Justice In A Thousand Splendid Suns

During life, birth, and death, a family is one of the few natures of life that are present throughout. Often times, the value of family is taken for granted, and people tend to disregard the importance it carries. Due to the power present in the nature of a man, often times it is challenging for women to establish a firm independence, in distinction of the common norms inaugurated in society and in family. In both A Thousand Splendid Suns and Pride and Prejudice, men are the dominant figures in all households, as they have control over their financial status, who their children marry, where they live, and create means in which the females of the family must follow. The inferiority that women face leads to an inquiry of an immense pride

Mothers make a variety of sacrifices in their lives. The risks taken by mothers can come in many different forms; they can be physical, emotional and spiritual. The majority of those sacrifices revolve around taking care of, providing for and protecting their children. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Laila makes sacrifices for Aziza and Zalmai, Nana risks things in her life for Mariam, and Mariam sacrifices things for Laila and her children. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini explores the aspect of sacrifice taken by mothers. Women will go to extreme lengths of sacrifice in order to ensure the safety of their children.

After Nana commits suicide, and Jalil is forced to take Mariam in, he quickly looks to marry her off in order to rid himself of her. The idea was shared through all of Jalil’s wives, and it is so palpable that Mariam knows exactly what everyone wants to say, that “they had been disgraced by her birth, and this was their chance to erase, once and for all, the last trace of [Jalil’s] scandalous mistake. [Mariam] was being sent away because she was the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame” (Hosseini 48). These feelings reflect how deeply this society’s values have penetrated, to the point of women feeling in conflict with each other over struggles completely out of their control.

For many years, women have been oppressed and treated as property. The opinion of a woman did not matter, being obedient to her husband was all that is required. Even if they were obedient to their husbands, women were property and only for the pleaser and likening to the husband. Mariam did all the her husband required of her, however there was one thing should could not. Which was give her husband, Rasheed, a son or any child. In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Hosseini reveals the social issue of physical abuse and mental abuse by his use of imagery, diction, and dialogue.

Violence, war, discrimination, and poverty: these issues have long been a part of Afghanistan’s history. Even though things in Afghanistan are getting better, war fills the country, and women and children have to learn to endure abuse, caused by men and the Taliban; they also learn to endure poverty. Considering this, it is no wonder why Afghanistan is in the terrible position it is in now. Many Afghan cities like Kabul are filled with things like violence and discrimination, and the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini takes place in Kabul. This book follows the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, as they suffer pain and discrimination received from the Taliban and their

The fight for justice is not always unequivocal or favorable, sometimes justice is given by means that do not seem fair at all. William Styron says in a novel that life “is a search for justice.” It is blatant that throughout Khaled Hosseini's novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, female characters are continuously battered with injustices. Hosseini hones into the oppression of women and the fight for women empowerment through the life of one of his main characters, Mariam. Her journey is shown throughout the novel where she struggles to search for and understand justice.

Whether it be to leave the place oppression is being enforced or to fight against it, whether it is being enforced in private or public places, oppression shaped the female characters in both Osama and A Thousand Splendid Suns in the ways they reacted. In Osama, when the family had no source of income and were forbidden to work, they were faced with a choice, to slowly die of starvation, or to fight back. They made the courageous decision to fight back and resist the Taliban’s enforcements by disguising the youngest girl as a boy so that they would not starve to death (Osama). This is an example of how oppression has shaped the characters in Osama because the women when faced with these obstacles had to turn to an undesirable option. This shows that the oppression enforced has pushed them to a point where they are going against laws to survive. In A Thousand Splendid Suns Laila and Mariam are shaped by oppression in two similar ways. Mariam is shaped by oppression in that she is able to take direction of her own life. Rasheed was beating Laila for meeting up with her childhood lover, whom she thought to be dead. Rasheed began to choke Laila, and Mariam realized that he meant to take Laila’s life, “And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raising as high as she could, arching so that it touched the small of her back. She turned it so that the sharp edge was vertical, and, as she did, it occurred

