preview

A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

Decent Essays

Dawkins, Natalie
Hamilton
Block 2

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini
Novel; Fiction
First published May 22, 2007

Protagonist 1: Mariam; first a young girl, a harami, who lives in a tiny kolba on the edges of the city of Herat. After her mother commits suicide, Mariam is married off by her father to Rasheed because her illegitimacy shames his family name. She then is abused through several years of marriage and several failed pregnancies.

Protagonist 2: Laila; Laila grows up on the opposite end of the social spectrum. An educated girl, Laila is a legitimate child, and beautiful. She grows up with her Babi and Mammy, but is neglected by her mother as she grieves over the loss of her sons to war, and then as she grieves their deaths. However, Laila has a friend throughout her struggles with Mammy, and that is Tariq. When she loses Tariq, and both of her parents to war, Laila too suffers years of abuse from Rasheed.

Antagonist 1: Rasheed; A man who’s wife and son have passed away, he is a shoemaker from Kabul and abuses Mariam after their first pregnancy fails. He continues to abuse her for many years until one fateful fight when she kills him. He is father to Zalmai after he marries Laila and he pays a man to come deliver false news of Tariq’s death.

Plot Summary: A young girl’s mother kills herself, and then she is married off by her father to a cruel shoemaker who lives in Kabul, far from her home in Herat. In the second part, another young girl named Laila

Get Access