Treatment Of Women In A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns depicts the conflict in Afghanistan through the lens of the country’s oppressed women. At first glance, the novel appears to be a depiction of the appalling injustice and cruelty endured by women in Afghan society. However, the novel expands on the issue of domestic violence to look at the conflict and injustice in Afghanistan as a whole. While A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on acts of violence and terror, Hosseini’s message may be far more hopeful than the novel’s grim atmosphere may suggest. By examining the conflicts both within a household and in Afghanistan as a whole, Hosseini suggests that anyone can resist and rise above oppression.

Khaled Hosseini, the author of A Thousand Splendid Suns,

For example, the Taliban’s reign in Kabul drastically worsens women’s rights in the region, as the Taliban legally condones and even encourages the subjugation of women. Rasheed is well aware of this, and as he beats his wives, he declares that “there isn’t a court in this country that will punish me for killing you” (Hosseini 212). More importantly, however, is the surprising similarities between Rasheed’s and the Taliban’s laws (Kazemiyan). Every time that Laila breaks one of Rasheed’s orders, she is disobeying the Taliban’s law as well. For example, Laila ignores Rasheed’s order to remain inside the house and runs through the streets looking for her daughter, she is breaking the Taliban’s law, that a women cannot leave her house without her husband, as well. At first, A Thousand Splendid Suns seems to be about the violent suppression of women, and their subsequent resistance. But here, the author is suggesting that the oppression of Afghan women is only a part of a larger issue- the conflict in Afghanistan as a whole. Therefore, the novel’s themes about resistance expands far beyond the lives of the two women protagonists. A Thousand Splendid Suns implies that there is an innate sense of self-determination. We fight for freedom against confinement, physical or otherwise. In one sense, A Thousand Splendid Suns is about women’s rights. But the novel shows many acts of resistance, against an individual, society, or even a nation. Hosseini always considered his novel to be “a simple love story” (Singh). But A Thousand Splendid Suns expands beyond the conflict in a small household to teach us about