Pain In Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns

If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive any hardship in life. To endure is to be able to live with the way that some people treat others. It’s not fun to live in a country that is covered with war and bombs. When I used to live in Iraq, my family and I had to endure living in a country that is full of violence and hostilities. I remember how it was painful to hear that some people lost someone close because of a bomb. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, the narrator shows how Mariam and Laila endure living with their violent husband, Rasheed. They get used to the struggles and hardships that they go through. Mariam struggles in her life after her mother’s suicide that causes a big turning point in her life. Her father forces her to marry Rasheed, a man almost double her age. Similarly, Laila goes through grief after her parents’ death,

Mariam helps Laila in her pregnancy, and she takes her to the hospital to deliver the baby: “ Mariam positioned herself behind the crown of Laila’s head and and lowered her face so their cheeks touched. She could feel Laila’s teeth rattling. Their hands locked together”(292). This shows how Mariam gives support to Laila through her hard times. Also, Mariam’s presence indicates a true mother figure through her care and advocacy for Laila. This love condition continues after Mariam’s death. In Laila’s third pregnancy, she sits with Tariq and her kids, so they play the names game to choose a name for the new baby: “ But the game involves only male names. Because, if it’s a girl, Laila has already named her”(415). Laila has already chosen the name of her new baby, if she was a girl, then she likes to name her Mariam. This shows how Laila never forgets Mariam, and she appreciate everything Mariam did for her, so she wants to pay her back with a great memory. Through these women’s help and support situations, Hosseini shows that love still