In Love and War

what I once dreamed I now dread, if he finds me, it won’t ever end…

War-- a horrific way of justifying our actions and the innocent lives that have been lost, but on the other hand has resolved some of the greatest conflicts in history. Not every issue ever raised in this world is resolved through negotiation and discussion, rather sometimes war becomes a necessity for countries to settle disputes. War is a part of how a society strengthens itself politically, socially, and economically however, ultimately it becomes a country’s abusive use of power.

War can be defined as “an active struggle between competing entities. It’s truly hard to tell who is right or wrong during a war. Both sides are fighting for what they believe in and what is true to their heart. In the end there is always two things promised – destruction and death. These two objects can explain the result in every facet of war from the physical to emotional.

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

“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

War: a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state. War is inevitable. Especially in the cases in which one country has a desire to break free from another country and/or its influences. This, at least, was the basic reason as to why the Vietnam war and the Revolutionary war started. As a matter of fact, these two wars are strangely similar. The Revolutionary war and the Vietnam war are alike because, they had similar war strategies, they had similar characteristics, and most importantly, they had the same reasons for going to war. Moreover, these two wars are strangely alike.

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.

Life is often hard for most of the people, particularly women in general as they are the ones who are still considered as a “weaker gender.” It is hard for those poor women in developing countries like Afghanistan, who cannot afford basic needs such as clothing, shelter and transportation. Women are titled as care-givers. Although, life consists of many challenges and obstacles that everybody goes through, the way one approaches such challenges and reacts to it varies from person to person. Also, overcoming such hardships of life strengthens one’s soul and it enables them to reveal their inner strength and true character. In Afghanistan, in order for a woman to survive, she must handle adverse situations both physically and emotionally.

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

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.

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.

‘War’ as defined by Webster’s Dictionary is a state of open and declared, hostile armed conflict between states or nations. Voltaire—the human personification of the Enlightenment period—says the following: “Famine, plague, and war are the three most famous ingredients of this wretched world…All animals are perpetually at war with each other…Air, earth and water are arenas of destruction. Defining war has been a political issue for centuries, and it poses a philosophical problem. Most philosophers will agree on war being a clash of arms, or a state of mutual tension between nations or states, distinguishing it from open rebellions, riots, and personal violence.

Afghanistan is a country that is known for its poverty, human rights violations and violence. Being a woman in Afghanistan is extremely challenging as they face a lot of violence, abuse and this is present in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Laila and Mariam are two women who fall victim to physical, sexual and emotional abuse during the course of the novel. This abuse is suffered at the hand of Rasheed their husband.

War is a conflict carried out by force of arms, between nations, states or between parties within a nation which can be on land, sea or in the air, always caused by something. It’s a clash of interests which results in violent armed struggles and can affect