Maturing in Shabanu

Suzanne Fisher Staples’ book, Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind, covers incredibly difficult subjects to talk about and refer to. These include: one’s attitude towards life is what really matters; difficult sacrifices could be best for the entire family and not just you; and everything in life comes with a price. The theme that is most evident in the book, however, is the theme of maturation and how it is an amazingly confusing road to go down. Staples writes this theme in many different, unique, and interesting ways, talking about both literal and metaphorical maturation and how it affects the main character, Shabanu’s, life as the story progresses. It is this change in her body, her decision-making, and her opinion of the world around her that makes her relatable to teenage girls around the world, even though she lives in 1980’s Pakistan. In Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind, Staples reveals the theme of the hard road of maturing by showing how Shabanu goes through puberty, makes amazingly hard choices, and realizes that the world around her is flawed.

The first thing that Staples does to show that maturing is a recurring theme is to portray how Shabanu handles going through puberty. Early on in the book, we hear Shabanu’s thoughts on how she wishes her breasts would grow and how she wishes she would mature as fast as Phulan does. However, once she is engaged to marry a man named Rahim-sahib against her will, she starts to worry about coming of age, as that is what is required of her before she can marry him. Puberty finally hits when she notices her breasts have grown, she starts her period, or “bleeding,” as she calls it, and “also [begins] to feel desire[,] touch[ing her]self in the night and wonder[ing] how it would feel to have a man touch [her]” (Staples 233). This seems to suggest that she is afraid of the changes she is going through, and feels that it is unusual for her to be going through this and that she shouldn’t feel what she is feeling. In the real world, people going through puberty will, most of the time, be pessimistic about it and feel like they are different and that it shouldn’t be happening to them; these are exactly the feelings Shabanu goes through in the book. Staples writes about Shabanu going through puberty to show one way, the literal way, that she matures in the book, and to give her character more depth.

The second thing Staples writes about to show Shabanu maturing as a major theme in the book is to show the challenging choices Shabanu has to make fro both herself and her family throughout the story. The hardest choice she has to make, of course, is the choice to either marry Rahim-sahib or run away to her aunt Sharma and live there. Her big epiphany about making her own choices occurs when she finally decides to stick up for herself and run away to Sharma’s, saying “[she has made] up [her] mind. [She would]l not be beaten. [She would] not marry a man whose wives will make [her] their slave. [She’ll] die first” (234). This shows maturation because originally, Shabanu seems almost incapable of making her own choices, even though she stands up for her ethics and what she believes in, and now, she is ready to make her own adult decisions and die for them, which shows a high level of maturity. In the real world, when people find out about the terrible and difficult decisions they will have to make not just for themselves, but also for their family and the people they love, it can be really hard and take a long amount of time before they finally accept the decisions they will ultimately make. Staples writes Shabanu maturing in her decision-making and critical thinking and one way that, by the end of the book, she turns from a little girl to a grown-woman.

The final thing that Staples does to mature her character over the course of the book is to show her realizations about a lot of important information and life lessons, including that life won’t always go her way and that the world around her is overall very flawed. This is shown in a turning point near the end of the book when Shabanu tries to stick up for herself after her sister, Phulan’s, fiance, Hamir, is killed. In response to this, a deal is made where Phulan will instead be engaged to Shabanu’s fiance, Murad, while Shabanu will instead be engaged to Rahim-sahib. She tries to stick up for herself, saying that it is not fair for her to be engaged to a man like this, especially since she was engaged to a man she actually loved and cared for. However, instead of her mom trying to negotiate with ehr or understanding her frustration and calming her down, she slaps her across the face, saying “Shabanu, you are to say nothing more. It is done”(193). When this happens, Shabanu is suddenly hit with the realization that life is not fair and it won’t always go the way she wants it to. In this case, she realizes it through a literal slap in the face, but in the real world, when people have their epiphanies that life won’t always give them what they want, it can feel like a metaphorical slap in the face and a reality that is hard and slow to accept. This turning point in the book is written to start Shabanu’s road to maturing, as she realizes life is unfair and she has to compromise and make decisions that she feels are right.

The theme of maturation and the tough road it leads you down is explored heavily in Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind through the portrayal of Shabanu’s stage of puberty, the development of her grown-up decision-making, and the epiphanies she receives of how hard life will be for her. If teenagers, especially teenage girls, read this book and realized the arc of maturing Shabanu goes through in the story, they will probably be able to relate very well to Shabanu and her struggles. Shabanu’s growing, both as a character and physically, is written incredibly well, and seems incredibly genuine and real, making you care for her as a character more. Not only does the author write it frankly, but she writes it subtly, as even though it can be noticed, it most likely wouldn’t until someone makes the effort to connect the dots in the story. The theme of maturation is handled with a feeling of importance, frankness, and reality in Shabanu; Daughter of the Wind, and it holds a unique perspective to the theme that has never been seen before and might not ever be seen again in American literature.