Gender Roles In A Thousand Splendid Suns

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.

According to the United Nations, approximately 87% of Afghan women suffer from abuse. An example of this mistreatment of women is depicted in Khaled Hosseini's novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The novel is centered on the lives of two women living in Afghanistan under the oppression of their husband, Rasheed, and the Taliban. The women face physical and mental abuse from different family members and the law throughout the novel. The novel tells about the lives of the two women before and after their lives come together; they play a large part in each other’s life once they meet by attempting to focus on the happy moments rather than dwell on the hardships they must face. Hosseini’s novel teaches that in times of hardship, the mistreated form an unbreakable relationship which helps them to endure life.

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 man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Mariam. It isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed, it won’t stretch to make room for you.”

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.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, gender roles play a major role in how characters think about themselves and others. Men are raised to believe that they are responsible to suppress women’s independence and autonomy, and women often internalize a sense of inferiority and/or subservience. The results of these conditions often include men’s violence against women, and a general mistrust between the two genders. In this novel, Rasheed demonstrates this type of behavior to be true. Rasheed is a single shoemaker whose first wife and son died many years ago. He becomes the suitor for the young 15-year-old mariam. He is a very traditional and strict older gentleman, which some difficult situations for Mariam to deal with in her life. Rasheed tries to exhibit excessive dominance in their marriage and instructs Mariam to be obedient, subordinate, and compliant with every single one of his demands.

A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the downsides of patriarchy though the use of the word harami, through the irony of Jalil betraying Mariam, and through the irony of Rasheed’s treatment of Mariam. Firstly, at the very beginning of the novel, Mariam recalls being called a harami. After Mariam broke Nana’s prized tea set, Nana said, ”… This is my reward for everything I’ve endured. An heirloom-breaking, clumsy little harami.”

“You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated Laila. No chance.”

Through a feminist criticism of the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns I was able to analyze major themes, character developments and answer questions pertaining to the feminist criticism. I was able to determine the role of women, the difference between men and women in the work and gender roles in the novel. In A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini the theme of education to bring together the style and main female characters.

Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the reader observes many injustices committed due to the presence of the Taliban and cultural conflict in Afghanistan. One of the most concerning issues in Afghanistan is the mistreatment and inequality that women face on a daily basis due to Taliban mandates. Women in Afghanistan are treated as inferior beings to men and are unable to stand up for themselves due the laws the Taliban enforces. Hosseini uses the wives of Amir and Hassan, Soraya and Farzana, to represent the injustices to which women in Afghanistan are subjected.

It is common for Afghanistan women to be forced to get married because of how much money a man has or what kind of business he owns. Usually the girls father will pick her husband based on wealth. A Thousand Splendid Suns character, Mariam, has to marry her husband because he has his own successful shoe shining business and the fact that her fathers wives do not want to take care of her after her mother dies. Her father’s wives think Rasheed is well off and will be able to always take good care of Mariam. She had no say in whether she wanted to marry him nor did she get to meet him before the wedding.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, the two protagonists, Mariam and Laila, fight against those who hold power in their lives. In the setting of the book, Afghanistan, women had essentially no rights starting in 1994. This was the year that the Taliban took control of the country after the Soviet Union had left. The Taliban installed a new set of laws which stripped women of their liberties, in the story Mariam and Laila are two of the many women these new rules affected. Mariam and Laila struggle against the structure of their society — which is embodied by their husband Rasheed — and fight against it by continuously trying to break free from Rasheed’s control; and it is this struggle which demonstrates the hardships women face in Afghanistan.

Many events in Afghanistan require the signature of its participants. Often times these signatures result in women signing away most of her rights to a man. The Afghan 1971 Law on Marriage is no exception. According to Article 15, “No one, including the relatives of the bride, may, for the purpose of marriage, ask or receive under any title any cash or goods from the groom or his relatives”.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossein where the story is set in Afghanistan between the 1960’s and the 2000’s which includes the soviet invasion up to the formation of the taliban. The novel is written through the eyes of two women. Mariam is a harami, an illegitimate child of Jail a wealthy business man who gives away her hand in marriage to Rasheed. As time goes on Rasheed becomes abusive towards mariam due to her infertility. Almost two decades later Rasheed marries a 14 year old girl named Laila who has been left orphaned by a rocket.

The life of an Afghan woman is a life that exists with patience, paranoia, and a great deal of resilience. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the protagonist, Mariam, possesses the ability to endure, and carries the heavy burden of being a harami; “an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such as love, family, home, acceptance” (Hosseini 4). Mariam’s restless hunger and longing to be loved is inevitable. She is accepting of her fate, but bears a reoccurring theme; a desire to change the past. She is a people pleaser, and despises the thought of being a burden to anyone. She is one to follow the demands of others, but if she sets her mind to something she will get it accomplished. Mariam lacks ambition for herself, however, embodies a strong sense of responsibility for those she loves. To be endowed with avarice or curiosity may lead to agony or hardship; Mariam learns to endure throughout the struggles in her life, but is constantly followed by a shadow of shame.