed to going back home to Kunduz and not to America, but she has to wait for one of the men in her family because then it is more safe to travel. (CS)
Najmah decides that she needs to make it back to Golestan to save her family’s land. (RTS) In Under The Persimmon Tree, the losses that Najmah has gone through has shaped her decisions throughout her journey through the novel. BS-3) Najmah has decided not to go with Nusrat, and to stay to try and keep her family’s farmland. (BS-2) Najmah’s life will change drastically after the losses that she has gone through especially after Baba-jan and Habib dying. (BS-1) Najmah’s life will become harder from now on because she has to become more mature and take care of Mada-jan. (R) Najmah has to use what’s within her to keep her going and not give up, as a famous author once said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.