Essay about Bookseller of Kabul

Afghanistan is a culture-rich land consisting of many ethnic tribes. The largest of these groups is the Pashtun tribe which constitutes an estimated 40% to 55% of Afghanistan’s total population. The third largest group in the country is the Hazara tribe which comprise between 15% of the population (Barfield 26). Historically, the Hazara people have been largely persecuted by other tribes in Afghanistan. In Martin Ewan’s book, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics, he writes, “There has in the past been little love lost between [the Hazaras] and other Afghans, who despise them on both religious and racial grounds, while they themselves have a particular hatred

Soraya, daughter of the war hero, General Taheri, was hit especially hard by this gossip, and it traveled with them to Los Angeles. Though she tells Amir about the horrible past she has, Amir still pursues marriage with her, loving her all the same. “How could I, of all people, chastise someone for their past?” This shows a common double standard in the Afghan culture that also exists in our culture, to an extent. “Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a goddamn thing. Oh, they’re just men having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly everyone is talking nang and namoos and I have to have my face rubbed in it for the rest of my life.” To add to the extremity that Afghans see this sin as, after he made Soraya come home, Soraya’s father sat her in a chair, handed her a pair of scissors, and

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila are learning to live in a war zone when the Taliban gains control of their country. Consequently, the Taliban's laws are one source of major female inequality within

“Women like us. We endure.” (Hosseini, 19). For the female protagonists Laila and Mariam in the novel A 1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and the two unnamed female protagonists of the movie Osama, oppression is something they face and endure everyday. Both stories take place in Afghanistan around the 1990’s and 2000’s. In A 1000 Splendid Suns, the two female protagonists, Laila and Mariam, are wives to Rasheed, an abusive Islamic shoe maker (220). In the movie Osama, there are three generations living in one small home: a grandmother, mother, and a daughter. They have lost all of their male relatives who have died from fighting various Afghan wars (Osama). Osama and A 1000 Splendid Suns both display how women are oppressed and how it

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.

Rape happens to many women, including Mariam and Laila. They never say no when he wants sex because that will set him off and they will get abused. It’s a terrible cycle. Women are always expected to cater to a man’s needs. Another cultural difference is violence of the Taliban. They make a rise in the middle of the novel and continue to get worse. Women’s few rights are shaved down to literally nothing when the Taliban take control of Afghanistan. Laila loses her parents in an explosion caused by the Taliban. No one is criminalized for it. Soon after Laila and Rasheed’s marriage, the Taliban force the women of Afghanistan to stay inside. Literally. If they leave their house without a male presence, they get violently abused and sent home. Laila tries to visit her daughter in the orphanage that Rasheed sent her to, and a young Taliban member slashes her numerous times with a car antenna. The concept of young children fighting for one’s country is peculiar. Taliban also ban women from working and going to school. They shut down every woman’s school to make offices for themselves. When Laila goes into labor, Rasheed rushes her to a hospital, which no longer sees women. The Taliban are responsible for that. They then go to a woman’s hospital and they reject her as well. Finally they find a hospital

With this in mind one can see how maintaining family connection in Afghanistan is the best way to reach success. Men and women have different roles within these households as well. Ultimately their actions bring honor or shame onto their family based off of these roles, for instance while men work to provide income, women receive great honor through being a good wife and mother (Fluri, 2011). These methods gaining honor or shame often stem from their Muslim religion which carries over into their social lives. Afghan women typically wore long baggy clothing such as burqas as they are modest and provided them with a sense of spatial privacy (Fluri, 2011). They also wore their clothing such as a hijab is seen necessary as a sign of respect to their god as the people around them (Fluri, 2011). They also also hold power within the household through social networking for her family, giving her the responsibility to extend the family contacts through this manner and control who the family is associated with (Fluri, 2011). Women would traditionally gather in places void of men forming their own social sphere to better themselves and their families(Schütte,2014). Women even sometimes marry for the sake of creating a permanent connection to another family. All of these concepts are completely foreign to westerners as we don’t socialize in this manner, but even if we don’t except their social norms, that doesn’t give us a right to critique it.

The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Pashtuns make up over 40 percent of the population (Barfield). As a result, they dominate over the other, less powerful ethnic groups. The Pashtunwali way of living (lifestyle, ethics, customs, and rituals) revolves

A Thousand Splendid Suns, a book written by Khaled Hosseini, gives us a unique and informative glimpse into life in Afghanistan in the early 1960’s to the 2000’s. In it we can see many different political and social issues ravaging the country, with the most evident being gender inequality. Though many diverse groups of people were being discriminated against at the time, most of the subordination fell onto women as they had more and more rights taken away from them when various ruling powers took control. The author relays this information to us and educates us as to what happened through compelling and thought-provoking literary devices such as symbolic characters and objects, and allusions. By using these

There are many political, religious, and cultural factors that shape the lives of Islamic women many of them are completely different than factors in the lives of American women. Islam is one of the world’s fastest growing religions; however, Brooks argues that “Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of this once liberating faith.” The book also shows these factors have slowly been taking away women’s rights, rather than furthering them.

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

The novel is centered around the city of Kabul during the late 1900’s to the early 2000’s. During this period, the city was in a time of conflict. There were forces trying to seize control over Afghanistan. There were various social and economical classes throughout the cities. For example, Jalil Khan lives in a high class area where as, Rasheed lives in a low-to-middle class area. Prior to the Soviets control, there were multiple benefits for women in education and obtaining jobs. When the Taliban later got control, there were many laws made governing daily life. Many, if not most people risked punishment and would for example, use televisions to watch the new movie, Titanic. Living in Kabul was extremely dangerous with rockets flying wild and armed men patrolling the neighborhoods. In 2001 on September 11th, people in Kabul and all of Afghanistan, were informed on the news of the Taliban’s attack on the United States. Also they learn that the U.S. has declared war on Afghanistan. During this time period, the people of Afghanistan learned to endure and never lose hope.

To impress one’s parents in any culture much less the Afghan culture may be one of the biggest most proud moments of child’s life. Such is true when the boys win the kite running competition. Amir wants nothing more than to impress his father and keep the family name alive and strong. He feels as if this was a way to redeem himself to his father. The importance of family in this situation stands out and demonstrates how much the Afghan culture bases itself on family. It is obvious that Amir believes that nothing is more important than his family. This value of family being first, which he learned at a very young age, and making them the most important figures in one’s life carries with Amir throughout his whole life. He never forgets where his roots are and why they are there. Family was of importance to Amir at a young age and he carried that mentality with him throughout his entire life. The mentality that family comes first does not only apply to

The role women play in this novel demonstrates a significant part in how Afghanistan is portrayed. The first most important part of a woman’s life shown in The Kite Runner is her reputation. The level of respect they get is dependant on their reputation of being a proper woman. Maintaining a good social status for Afghan women is a lifelong restriction because when they do something against the role of a good woman, their reputation is tarnished. One example of this shown through the reputation of Soraya Taheri in the novel. Soraya runs

Since the beginning of time, women have had to fight rigorously for basic human rights. In the western stratosphere, those human rights were achieved in the early 20th century, but in a lot of eastern countries the battle for the women is just beginning, or worse hasn't even started. Women in Afghanistan have been subject to heinous circumstances, even though their religion, Islam "demanded that men and women be equal before God,"(Qazi). Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner offers a very insightful view of the governing politics of Afghanistan pre-Taliban regime and during the Taliban regime, and the differing situation of women in both those eras. Based on the book and outside research, it is evident that the situation of women in