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A Thousand Splendid Suns Personal Response

734 Words3 Pages

Life is not a bed of roses. Everyone on this earth suffer in one way or the other. But as human beings we aim for a life which is free from tribulations. When we watch a movie or when we read a novel, we feel and look into the characters as if they are closely related to us. Wherever we are on this earth, be a native or an alien the sufferings and happiness are one and the same, may the intensity varies. Khaled Hosseini could successfully bring out his internal emotions with respect to his country. Though he stays in America, his second novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” reveals his reminiscences of thirty years of turbulent Afghan history. His family also moved to America where he became a doctor. He optimistically returned to his home land after twenty seven years. Several incidents from his life are reflected in the story like he shows how Laila’s father Baba wanted girls to be educated as …show more content…

It moves the reader’s inner conscience as the novel revolves through wars, struggle between the family members and starvation. The story starts with Mariam Jo’s introduction as a five year old girl, who eagerly waits for her father, Jalil Khan, who visits her only on every Thursday. Her only companion was her mother Nana, who was molested in the hands of Jalil Khan and decided to lead a secluded life away from the prying eyes. Nana hates her distressful life and shows her agony by calling Mariam as harami, though the girl doesn’t understand the meaning of it. Even though she wasn’t the legitimate heir as her nine siblings, Jalil was a true hero in her eyes as she was always happy with him. Mariam was a simple girl who loved both her parents. In spite of her mother warnings she trusted her father and gets shocked when he gets her married to an aged man and sends her to Kabul with him. One can imagine how her heart ached when she says, “Don’t come. I won’t see you. Don’t you come? I don’t want to hear from you. Ever.

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What makes one willing enough to sacrifice her own life for others? How difficult can it be to willingly die for what one believes? What does it take to be a Christ-figure? Khaled Hosseini emphasizes the concept of sacrifice in A Thousand Splendid Suns. In this novel, Hosseini presents Mariam as a Christ-figure through her qualities and sacrifice.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns Relationship Analysis

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The motif of Relationships is prominent throughout The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Khaled Hosseini uses relationships to develop characters and move plot. “I was Sunni and he was Shia’a” Hosseini continues to use character opposites to express diversity in successful relationships. He does this to emphasize how different ideologies can coexist. This is inspired by his life in Afghanistan living under the Soviets, then moving to the US where people from all races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds live together.

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Once you step inside the life of a “harami”,you’ll never be the same with your new insight. The story starts with two interchangeable characters, Laila and Mariam. Similar in many ways, both of these women are introduced in the novel as young children. The author expertly describes events Laila and Mariam encountered within their everyday lives that has either affected them or helped them progress and deal with the modern rules for women rooted within Afghanistan.

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In Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns , Nana tells Mariam that a man always finds a way to blame a woman. This mistreatment of women is depicted in the novel by utilizing multiple examples. Throughout the novel, men were able to use women as scapegoats in the Afghani society that deemed women as unequal to men.

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727 Words | 3 Pages

One night when Mariam was constantly awaken by the scorching heat she went downstairs to drink a glass of water and she noticed Aziza lying awake beside Laila on the floor. Mariam immediately noticed that the little girl was “dressed like a damn boy” (243). A few days later Laila “found a stack of baby clothes, neatly folded, outside her bedroom door” (247). Laila knew that Mariam had generously given these clothes to her for the reason that Mariam knew that Rasheed was not going to buy any for her, and since Aziza was the first person to love Mariam “so undeservedly” (252) Mariam felt a connection between both of them. This interaction causes Mariam and Laila to come closer together also, and therefore the drinking of “chai” (251) became a “nightly ritual” (251).

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775 Words | 4 Pages

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Gender Roles In A Thousand Splendid Suns

878 Words | 4 Pages

Equality of genders is a basic human right that all should posses. However, in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, the reader explores Afghanistan’s true nature of extreme gender inequality towards women and how it affects all the characters within the novel. The novel explores how within a marriage, women have unequal rights, undergo major amounts of physical abuse, and are emotionally and mentally tormented by their very own supposedly beloved husbands. A marriage is defined as a union of two people as partners in a personal relationship.

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

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1317 Words | 6 Pages

The novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is a story written by Khaled Hosseini about two women and the lives they had and what they faced as they grew up. It focuses on Mariam and Laila. The two were brought up in very different ways and they were raised by very different parents. Mariam was raised by a single mother since the father was mostly absent, only visited occasionally and she was a bastard child. Her mother bore her before marriage; she got pregnant for Jalil while working as a housekeeper at Jalil’s place who later threw her out.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns Analysis

1952 Words | 8 Pages

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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1539 Words | 7 Pages

A Thousand Splendid Suns’ was written by an Afghan American writer, Khaled Hosseini. The novel narrates the strength and resilience of two women who endure physical and psychological cruelty in an anti-feminist society. It also demonstrates how The Taliban uses fear and violence to control the people of Afghanistan, particularly females. Throughout this story the novel exposes the way customs and laws endorse Rasheed’s violent misogyny and it tells the tale of two women who endure a marriage to a ruthless and brutal man, whose behaviour forces them to kill him. The protagonist Mariam is a poor villager who lives in a remote area in Afghanistan, in contrast to Laila who is a smart, educated daughter of a schoolteacher.

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