Gender Roles In A Thousand Splendid Suns

Gender defined roles are continuously adapting to the new societal norms of the era. There is a surplus of historical events that have reimagined the traditional expectations of a man or women.

Women have different personalities and motivations, and they form relationships with men for many different reasons. Some of these reasons include love, money, and even lust and manipulation. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett is a novel about Sam Spade, who is a huge figure of the hard-boiled detective genre. Sam Spade goes on a quest to find a valuable falcon, solve murders and jump over the obstacle that surround him on a daily basis. The novel is also about the three women who surround Spade during his quest. The names of these women are Iva Archer, Effie Perine, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and they all have different roles in Sam Spade’s life. In The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, Brigid O’Shaughnessy plays the role of femme fatale, Iva Archer plays the role of Spade’s unfortunate future, and Effie Perine plays the role of Spade’s right-hand woman.

“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.”

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.

Born as the youngest in her family, Laila grows to become a loving and compassionate parent who is willing to sacrifice for her children; despite having a negligent and unloving mother. Laila, even before her first baby was born, made the decision to marry Rasheed and purposefully had sex with him in order for it to appear like it was his baby. This protects the baby, Aziza, from Afghani society who would shun her for being birthed out of wedlock, and it also keeps the true father’s identity, Tariq, a secret. This sacrifice is one of many, Laila knows, to come as she thinks “[she] already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make. Virtue was only the first. She put a hand on her belly. Closed her eyes”(219). Another sacrifice Laila had to make was putting Aziza in a local orphanage in Kabul, due to the fact that Rasheed was earning so little money that they no longer had the ability to keep her healthily fed. She lived and ate there as well as being taught in a classroom, but in order for Laila to visit Aziza, she sometimes “was caught, questioned, scolded--two, three, even four times in a single day”(321) by the Taliban in an especially inhumane fashion. Over the course of their marriage, Laila withstood Rasheed’s

The society of Afghanistan at the time did not treat women as equal beings to men and many, even the same oppressed women, grew up believing that there was no chance for them. Luckily for Laila (and us) Hakim is not a man clouded by preconceived notions and is able to formulate his own opinions without the influence of society and others around him. We can clearly tell that he is a man that is very forward thinking, and an intellectual that challenges Laila to become

The specific topic of this book is the oppression of women. Its overall purpose is to understand the women behind the veils and why the Muslim women take up the hijab. The purpose is also to show how

Men in the Taliban’s Afghanistan are viewed as gods in their own house while the women are not even seen. This view causes the men to have unrealistic expectations for their wives including expect them to have children who are male. They can also control were the women can and can’t go, and they prevail over them in a court of law. Rasheed has always wanted a son. When he marries Mariam and he finds out that she's pregnant he goes out to buy his hypothetical son a coat. When Mariam has a miscarriage his attitude towards her changes and he starts to become more harsh towards her. The same thing happens with Laila except that instead of a miscarriage she has a girl. When Laila finally has a boy Rasheed immediately favors him over his daughter.

Gender roles are an important factor in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Walter uses his masculinity as a reason for him to have a better job, to expect Mama to let him have the insurance check (and to truly let him be the head of the house), and to have Ruth support him. He is also under a lot of pressure because he is the only male adult in the family. Mama, Ruth, and Beneatha show different stages of female gender roles in society. Beneatha is very independent and feels that she does not need to marry and can fulfill a life on her own, while Mama believes that a woman’s role is support for her husband.

"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.

Society is often responsible for forging one’s beliefs. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a criticism on the hardships and challenges, found in a patriarchal society, caused by society itself and those empowered through social conditions. Hosseini expresses his beliefs through the relationships between the characters, plot development, and contrast. First, both main characters go through enormous amounts of pain and suffering.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a magnificent novel that can inspire young women with its theme. “The strongest actions for a women is to love herself, be herself, and shine amongst those who never believed she could” is a theme that could easily encourage young ladies to be themselves and not let others tear them down. Many men and women, of all ages, are insecure and have low self-esteem. Women, in particular, have been suppressed in the past in multiple countries. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam’s mom doesn’t want her to go to school and says that they only need one skill: to “endure” (Hosseini 18). Mariam continues to push through her many predicaments for her to be at peace with herself later on. Anyone, men and women, can see that if

Within Khaled Hosseini's novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” the social issue that is repeatedly noticed is the discussion of women and there rights in Afghanistan. Women in Afghanistan are discriminated in more ways then you can count on your fingers. The theme of the discrimination of women emphasizes how deadly men can be against the feminists of a culture but also shows the strength that the women in this novel have to fight for there beliefs even if it means sacrificing themselves to get there point across. This issue manifests itself as a major theme throughout the novel because of its significant impact on female characters in the story. Women have never really been free since the government is more democratic, because of the belief and

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the qualities found in Robert Cohn break traditional gender binary expectations. Robert Cohn’s naive mentality ultimately obstructs his ability to become a man like his fellow companions. Due to his immaturity, Cohn has not yet mentally achieved manhood.

Hakim, Laila's father, was always focused deeply to the power of education especially for his daughter. This major theme throughout the novel was used to show that not only were the characters fighting for themselves but for the future of their children. Women throughout the novel were segregated when it came to education especially when the Taliban came to power. Women were banned of their education and their rights and for men schools were more dangerous because of all the conflict done by the Taliban. However, even though they could be punished, people still fought for education such as Laila, Hakim and Zaman.