A Thousand Splendid Suns: Mistreatment Of Women

This assignment aims to emphasise upon the portrayal of subjugation and oppression of women, especially with reference to domestic violence, that has been prominently depicted by the diasporic writer, Khaled Hosseini in his novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. The novel borrows its title from a poem written about Kabul by the seventeenth century poet Saib-e-Tabrizi. The plot revolves around the lives of two Afghan women who are born a generation apart and have been married to the same man within a span of few years. Hosseini projects how violence behind closed doors affects their lives in a greater degree than the turmoil and terror caused in the society under the rule and influence of the Mujahideen and Taliban.

Laila struggles to have a relationship with her mother, however, this is very difficult because her mother only talks about her brothers and really neglects her by not showing her affection. Mammy has good and bad days but usually just bad ones. She lies in bed all day and sometimes she won’t even leave her room for many days at a time. Laila’s best friend is Tariq and he is missing one of his legs from a land mine.

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

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini takes a solid focus on the lives of two young women, Mariam and Laila, who grow up in a struggling and turbulent Afghanistan. This book emulates the lives of those who have actually been affected by the extreme changes of power within their culture. From the Soviets to the Taliban, these people are caught in a war they cannot win but must deal with the consequences of. The lives of Mariam and Laila are consumed and silenced by those with power over them, namely males with traditional values. The book conveys the idea that even with an immense amount of destruction and terror wrought throughout Afghanistan, underneath lies a beauty that has been muted but it still provides hope for the future.

Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel about the dissatisfaction of women and how the lack of freedom generates this dissatisfaction. This compares to Sarah Gavron’s Brick Lane where the central character also deals with a great amount of dissatisfaction and how the lack of freedom prevents her from being independent. Both central characters share a common feature and that is the lack of freedom. That lack of freedom then generates dissatisfaction in each character causing them to struggle in society and so, in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and the film Brick Lane by Sarah Gavron, both protagonists are forced into arranged marriages that deprive them of various freedoms leading to a tremendous amount

"Women like us. We endure. It's all we have." Mariam, the child of a wealthy man and his house maid, lived by this quote all her life. The quote also applies to Laila, a woman who was raised in a modern household with education. An analysis of the hardships of women in Khaled Hosseinim’s, A Thousand Splendid Suns, would reveal that the injustices of society are coped with differently throughout several generations of women. Although Laila’s upbringing allowed her to be the stronger of the two women, both Mariam and Laila triumphed after enduring so much evil and cruelty. Their mothers on the other hand did not.

Recognized to be one of the most influential feminist novels, A Thousand Splendid Suns reminds readers just how often women are marginalized. And it illustrates how women who speak out are unfairly criticized. Beginning in the early 1960s in Herat, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book that addresses issues unique to Afghanistan as well as issues worldwide through the eyes of two very different women over the course of 40 years. One main issue that is repeatedly addressed in A Thousand Splendid Suns is oppression of women. Even at the beginning of the book when Mariam is a child her own mother directly tells her not to trust men: “Like a compass needle that always points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman.

Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns tells a tale of the life of an Afghani women, Mariam, who was enjoying her bus ride of life until it made a turn in the wrong direction. It was all downhill from there. Mariam’s mother, Nana, and her father, Jalil, were aboard her bus of life. Mariam lived with her resentful and stubborn mother. Jalil visited his illegitimate child, Mariam, once a week. She really wanted to live with her father and his family in Herat. When Jalil did not arrive to accompany Mariam to see Pinocchio for her birthday, she want to Herat despite her mothers wishes not to. Jalil never let her inside. When Mariam and the chauffeur return the next morning, she finds out that Nana has exited her bus. Mariam’s mother committed suicide. Mariam detours and is taken to live with Jalil at his home in Herat.

During the time period in which the story is set (early 1900”s) there is a difference in the way women are treated compared to men. As women, their duties were in the household, taking care of the kitchen and other chores; therefore, their opinion was not taken serious. Men, on the other hand, were seen as tough and intelligent. With this mind, it is safe to say that there is sexism present in the story. The moment in which the sheriff laughs at Mrs. Hale question about the piece being quilted or knotted makes clear that women and their opinions and/or actions were seemingly unimportant. “Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.” (Glaspell 728) Even though the men in the story seemed to be smart, they lacked the instinct that women had

Released in May 2007, A Thousand Splendid Suns (ATSS) is a fictional novel inspired by the struggles faced in Afghanistan during the daunting rise of the Taliban. The novel written by award-winner Khaled Hosseini re-awakens many to the destruction of events that occurred in Kabul. Hosseini presents a historical element which enlightens the reader of many true events, this was done through the eyes of two inspiring women, Mariam and Laila. Although the characters are fictional, Hosseini uses them to portray the social groups that are being enslaved in the novel. One, I believe is represented in preponderance to other groups is the obvious oppression of women throughout the novel. In the same sense, Tate Taylor’s brilliant film, The Help (2011)

In the past centuries, power has been distributed differently because of gender, and men often dominant over women. In One Thousand Splendid Suns, an innocent woman in Afghanistan, Mariam, was forced to marry Rasheed, a man whom she had no control over. Rasheed treated Mariam horribly by making her doing all the chores around the house and abusing her anyway possible for the loss of his baby. Through the unequal distribution of human rights, Mariam's shame at being illegitimate makes her unable to stand up for herself. Mariam slowly fought her way through hardship which transformer to into a strong willed women.

The reader is then introduced to Laila, one could not see what will connect both women till Laila`s parents are killed in the war and she is pregnant with Tariq`s child. When Rasheed asks for her hand, she accepts to guarantee herself a good living. Both women have many ups and downs yet they always help each other. By the end of the novel, the reader totally sympathizes with both women and with Mariam in particular as she sacrificed her life for the sake of Laila and her family.

A Thousand Splendid Suns has a rich and intricate historical background, starting during a time where gender equality seemed viable and Afghanistan was on the brink of becoming a modernized country and continuing till the abolishment of the Taliban and the United States invasion. The most prevalent conflict between this time was certainly the inequality between both genders, which was accentuated by the rise of the Taliban. Gender inequality used to be a problem around the world, but the majority of countries managed to rid their culture of the severe forms of oppression towards females. However, Afghanistan was not one of them. Afghanis were close to escaping these shackles, but the government was stubborn towards this matter.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel written in 2007 by Khaled Hosseini who is an Afghan-American author. Mostly Khaled Hosseini is well known with his former novel The Kite Runner all over the world. However, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a work as great as The Kite Runner and it has more subjects to deal with a feministic perspective. So, we can say that A Thousand Splendid Suns carries a deeper meaning in terms of women rights and the place of women in society. It tells about the tyranny of the Taliban and the civil war in Afghanistan between the early 1960s and the early 2000s from the perspectives of two women who are Mariam and Laila and their changing lives. The novel itself simply have

Relationships become something just about everyone experiences at some point in their life. Each individual handles them differently and there are no two relationships that operate the same way. Minimal communication has the worst consequences on a relationship, but when a lack of equality develops in a relationship it can also lead to damaging results. A relationship or marriage where the men control the women occurs more often than one with the woman being in control. Men are viewed as more powerful and more aggressive in our society, and Mark Peel illustrates this in an essay about male social workers in the 1920’s that, “Perhaps [men were] more interested in care than in masculine exertion, or able to link caring and manhood in a way