Fear In A Thousand Splendid Suns

In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, fear kept the story moving forward. Right away, the beginning story starts with Jalil fearing the judgment of others for having Mariam. Later in the story, but still equally as important in moving the story forward, we see Mammy fearful of leaving their home in Kabul where her sons fought for. An additional time fear kept the story moving was shown when Mariam and Laila feared for their life due to Rasheed. There are many ways and reasons as to why the story kept on moving, this essay will specifically only talk about only one key factor; fear. We see fear throughout the entire story, but kicking off the action and starting the story strong is very important. Right from the bat, Jalil feared

“Now that they were Shaheed, packing up and running was even worse affront, a betrayal, a disavowal of the sacrifice her sons had made” (151). Although Kabul was a very unsafe place for Laila, Babi, and Mammy to be living in, it didn't matter to her. She feared leaving their home in thoughts of betraying her sons because she felt guilty that they had to go to war and died serving. If she hadn't let her fear of leaving get in the way they very well could still be alive, they could’ve fled and made it to a better place where they could’ve started over and Laila and Tariq might have never had to be separated. This fear ended in Laila being stranded on her own, she had no choice but to marry Rasheed which changed the story drastically. Without Mammy’s fear, there could have been so many different outcomes which makes it very important to how the storyline carried

Mariam living with Rasheed was a very big portion of the story and even Laila living with them took up a big chunk of time, so their fear of Rasheed lasted over a very long period of time. “She struggled to uncut his fingers from Laila’s neck. She bit them. But they remained tightly clamped around Laila’s windpipe, and Mariam saw that he meant to carry through” (347). This took place after Laila had Tariq inside the house and Zalmai had told Rasheed all about it. By this time, Rasheed was done with Laila, he had already been on the edge after Mariam and Laila had tried to escape their living situation and felt she would never learn to obey him. To prove his power in general, he felt that the most effective way of teaching them a lesson was through cruel behavior. Mariam has seen a lot with Rasheed, but this quote specifically exhibits how she saw the look in his eyes and knew that he was going to kill Laila. This is only one example of Rasheeds acts toward the girls, these beatings created fear and are the ultimate reason why they stayed in the situation they were in for so long, there was no escape for them. If Mariam hadn’t feared losing Laila to Rasheed, she would have never killed him and he would’ve been still alive; changing the story completely because Mariam would also be alive and we would never know if Tariq and Laila would get their happy ever after. They very well could’ve stayed in