A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

In the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the author Khaled Hosseini reveals the constant struggles and the sacrifices of motherhood through comparing the lives of the female characters in the book; Fariba, Nana, Mariam and Laila, and each one of these women show how motherhood and sacrifice are connected. In the specific quote on page 358, Hosseini has one of his main characters, Mariam, realize that she must make sacrifices as a mother to save the lives of the people she loves the most, “ ‘It’s fair,’ Mariam said. “I 've killed our husband. I 've deprived your son of his father. It isn 't right that I run. I can 't. . .” Hosseini has his characters particularly Mariam and Laila deal with the idea of sacrifice differently. Whereas Laila can run away from this problem, Mariam can never run away from the fact that she killed Rasheed, “I’ll never escape your son 's grief”. These passages show two examples of sacrifice and its relevance to motherhood. Mariam and Laila don’t escape from being mothers to their children regardless if they are biologically theirs or not, yet Nana and Faribs both escape their duty of being a mother by mentally “checking out”. Overall, the question is, what does Hosseini show about motherhood and its sacrifices in this passage, or in the whole novel rather? Hosseini demonstrates motherhood as a daily struggle; it 's full of impossible decisions, heartbreak, and horrible situations, yet in the same way it is full of complete contentment, genuine

“I do not wish for women to have power over men, but over themselves” Mary Wollstonecraft. In the vast majority of places around the world, men have the upper hand over women, whether it is in the household, workplace, or government. Even in America, the land of the free, women are still discriminated against to a slight extent. A man and woman could have the exact same job, but the man would bring home a greater salary than the woman. In spite of the fact that this is unfair, at least women in America are permitted to work. Khaled Hosseini brings awareness to the women of Afghanistan who are victims of the inhumane and unjust laws of the Taliban. In his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini uses agonizing scenes and imagery to analyze the ways Afghan women continue to subsist in an oppressive and discriminatory society from the 1950s to today.

Women in our country today might seem just as equal as men, but when you look at the whole world, they are nowhere near as equal. This is portrayed in the novel A Thousand Splendid Sons by Khaled Hosseini. From the beginning till the end, it clearly addresses problems like gender equality and the oppression of females in our world through the novel’s setting, the society and its characters. To make it even more evident, the two main characters Mariam and Laila are strong, valiant young women living in a male-dominated society. They don’t start out this way but work their way up to it as they fight for their freedom. This makes them stand out and adds a feminist opinion to the novel as they have their own thoughts.

In the case of Afghani women’s memoirs and life stories offer new understanding of life under repression and how Afghani women struggled to keep their autonomy despite the oppression they faced. “Zoya’s Story”, “My Forbidden Face”, and “A Bed of Red Flowers” are memoirs written by Afghani women who experienced life under the Soviet Union and the Taliban in Afghanistan. These memoires along with interviews with Afghan women provided a complete picture that Afghani women are not as passive as they are portrayed in the history and book in the media. Women resisted in different shape and form, some engages in violent resistance, while others engaged in non-violent form of opposition. For instance, Zoya joined RAWA and participated in non-violent

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini brings his story to life through Mariam, Laila, Rasheed, and Tariq. These four characters help Hosseini illustrate life in Afghanistan during the 1960s to the early 2000s.

In Afghan society, a woman's role is dictated by society's rules, which often portrays women as lesser individuals compared to their male counterpart. For women

Growing up and living in Afghanistan as a woman has its challenges. Parents choose who can marry you and they choose everything for you. In this book, Laila and Mariam both show the struggles it is to be a girl, and how much disrespect they get in Afghanistan. Both Mariam and Laila are married to the same man, and he is abusive to both of them. They also live under Taliban rule, and the rules that they set are very unfair for women. In Khaled Hosseni’s novel, he has many different themes but the most prevalent one is of woman inequality, and that is shown through multiple accounts of abuse, disrespect, and unfairness.

