A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

By beating Rasheed with a shovel and killing him with it, Mariam reveals that she has finally decided to stand up to Rasheed for Laila and herself. Because Mariam stood up to Rasheed and killed him, now Mariam and Laila have lifted a huge burden off their shoulders and Laila can live with Tariq and her children. Mariam learns that if she wants to be happier in life she has to make her own decisions, like killing Rasheed. If she had not defended Laila, Rasheed could have killed Laila, and Mariam would have continued to live a stressful life. Throughout the book, Miriam endures on-going violence and abuse and she begins to make poor choices; she also begins to act out violently as means of learning to cope with her surroundings. Her actions drastically changed the course of her life for herself as well as others for worse and for better.

The most integral part of life in Afghanistan is the ability to carry on through difficult times. War in this country leads to devastation and loss, but they still hold onto hope and keep going. Throughout the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila have numerous relationships they persevere through by having the strength to do so. Afghanistan has difficulty and overcomes tough times stemmed from long years of war. The most common theme in A Thousand Splendid Suns is strength and perseverance, as shown through the characters’ relationships and growth.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a beautiful tale of two women in Afghanistan during the Taliban uprising. They grow up on complete opposite sides of Afghan culture. The main character, Mariam, grows up in a more traditional way caused by her forced marriage to Rasheed. Laila on the other hand, grows up with a supportive father who encourages gender equality and education. There are many cultural differences such as, women’s rights, public executions, and the Taliban. The two main characters, Mariam and Laila, develop greatly throughout the novel. They push each other to be better and to stand up for equality. This plays into the themes of the novel. Women’s strength and loyalty are the two most important themes. They

Born as the youngest in her family, Laila grows to become a loving and compassionate parent who is willing to sacrifice for her children; despite having a negligent and unloving mother. Laila, even before her first baby was born, made the decision to marry Rasheed and purposefully had sex with him in order for it to appear like it was his baby. This protects the baby, Aziza, from Afghani society who would shun her for being birthed out of wedlock, and it also keeps the true father’s identity, Tariq, a secret. This sacrifice is one of many, Laila knows, to come as she thinks “[she] already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make. Virtue was only the first. She put a hand on her belly. Closed her eyes”(219). Another sacrifice Laila had to make was putting Aziza in a local orphanage in Kabul, due to the fact that Rasheed was earning so little money that they no longer had the ability to keep her healthily fed. She lived and ate there as well as being taught in a classroom, but in order for Laila to visit Aziza, she sometimes “was caught, questioned, scolded--two, three, even four times in a single day”(321) by the Taliban in an especially inhumane fashion. Over the course of their marriage, Laila withstood Rasheed’s

From the very beginning, Mariam grew up in cruelty. She was a Harami, which means “bastard child,” and her mother didn't let her forget that. Her mother blamed for her not so good life. Mariam’s mom was a cleaning lady and she had Mariam with her boss, she was shunned because they weren't married. Her mom blamed her for all this even though they were all her mistakes. Even Mariam's father was ashamed of her since she was born. When Mariam’s mother passed away and he was the only one that could take her in, he sold her off to a man thirty years older. Laila in the other hand didn't have a rough childhood. It

Life is often hard for most of the people, particularly women in general as they are the ones who are still considered as a “weaker gender.” It is hard for those poor women in developing countries like Afghanistan, who cannot afford basic needs such as clothing, shelter and transportation. Women are titled as care-givers. Although, life consists of many challenges and obstacles that everybody goes through, the way one approaches such challenges and reacts to it varies from person to person. Also, overcoming such hardships of life strengthens one’s soul and it enables them to reveal their inner strength and true character. In Afghanistan, in order for a woman to survive, she must handle adverse situations both physically and emotionally.

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.

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.

Ultimately, Mariam and Laila attempt to escape, but fail, which in turn infuriates Rasheed even more. These two women then work together and protect each other, and in due course, kill Rasheed during one of his “ritual” beatings. In the end, Mariam is killed for murdering her husband, and Laila, with her children, Aziza and Zalmai, finds Tariq and marries him; then, together they start their own family. Throughout the course of the story, not only was a passionate, well-written story presented, but also a clear picture of what Afghan culture and its aspects are really like.

Khaled Hosseini presents the struggle Afghan women go through every day by discussing honour, marriage and the place of women in society in Afghanistan.

In Khaled Hosseini’s book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the stories of two Afghani women, Laila and Miriam, are portrayed over the course of 44 war-torn years. During the novel, Miriam and Laila both exhibit amazing resilience, sacrifice, and love despite their terribly tragic circumstances. The tone, syntax, and diction Hossieni chooses reflects these prevailing themes of the story. The novel begins with Miriam’s childhood outside the Afghan city of Herat.

The characters in this story make you feel heartwarming. From the protagonists to the antagonists, they will make you feel emotion towards what they’re going through. My favorite character has to be Mariam. I say Mariam because she has been through an utter nightmare with both of her parents literally betraying her and leaving her to be used by Rasheed. As you read the novel, you’ll understand that Mariam becomes a symbol for Kabul in a way. Mariam, despite the way she’s been treated all her life finds a sense of security when she’s with Laila. Mariam is very intriguing to me, I don’t really understand why she does not retaliate with the torment she’s put through.

Plot summary: Amir flashbacks to when he was twelve years old in Afghanistan. He lives with his father, Baba, and has two servants, Ali and Hassan, who are also a father and son duo. The latter two are Hazaras, Afghan’s minority, and as such, are subjected to racial slurs and cruelty. Amir and Hassan are playing when Assef, Kamal, and

Hosseini wrote this historical novel in 2001 while completing his residency at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. Much of the historical content was based off his childhood experiences living in Afghanistan. He was born to a father who was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and a mother who taught Farsi at a high school (Interview.) The family moved from Afghanistan to Paris because of the communist invasion of the Soviet Army. They later were granted asylum in America where Khaled completed high school and college and began his work in the

Mariam is an Afghani woman who is an illegitimate child. After her mom dies, her dad and step mothers force her to marry to an abusive shoemaker, Rasheed. Rasheed, like other males in general, are interested in sex, more absorbed in outside affairs, and more violent comparing to opposite sex. In her long marriage with Rasheed, she has to bear Rasheed’s sexually demands and suffer both physically and mentally because she cannot have a child. As a matter of fact, her husband starts to abuse her and treats terribly.