Mariam's Disobedience In A Thousand Splendid

Firstly, in order to ensure Aziza’s safety, Laila sacrifices her future and the idea of true love. After living with Mariam and Rasheed for a few days following the bombing, Laila receives news that Tariq has died. After hearing the news of Tariq’s death, Rasheed suggests that Laila marry him and live with him and Mariam. Rasheed explains, ““These days, times being what they are, a woman needs a husband. Haven’t you noticed all the widows sleeping on the streets? They would kill for this chance.” … “He wants an answer by this morning.” Mariam said. “He can have it now,” the girl said. “My answer is yes.”” (Hosseini, 216) By choosing to marry Rasheed, Laila has thrown away all opportunities of finding another true love to marry. Upon hearing of Tariq’s death, Laila is heartbroken because she was in love with him and wanted to spend her life with him. Now

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

The forced marriage between Mariam and Rasheed represents the oppression that women experienced in Afghanistan. Mariam's father and his wives arrange for Mariam to marry Rasheed, leaving Mariam with no say in the matter. The marriage that joins Mariam and Rasheed together is tainted by horrible mental, physical and sexual abuse. There are horrible dangers that arise from an arranged marriage, especially in Afghanistan where men view women primarily as child bearers. Married wanted to so badly to have not been forced into marriage, she was homesick and scared, “Her teeth rattled when she thought of the night, the time when Rasheed might, at last, decide to do to her what husbands did to their wives” (Hosseini 57). Laila was also forced into marriage with Rasheed, however, the circumstances differed. Laila was given a choice whether to enter into the marriage, but it was essentially life or death. Marrying Rasheed was the only way she and Tariq’s baby would ever survive. Rasheed was abusive to both Mariam and Laila. While he had once worshipped them, after not giving him the son he always wanted he no longer cared for them and began a cycle of horrible abuse. He treated them horribly, to which they could do little about, “there isn’t a court in this g-dforsaken country that will hold me accountable for what I will do.”(Hosseini 243) Rasheed says to Laila in reference

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

Laila never faced abuse of any kind as a child. While she was neglected by her mother, her father showed her plenty of love and attention. She also experienced a great deal of affection from Tariq, a boy that lived near her neighborhood. Tariq and Laila quickly became best friends and, in their teen years, lovers. When a Soviet rocket hits Laila´s house, however, everything and everyone she cares for, is instantly taken away. Her parents had died, and her friends had either been killed or fled the country. When a stranger approaches Laila with the news that Tariq has been killed, she realizes that she has nothing else to lose. She cannot live as an unmarried woman in Afghanistan, and so she agrees to marry Rasheed who, at the time, appears kind and welcoming. This is one of the most painful

Historical information about the Setting: The major events in this book occurred in the last decade. After the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, the lives of many Middle Easterners (Iraqians, Iranians, etc.) and South Asians (Afghans, Pakistanis, etc.) were changed. Many people, especially women, were brutally slaughtered for disobeying the Taliban, a terrorist group that worked closely with al Qaeda. Not only were the Taliban extreme religious fundamentalists, they were also strict with enforcement. The US and many other countries have tried to end these terrorist organizations, but they hurt a great deal of innocent people, which this book goes further in depth about. In these recent years, there has been great progression in basic rights for women, as well as men, which most likely could have never happened prior to this time.

In every society there is a certain group of individuals or institutions that enforces norms onto other people. These groups can range from state institutions, religious communities, the local community, and even people within an oppressed community. In Erika Friedl’s Women of Deh Koh there is an extreme amount of pressure put on women to follow societal norms. The novel takes place in a remote village in Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The previous government was replaced with one based on Islamic law and women are subjected to its provisions, which are often times unequal and creates disparities in society. The women in this village experience pressure from the men in their community, their elders, religion, and even the state. The group of people who exert the most amount of pressure on these women, however, is other women in the village itself. This may appear to be a paradox, women exerting pressure on other women while themselves wanting to break the norms of society to fulfill personal desires, but there are various examples of how the other women in the village exert pressure on certain women. Examples of how other women exert pressure on women can be seen in chapter five, About Telling It As It Is and How Golgol Left Her Husband and Went Back to Him, and chapter seven, The Little Changes That Happened When Simin Became Adval’s Wife. These examples in chapters five and seven will help demonstrate how women in Deh Koh receive pressure from other women.

That day, “Mammy was wearing the same cobalt blue dress she had worn the day of the lunch party four months earlier” (192 Hosseini). It was moments after that Laila had noticed this that her life was dramatically changed, her family was blown to oblivion by an astrayed rocket, and she was now left and orphan fading in and out of consciousness in the wreckage of her home. Rasheed and Mariam, who lived down the street from Laila’s family, saw the accident and brought them to her home. Days later Rasheed proposed to Laila, and told her that if she refused she would be thrown out into the dangerous streets of Kabul. Laila reluctantly agreed. The day of Rasheed and Laila’s wedding, Rasheed wore a “new used suit, [with] blue [and] white pinstripes” (217

He was an abusive man that constantly beat them. He despised Mariam more at times because she couldn't give him children. He would beat her just because of it or anything else he believed to be wrong she did. The taliban did not allow women to be in public without a man. The taliban were harsh cruel people who would find a simple reason to kill somebody. They turned the pure Muslim religion into something cruel and imposed it on the people. Women were less than men. Hosseini displays domestic violence in the lives of these two women and it's unusual as a man is realizing the horrible mistreatment and unfairness towards women in Afghanistan. Men were the head of the household and that's why Rasheed could do what he wanted.There was no equality there and as time passed by in that household, there was nothing but cruelty there for Mariam and Laila. Its as if they were punished for simply being

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

Ultimately, Mariam and Laila attempt to escape, but fail, which in turn infuriates Rasheed even more. These two women then work together and protect each other, and in due course, kill Rasheed during one of his “ritual” beatings. In the end, Mariam is killed for murdering her husband, and Laila, with her children, Aziza and Zalmai, finds Tariq and marries him; then, together they start their own family. Throughout the course of the story, not only was a passionate, well-written story presented, but also a clear picture of what Afghan culture and its aspects are really like.

The Taliban implemented laws restricting the movements and actions of women in Afghanistan in public places. While attempting to visit her child in a home for young girls, Laila is beaten within an inch of her life as a consequence of walking outside without a male escort (Hosseini). The extreme course of action, beating a woman for walking alone, demonstrates the illogical and unjustifiable actions the Taliban promotes the practice of in Afghanistan. The women and men have dramatically unequal rights.

A woman pushes as hard as she can for the last time. “It’s a baby girl!” the man announces, as the new mother hangs her head in sight of the hardships her baby, Elizabeth, will face. Miles away in a hospital, another woman gives birth to a healthy baby girl, Marley. As she sees her baby for the first time, she smiles knowing all the great adventures this baby will experience in her life. The polygamous mom takes the little girl home to her family, a family where she has more than one mother and many brothers and sisters. As she grows up she lives her life trying to be “proper” and “sweet” in the eyes of the prophet. Somewhere far away, Marley is outside playing with her mother and learning how to be a kid. At the age of fourteen, young girls like Marley are innocent and should be going on dates, having fun with friends, and living their life, but for a fourteen year old Elizabeth, she is married to a man twice her age to be his second wife. As she begins her life with her husband, she sees the jealousy of the first wife and the neglect she feels by her presence. Shortly after, the young girl is replaced by another new wife after having a child. Ever since the day she was born, she had no control over these stages happening. Her fate was determined from time of birth and is determined by men until the day she dies. Her fate will be ruled by the religion of Polygamy.