Similarities Between Khaled Suns 'And' All The Pretty Horses

Caleb Seiwald
Gorentstein
English 10
July 10, 2014
A thousand splendid suns By Khaled Hosseini and All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy convey consistent flows of how a persons overall lifestyle affects what type of person they will eventually become. These books shows many examples of this from shown from the lives of Mariam, Laila and John Grady Cole
To start Miriam is raised in a life of ridicule from her mother Nana for being a bastard child which her strong willed, and dream of a life with more opportunity for herself. In an attempt to run away Miriam finds out shortly after how her mother has committed suicide, and Jalil abandons her leaving her to be wed forcefully to rasheed. at first Rasheed is kind then turns violent and abusive

She grows up as an only daughter and youngest of the family with two older brothers. her older brothers leave for war and soon die so she becomes best friends with Tariq as children which soon escalates into lovers as teenagers. as the war presses on tariq and his family flee to pakistan, but is told Tariq has died, which later she finds out he hasnt died. not long after,Lailas parents die from a rocket which leaves her wounded. nursed back to health by Rasheed and Miriam she decides to marry Rasheed in order to give her unborn child a father since Tariq is presumed dead. She gives birth to a daughter Aziza, and then to a son Zalmai. but even after giving birth to a son, Rasheeds abusive nature remains the same as always. But as years pass one day Tariq shows up at the door. but when Rasheed finds out about Tariqs return he beats Laila, in an effort to protect her Mariam takes a shovel and kills Rasheed. Laila and Tariq take refuge in Pakistan and begin a new life, but when word reaches them about the U.S. invading Afghanistan they decide to move to Kabul so they can help the city and thats where L:ilai becomes a schoolteacher at an orphanage. In this scenario of events Houssini depicts, that even when she loses her brothers and tariq and has an abusive husband that she still pushes on to live up to her

He takes his journey to Mexico where he becomes a cowboy for Don Hector Rocha where he meets Rochas daughter Alejandra, After an evening at the lake alejandras grandaunt invites john over making it clear she doesnt want him to be with Alejandra. Soon after John is told Alejandra has been sent away, which eventually leads to his arrest for being associated with blevins crimes. Sent to a prison until he can pay his way out john learns to defend himself against the other inmates and negotiate his freedom with Emilio Perez. After a bloody fight where john stabs a man in the heart Perez decides to help him and get him out of jail. He makes his way back to the ranch to meet Duena Alfonsa. She scolds him for coming to the ranch by telling him that Alejandra promised she would never see him again and that the only way he got out of jail, so he calls Alejandra not long after and she meets him in Zacatecas where she confesses she told her father they were in love and thats where all his misfortune had come from, after she leaves he rides until he sees an arrow point towards La Encantada, he then becomes determined not to leave his horses in Mexico and decides to return to the place where they were impounded. He waits for the captain in an schoolhouse taking him at gunpoint