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A Thousand Splendid Suns: A Window Into Another Culture

1253 Words6 Pages

Tricia Lively
A Thousand Splendid Suns; A Window Into Another Culture

After reading The Kite Runner a few years ago, I had very high expectations of Khaled Hosseini’s second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Once I finished the book, I was taken back by the way Hosseini is able to open our eyes to Afghan culture and the lifestyle that is lived. As the reader, you are sucked into the story and become very interested in the characters as well as the situations that they face due to a very different world. There are times when you want to laugh; there are times where you want to cry, and times where you are uncomfortable due to being culturally ignorant. The main themes in A Thousand Splendid Suns include, the place of women and femininity in …show more content…

Always. You remember that, Mariam." And: "It's our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It's all we have." And: "She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world . . . As reminders of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us."
Mariam's life with Rasheed is testimony enough to the legitimacy of Nana's cautions, and it becomes even crueler when he takes a girl, Laila, as his second wife. She is no more passionate about this than as Mariam was, but she has a reason to settle, she is newly pregnant by the young man she loves. Previously to knowing this, he asked her to marry him and she half-heartedly declined, but now she believes he is dead, and she hopes that Rasheed will believe the child is his

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At the kolba, her earliest and only education is on the Koran, taught by Mullah Faizullah. Whenever she encounters hardship, she turns to religion and prayer for comfort, such as after she loses her first baby. It is the only thing that stays consistent throughout her tumultuous life, so she always relies on it for solace and to return to normalcy. In addition, religion allows her to further connect with Aziza, as Mariam teaches her verses from the Koran. Religion, however, would also be her downfall.

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Mariam thought that the baby would bring them along and it did for a while with him being nice to her and even creating a crib for the baby and buying a jacket for him. Not solely did Mariam grieve for her child, but she was also upset for her. Mariam was afraid in her initial four years of marriage, particularly with the man she was with and also the violence that was happening in her country. This quote showed that finally, she discerned that she could tolerate the fear and unleash it. People are always living in fear in Afghanistan, mostly due to how the country was continually in war and terrorist attacks are regular within the country.

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Rasheed treated Mariam as property instead of an actual spouse. Mariam had no voice of her own, Rasheed controlled every aspect of her life, from what she wore to where she went. Mariam could not carry out a pregnancy causing Rasheed to build anger against Mariam, this led Rasheed to lash out and abuse her. Mariam dealt with endless beatings from Rasheed, over the simplest mistakes, because she was too afraid to stand up for herself or leave Rasheed. “It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat.

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Mariam sacrifices her freedom for Jalil by marrying Rasheed. In the novel, when the wives told Mariam they found a suitor for her, she tells Jalil to say something and he says “‘Mariam don’t do this to me’”(49). Even though Mariam did not want to marry Rasheed, she knew Jalil wanted her to and so she did, forever surrendering her freedom to him. Marrying Rasheed deprived Mariam of her freedom because when Rasheed tells Mariam “‘a woman’s face is her husband’s business only’”(70), it indicates that she is his and he controls her.

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Emotional imagery played a prominent role in the novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns" in a variety of different ways. This allows Hosseini to construct a more affectionate connection with his readers and connect more genuinely with their feelings. This is showcased in several parts of the novel, specifically on the occasion where Nana committed suicide and Mariam felt as if she has no one to go when she was in need of consoling. The guilt that Mariam felt is easily expressed through the novel and can be detected by the reader. A similar case can be assumed for the death of Laila’s family after her house was bombed.

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When Mariam unexpectedly killed Rasheed, Laila was terrified by what had happened and Mariam “had Laila lie down, and, as she

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Although Nana is not the epitome of a loving mother, she did make some sacrifices critical in the makeup of Mariam’s life and character. Nana explains to Mariam how she gave birth to her all alone, and even had to cut the umbilical cord herself with absolutely no one there for support (11). She knew that by giving birth to Mariam she would have to give up any social status she had, but

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Rasheed however asks her to wear a burqa before going out. He makes it very clear to Mariam and later on to Laila, that a “woman 's face is her husband 's business only”. However when Mariam fails to bear a child, after several miscarriages, Rasheed begins to torture her both physically and mentally. Rasheed also becomes cross on Laila when she gives birth to a girl child. Later on Laila gives birth to a boy, but this does not improve her status in front of Rasheed.

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Mariam longed to place a ruler on a page and draw important-looking lines”(Hosseini ). Mariam is an example of how women are banned from an education and whose life could have been changed by education. Instead of being educated, she is sheltered by her mother and lives the rest of her life without high expectations of herself. Nana teaches her that an Afghan woman has to endure the life that is chosen for her because she does not have a say. Nana even says "There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don't teach it in school.

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Laila is a young girl than is born into a middle-class family in Kabul. After Laila’s house was destroyed and her parents killed by rain of bombs that were constantly falling in kabul, Rasheed saves her, with the intent to marry the young girl. After Laila heals from her wounds somewhat he makes his intentions know, as she has no place else to go, Laila agrees, not knowing the abuse this will instill on her and her future children. Laila finds Rasheed to be a despicable human being after she finds out how he beats both of his wives and manipulates her with the constant threat of death in fact, she hates him so much that when she finds out she is pregnant with his child she tries to abort it with a metal spoke. This is an act Laila would never

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Rasheed treats her lovingly and assures her that she will get whatever she needs. He says, “anything you need done just ask Mariam and she will do it for you.” “And if you fancy anything, I will get it for you” (Hosseini, 2007, p.

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Her husband happens to become Rasheed. He finds Laila unconscious after a bomb went off, dissipating her entire family. Rasheed then takes her in and nurses her back to health. He feels that because he saved her, he should be rewarded, “The way I see it I deserve a medal”. Rasheed later practically forces her to have sex with him.

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“I admit to what I did, brother,” Mariam said, “But, if I hadn’t, he would have killed her. He was strangling her” (P365). This shows that Mariam is willing to take responsibility for her action she knew that there would be conscious, but she also knew that what she did was to save Laila and her children. Mariam’s actions would lead to this moment, “Kneel here, hamshira. And look down.”

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In regards to the historiography of gender politics in the Victorian era, the social position of women and femininity had become a problematic issue. Similarly, the gender apartheid instilled prior to the civil war in Afghanistan. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, initially published in 2007, is set in Afghanistan from the early 1960s to the early 2000s. In this, it explores the story of Mariam and Laila as the protagonists, who teach the reader the reality of life as a woman in a backward Islamic country. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny seen from the perspectives of these two women and observes how they become to create a bond, despite having come from previously living in very different backgrounds.

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