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A thousand splendid suns women inequality
Studying gender roles in literature
Studying gender roles in literature
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Having meaning in the world is what most of us long for. The woman in Afghanistan don’t even have a reason to think about having meaning, because of the way they are treated. Women by the Taliban get treated as an object. Reading A Thousand Splendid Suns gives you a clear portrayal of what the women in the book was Mariam. Can’t even imagine how frightened she must have been.
The injustice Mariam endures in the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, leads Mariam on a struggling journey impacting her future path in life. The injustice that Mariam endures leaves a permanent mark on her life and impacts her from the beginning. Life wasted no time throwing the cruel injustices of life at Mariam. Mariam was marked a harami, otherwise known as a child without a father, even though her father Jalil was alive, near, and well. “She understood then what Nana meant, that a harami was an unwanted thing: that she, Mariam, was an illegitimate person that would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such as love, family, home, acceptance.”
Furthermore the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns gives people a way to see that not every woman in Afghanistan fits America’s stereotypical view of an Afghan woman. Not only that, but the book describes how speaking out allows one to break the single story. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila are constantly facing the challenges of the Islamic social construction and ideology for women. Mariam came from a poor family and her Nana strongly believed in suppressive roles of women in society. She believed that women should stay at home and do the cooking and cleaning.
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.
How generous does one have to be to become a mother? What attributes does a person need to represent a mother? Khaled Hosseini explores motherhood in A Thousand Splendid Suns. In this novel, Hosseini shows the archetypal satisfactory mother by showing Mariam as a supporting, playing, and caring character for Laila and the children. Mariam is seen supporting Laila, Aziza, and Zalmai throughout the novel.
In most texts women are usually forced follow the societal norms; having no power and staying subordinate, giving all their power to the men, although they can use different techniques to receive the power they deserve. In comparing the two texts, in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, women are seen as powerless, weak people who have been silenced by the men in their lives. Whereas in Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the women have no sovereignty over themselves due to the society they live in where women shouldn’t. While the women in Amir’s life help him because they understand how to overcome their own powerlessness and can guide him on his way to become the kind of man he wants to be, the women in Holden’s life cannot guide him on his
In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, the peaceful lifestyles and standard equality of women’s lives is drastically changed to discrimination and abuse by means of forced marriage, restriction of education, and additional punishments they received. Not only do most of the women not have control of whom and when they marry, but they usually have no control of their lives while married. Lack of education is also extremely common for women in Afghanistan. Women are often denied any chance of receiving a proper education and could be banned from schools. Women may suffer many severe punishments compared to men or would suffer for reasons that do not incite punishment.
In this community, you will see a lot of inequality, as a result, the less fortunate or women get mistreated because the other is “higher” than them. As the story goes on, you see less and less equality and some deal with it but others do not appreciate it. For example, where we first start seeing inequality is when the text says, “They greeted one another and exchanged lots of gossip and went to join their husbands” (Jackson). This is proving my point because the author kept emphasizing that the women were by the men.
In the beginning of the 1990s the Taliban, an Islamic group, ruled Afghanistan. The Taliban began to be formed around the 1960s then Afghanistan was ruled by this group people for at least six years. Since they began to rule, the Afghanistan society changed. The country had many deaths, the Taliban were blamed for the wave of suicide bombings and other attacks in Afghanistan. The conflicts in the country were not only the bombing but there was inequality between men and women.
A Thousand Splendid Suns Essay What horrors and struggles did the women living in Afghanistan during a time of continuous fighting have to endure? In the historical fiction novel A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini, readers are able to understand the harsh oppression women faced. Mentioning times like the rule of the Taliban, and using characters like Laila and Mariam, he is able to show examples of life as a woman and the need for hope. Through his use of setting, characterization, and symbolism, Hosseini develops the theme of how important hope and endurance is when facing the effects of war and the unjust gender inequality of women, because it helped people persevere and continue forwards.
Later in the story, when the Taliban started their revolt, the women in the novel were forced to cover their bodies and hide from the sight of men. In parallel, Mariam and Laila were obligated to please Rasheed while being hidden behind the walls of their house. When Laila was discussing the severity of the Taliban’s new rule, Rasheed stated “You think this is some new radical idea the Taliban are bringing? Have you ever lived outside of your precious little shell in Kabul''(279), illustrating the demeaning and abusive setting Laila and Mariam were forced to reside in. The wives endured through the struggles of a tyrannical and patriarchal society to pursue the dream of escaping in the future.
For centuries, women have been exploited by the society. Events of women being prohibited from doing things like voting or working and being forced to behave the way it is considered to be socially acceptable have been jotted down in history. Until today women are still viewed as the weaker sex. In some countries, women are regarded less than human and are treated like slaves. Khaled Hosseini goes into the oppression of women in his novel A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Feminism, being a large part of the story, is depicted in several different ways. From the age gap to the Marquis’ dominance over his wife, the man is shown as the prominent figure all the way until the end. Toward the middle of the short story, the Marquis
Lastly, gender roles were a theme in the book because many of the different titles/roles were restricted to certain genders. For example, all the Bene Gesserit were women and all the “leaders” of the houses were men. Women would be married off for alliances or “assistants” and the men would be trained as
Since even before biblical times, gay, lesbians, and bisexuals have been faced with extreme oppression. Discriminated against by governments, friends, and even their own church, these people had no choice but to hide their true self or either become subject to the immense amounts of hatred from everyone around them. While gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have faced oppression for thousands of years, citizens in Afghanistan are facing severe oppression that is somewhat similar to the gay, lesbian, and bisexual population. These people are accurately represented by the characters in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and by the film Osama. T Thesis: Three characters in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns and the film Osama.
