A Thousand Splendid Suns Character Analysis Essay

Who could ever have a story without a character? Weather it is a movie, book, or even a music video; there has to be a character to entertain us. One great example of character is in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini tells a story of two strong young women, Laila and Mariam. Mariam’s character is tested and developed throughout the book. She is ignorant, enlightened, shattered, and finally angry. In the first few chapters of “A Thousand Splendid Suns” Mariam was very ignorant. In the book “How to Read Literature like a Professor” the author makes many inferences on character development in novels. In Chapter 8, Hanseldee and Greteldum—using Fairy Tales and Kid Lit, the author talks about Peter Pan. In many ways young Mariam is very similar to Peter Pan. She is like a lost girl in the kolba. The kolba is a single house in a meadow; where Mariam and her mother have lived for the past 15 years. The kolba is like Neverland in Peter Pan. Mariam can never grow up unless she leaves the kolba. Mariam is very ignorant, because she is unaware of how society, especially her father and his wives, views her. In the book it says “The anxiety would set in on Tuesday. Mariam would

This was a major turning point in Rasheed and Mariam’s relationship. Mariam felt bad that she was unable to provide Rasheed with what he truly wanted. This incident can connect to Chapter 10, It’s More Than Just Rain and Snow, of “How to Read Literature like a Professor.” Rain refers to fertility and life. Mariam was in fact the opposite of that. In the novel it says “In the four years since the day at the bathhouse, there had been six more cycles of hopes raised then dashed, each loss, each collapse, each trip to the doctor more crushing for Mariam then the last (Hosseini 99).” Mariam was unable to have a child, and Rasheed was angry with her, because he rely wanted a new son to make up for the one he