Imagine trying to live a peaceful life in a time of war. This is the reality of the main characters in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Mariam and Laila were thrown together because of the circumstances of their lives in Afghanistan. The two of them did not see eye to eye at first, but eventually were each other’s support systems and helped the other survive throughout many hardships. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book that focuses very heavily on the culture and the people of Afghanistan, as well as how love can help people survive even the roughest obstacles that life has to offer. The culture of Afghanistan is very important all throughout this book, whether it be family life, values, or even religion; they all play a heavy role throughout the whole story. The family life between Mariam and Laila are very different, but also have some similarities. Mariam grew up with just a mother in a little hut far from town. Her estranged father came to visit once a week. She finds out that he has three wives and nine other children. Jalil wants nothing to do with Mariam until her Nana kills herself, then he allows Mariam to stay at the house. Jalil, Mariam’s father, soon finds her a suitor, a forty something man named Rasheed, and they wed. Laila has a very different childhood than Mariam. She goes to school and gets a quality education, and her family life is very simple until news that her brothers were killed in war. Laila’s life then gets turned upside
A Thousand Splendid Suns is written by author Khaled Hosseini, who is famously known for being the author of the book The Kite Runner. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, where the majority of the book takes place, and features many of the same issues the author faced growing up. After Khaled Hosseini wrote A Thousand Splendid Suns, it went on to be published by Riverhead books in May of 2007 with a total of 415 pages. The book is a fiction novel, even though the author sets the book where he was born and raised for the first eleven years of his life. A Thousand Splendid Suns is thrilling, and shows the struggle between love and loss, and how the lives of the Kabul were greatly affected.
A Thousand Splendid Suns was written by Khaled Hosseini. It is a fictional novel about Afghanistan. It explores the hardships that two Afghan women endured. The first character we meet, Mariam, was disgraced before she was ever born. She was the result of scandalous activity and was oblivious to the lies that her father fed her. After her mother’s suicide, Mariam’s father, Jalil, arranged for her to be married in an attempt to erase his mistake. Laila is the second main character. She has almost everything a young girl could want, except for a loving mother. Laila considers herself to be fortunate, until tragedy strikes. With wars heating up in Afghanistan, Laila loses her friend
Hosseini's use of imagery in A Thousand Splendid Suns gives the reader a clear picture of the abuse that Mariam and Laila have experience
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.
Khaled Hosseini’s critically acclaimed novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, follows two women whose lives intertwine and their fates become connected. Laila is a young girl who falls in love with a man who she cannot be with and is carrying his baby when she marries Rasheed. Rasheed’s first wife, Mariam, is a lovely woman who becomes Laila’s companion in their mutual hatred for the abusive Rasheed. With alternating perspectives, Hosseini gives insight into both women's lives and relays the cruelties they are forced to endure, and how the brutality they face affects their lives, specifically Laila’s, whose motherly instincts allow her to endure much more than otherwise.
The phrase "a thousand splendid suns," from the poem by Saib-e-Tabrizi, is quoted twice in the novel - once as Laila's family prepares to leave Kabul, and again when she decides to return there from Pakistan. It is also echoed in one of the final lines: "Miriam is in Laila's own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns." Discuss the thematic significance of this phrase.
Mariam and her mother ‘Nana’, reside in a kolba (hut) outside of Herat. Her father was a successful businessman named Jalil who was a polygamist and had nine children. Mariam disobeyed her mother’s wishes and hiked into town to see her Father. Mariam returned to her kolba to her mother’s suicide – forcing her to live with Jalil until he insisted an arranged marriage with Rasheed who was thirty years elder. Once in Kabul, Mariam discovered her infertility complications. Rasheed became angry towards his wife’s inability to carry a child – in particular a son, so he became extremely abusive. Laila grew up in Kabul with Tariq who eventually became romantic despite the boundaries between unwed men and women. War took over Afghanistan and Tariq’s
A world of peace and love is all anyone ever hopes for. Imagine having to say goodbye to your country because of war. Feeling safe is one of the most important things in life. You need to feel safe for a place to be home. “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls”(Hosseini 347). In A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, the characters are threated in the country they call home, because of war. The cultural aspects, character storylines, and themes of the book is what make this book a cultural lesson.
“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.
In the works A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Oh Me Oh Life by Walt Whitman, Trebincevic’s opinion piece by Kenan Trebincevic, and my own personal experiences, Benevolence, Tradition, and Achievement are the most prominent universal values. One of the most interesting traits seen throughout all of the works is the Benevolence, even if it isn’t noticeable at first. In the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, two of the main protagonist, Laila and Mariam, show Benevolence towards each other. At first they were the complete opposite, they did not like each other because they shared the same husband, but after looking past the abuse behavior they received towards him, they began to become friends. Benevolence is so important in this story
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel where the characters face many trials and tribulations that ultimately change them. The novel focuses on the life of the citizens, and womens rights throughout Afghanistan. There is a shift in power during the novel that leaves many people feeling hopeless due to the fact almost all of their human rights were being taken away. This novel has three main characters, Mariam, Laila, and Rasheed. Each of them face a period of decay when things do not go as expected.
After returning to Kabul, following the Taliban’s fall, Laila observes the changes that have taken place, including the warlords - her parents murderers are allowed back into Kubal, she doesn’t give into despair: “But Laila decided that she will not be crippled by resentment. Mariam wouldn’t want it this way…. And so Laila has moved on. Because in the end she knows that’s all she can do. That and hope”(411).
In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, main character Mariam is forced into exile after a horrific set of experiences. After her mother’s suicide, she is removed from her home and is later arranged to marry a random man she never met before. Before her departure, Mariam lived in a “kolba,” a small hut on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. With no other place to go, she disapprovingly lives with her father for a short period of time before being shipped off to her new husband. Her encounter with exile is almost unbearable, yet she endures and grows into a hardworking and respectable woman. For Mariam, exile is both alienating and enriching; it illuminates how withstanding life’s challenges and learning to overcome them with love will ultimately be beneficial in the end, no matter what happens.
The authors Khaled Hosseini and Kurt Vonnegut write novels of critical acclaim. Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns explores the life of Mariam and her struggles with her husband and society, however, she finds reason to fight through a religious tutor. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five examines the life of Billy Pilgrim who goes through the bombing of Dresden and is kidnapped by an alien species, the Tralfamadorians, who have him apply a new philosophy. Using traditional techniques, Hosseini constructs Mullah Faizullah, the religious tutor, as a wise mentor. The persona of a hermit guru was used by Vonnegut as a non-traditional guide in the form of the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five. Hosseini uses foreshadowing and a comforting