Although all types of abuse of Afghan women have been present since the 1980’s, the worst of it has happened from 1996 to present time. The reason abuse of Afghan women has increased in a worse way since 1996, is because that is when the infamous Taliban gained power in Afghanistan. The Taliban is a radical Islamic terror group that was founded and operated in Afghanistan. Ever since the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan, women have received terrible forms of abuse that is accepted in the eyes of the Taliban. In 2012, a former Afghan warlord admitted, “Women were treated like dogs in my province” (Afghan. 1-2). Although the Taliban have been in power ever since 1996, much of the abuse of Afghan women has happened very recently. In 2013, a United Nations report claimed that there was a 20 percent increase in violence and mistreatment of women in Afghanistan. The annual report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflicts says more than 300 women were brutally killed and 560 injured

Feminism has revolutionized the rights of women around the world. From having almost no rights to suddenly being set free, the women of Afghanistan have faced a drastic change in their lives. After the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, the women of Afghanistan have gained new liberal rights that were once lost under the Talban’s rule. However, the women lack protection to be able to safely use these freedoms and continue to be abused for not complying with the rules of the past. These new liberal rights will set the path for the women of Afghanistan towards equality.

Throughout time, Afghan women have dealt with rights inferior to those of men; although tragic, it is actually accepted by the majority of women living in Afghanistan due to the fact that traditions in the Afghan culture significantly contribute to the formation of women's values (Text 3). The reason regarding this is the fact that Afghan women are identified by their roles as mothers and wives (Text 4). Women feel as though men are

Hosseini addresses the prolonged government instability and how such conditions enable women’s rights to be denied. A particularly atrocious period was under the Taliban, when the right’s of women were openly denied and unprotected (Gender Inequality in Afghanistan). The Taliban imposed extremely strict interpretation of Islamic law, which included certain expectations for women and those who did not follow such strict protocol faced harsh punishments. Hosseini draws on this concept Farzana, Hassan’s wife, was attacked in the streets of Kabul as “A young Talib ran over and hit her on the thighs with his wooden stick…He was screaming at her and cursing and saying the Ministry of Vice and Virtue does not allow women to speak loudly” (Hosseini 216). The Taliban denied women opportunities to education, employment, and other aspects of social life (“Taliban”).

Travesties are committed against women every day, in every country, in every city, town and home. In Afghanistan women are not only discriminated against, they are publicly reduced to animals. Women are deprived of basic human rights: they are not allowed to travel outside their homes without being completely covered by the traditional shroud-like burqa; they are not allowed to speak or walk loudly in public; they are not allowed to laugh or speak with other women; they are not allowed to attend school nor work; they are expected to be invisible; they are the ghosts of what were once educated, notable, and successful women. With their ruthless and extreme laws, the Taliban have effectively

In a male dominated society, the women of Afghanistan face many pressures and limits that are taught and ingrained in them at a very young age. Women and girls are seen as less than men and boys. They are viewed as being weak and unimportant. They are often pulled out of school and shunned to the house during their middle school years. Society sees no reason to educate girls when the whole point of girls is to serve as wives to their husbands and mothers to sons. They are taught that their entire worth depends on how happy they make their husband. As depicted by Jenny Norberg in The Underground Girls of Kabul, Afghanistan is a horrible place to be a woman. The pressure to birth sons, uphold a perfect reputation, and the economic disadvantages women face often force them to become men to have basic human respect and survival.

Because of this difference every effort needs to be made to fully incorporate women into Afghani society as men’s equals. This will accomplish two main things. The first is that it will increase the work force for Afghanistan helping to strengthen the economy. The second is that if women become so enmeshed and accepted into society it will help to wear away a large amount of support that is given to the Taliban because they support the repression of

In this novel the author, Hosseini, uses a powerful bond between the two main character to give a reader a deeper understanding about the way women are viewed and treated in Afghanistan. These two main characters are used to represent the different perspectives from which women in are viewed. The first character we meet is Mariam, a woman from an unloving and poor past. She portrays the old ideas of abuse and mistreatment towards women. Conversely, the other main character Laila, a young woman who came from a more modern and loving family, is used to represent progress towards the equal treatment and education of women. These two women obviously come from different backgrounds but are brought together through