I Am Malala Figurative Language

Pakistani activist for equal female education, Malala Yousafzai, in her biography, I am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up For Education And Changed The World, actively articulates how she has strived, yet struggled through much resistance in order to advocate that girls should have the right to an equal education anywhere despite the cultural difference. Yousafzai’s purpose is to illuminate the world by elucidating her culture and journey as a whole in order to portray to world that female students deserve an education through the use of fictive figurative language, egalitarian and religious ethos, and abstract symbolism. She adopts a defiant tone in order to educate the Western world of the opportunity that is taken for granted, yet deprived of
Yousafzai utilizes strong figurative language specifically to support the way that she constantly combines this form of rhetoric with others in order to effectively persuade the reader. In the biography, “I am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up For Education And Changed The World”, Yousafzai efficaciously demonstrates the use of figurative language to reinforce her purpose when she states, “It was a humble place with nothing more than blackboards and chalk- and it was right next to a smelly river. But to me it was a paradise”(Yousafzai, pg 19), and “Girls like us might be reprimanded. A grown woman could be beaten. Or killed. This secret school, she said, is our silent protest”(Yousafzai, pg 89). Yousafzai uses these forms of figurative language in order to induce the reader that she found education as one of her priorities and would take any risk to get the education she thinks she deserves. The effect that these quotes have on the reader is to portray a motivational tone making the Western world feel guilty of taking their education for granted, while she has to make many sacrifices daily in order to just get to
This being said, she has built her credibility through the use of ethos not just because she is a female, but because she was able to change the perspective of people despite her Islamic religion. In the beginning of her speech titled, Malala Yousafzai Nobel Peace Prize Speech, she explains the moral issue on girls going to school in the statement, “We had a thirst for education because our future was in the classroom. Education went from being a right to a crime”(Yousafzai, 2014) and “I am proud to be the first person, the first Pakistani, and and the youngest person to receive this award”(Yousafzai, 2014). This represents that Yousafzai wields her ethical beliefs in order to exhibit how, despite her disagreement with her religion’s moral issues, she was able to accomplish much including continuing her education. As a result, the effect that her religious, ethical views has on the reader is that it generates a patriotic, yet joyful tone which unifies her purpose of changing the perspective of the Western world on her religion and females receiving an adequate