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, gender roles play a major role in how characters think about themselves and others. Men are raised to believe that they are responsible to suppress women’s independence and autonomy, and women often internalize a sense of inferiority and/or subservience. The results of these conditions often include men’s violence against women, and a general mistrust between the two genders. In this novel, Rasheed demonstrates this type of behavior to be true. Rasheed is a single shoemaker whose first wife and son died many years ago. He becomes the suitor for the young 15-year-old mariam. He is a very traditional and strict older gentleman, which some difficult situations for Mariam to deal with in her life. Rasheed tries to exhibit excessive dominance in their marriage and instructs Mariam to be obedient, subordinate, and compliant with every single one of his demands.

Women often undergo oppression and subjugation by the male dominated society. Women were merely slaves to the men as they would clean, sweep, work, while they have to maintain their obedience and sanity. Women were targets of oppression outside their work where men abused their wives as they were an entity for their sexual desires when they felt the need to. This exact relationship of “owner - possession” can be seen through the relationships between Rasheed and Mariam, also with Janie and her husbands. Both novels, A Thousand Splendid Suns and Their Eyes were Watching God, show that women have a lower social status, power, and legal rights when women had become property to eyes of men.

In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, many characters are forced to overcome obstacles in their personal lives. Laila and Mariam, the two main characters, find themselves married to the same man, Rasheed. Both had a good relationship with Rasheed at the beginning of their marriages. Soon they found that they were both being abused by Rasheed. Mariam and Laila overcome the abuse by taking matters into their own hands. Khaled Hosseini introduces the reader to the ways many Muslim men and women believe that marriages should be private and that how the man treats his wife or wives is his business. Many relationships find themselves trying to overcome an abusive marriage.

It seems that War has found a home in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have

Throughout world history women have been treated abysmally. Societies with male-dominance have abused and used women and continue to do so today. Women have been made vulnerable to a man due to the spread of cultural values and beliefs in society that condemn them from power. In Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, the two main characters Mariam and Laila develop an unconditional bond in which they become each others protectors. The immense inner strength of women from adversity has been exemplified through the growth of Mariam and Laila's contrasting relationship, the pain they endure from Rasheed which strengthens their bond and the courage within them that ultimately resolves their conflict.

“Joseph shall return to Canaan, grieve not, Hovels shall turn to rose gardens, grieve not. If a flood should arrive, to drown all that’s alive, Noah is your guide in the typhoon’s eye, grieve not (Hosseini 365).” A Thousand Splendid Suns, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a story that is set place in modern-day Afghanistan. It is one depicting the lives of two particular women who live under the control of a persecuting husband and the infamous rule of the Taliban. And through these two women (Laila and Mariam), Hosseini creates a mind-blowing, awe-inspiring adventure of regret, despair, tragedy, and more importantly, redemption. The book begins with separate perspectives of each woman, and how they consequently come together in the same

Explosions, Death, Loss, Fear- all are great symbols for war in A Thousand Splendid Suns. In this novel, Khaled Hosseini uses tumultuous environments to bring up some of the most interesting characters in the 21st century. The three strongest examples are Laila, Tariq, and Aziza. From losing your parents, to losing your leg, Hosseini uses these types of characters to almost make a connection with them. Because we see weakness in them it truly makes their triumph that much greater. War is a raging bull charging through the lives of many, but for some, it makes them stronger.

As cultural critic Edward Said once wrote, “[Exile’s] essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Mariam, the daughter of an affair between a wealthy businessman and a lowly servant, is exiled from her home of fifteen years into a marriage with someone who she has never met. She is left heartbroken, melancholic, and feeling alienated. Before her forced marriage, Mariam is huddled into her father’s house where she spends a few weeks coping with her mother’s death. The narrator describes the events leading up to her temporary residency with her father Jalil, “Two days before, Mariam has slept on the sidewalk waiting for him. Two days before--when