Overcoming Obstacles in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns

When I was a young child, I had an older sister who was controlling over my every move. I remember the annoyance of her forcing me to play games with her that I thought were ludicrous, or having to clean up a mess that she made because she said that I was the one who created the mayhem. Having to endure the controlment of my older sister felt like misery. Just like how I had to endure the domination of my older sister, in Khaled Hosseini's novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila have to endure living with their restrictive husband, Rasheed, who also controls their every move and forces them to have an undesirable life. Mariam is forced to marry Rasheed by her father and his wives after Miriam's mother died. Liala agrees to marry Rasheed

This research project is focused on understanding a book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. In addition, the project objective is to understand choices, actions, and processes of characters and what factors led them to arrive to such consequences.

However, Mariam changes after Laila comes into her life. At first, her hatred towards Lails shows Mariam’s change, her beginning to understand that she is allowed to fight against injustice. She asks Rasheed not to take her in that “in all her years this was the one thing she asked of him.” (?) The fact that Mariam asks at all depicts her growing courage to stand up to her abusive husband. She also defends herself against this injustice of Rasheed marrying Laila, loving Laila over her, by demanding her authority over the younger girl. However, it is when Mariam and Laila become companions that Mariam’s understanding truly alters. This is because she begins to love Laila and the children that Laila have. Laila has provided her the one thing that “she

A Thousand Splendid Suns, written by Khalid Hosseini explores themes relating to hardships and family, especially having to do with the oppression of women. This novel follows the lives of Mariam and Laila, two Afghan women whose interactions arise from their forced marriage to Rasheed, and the abuse they face together. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of Jalil, a rich businessman, and his former housekeeper, Nana. Struggling with the stigma surrounding her birth and guilt following her mother’s suicide prompts Mariam to be unable to stand up for herself. Laila is quite the opposite and grew up with the desire for an education and the knowledge that she could change the world. After her parents and Tariq’s deaths, Laila is forced to set

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a beautiful tale of two women in Afghanistan during the Taliban uprising. They grow up on complete opposite sides of Afghan culture. The main character, Mariam, grows up in a more traditional way caused by her forced marriage to Rasheed. Laila on the other hand, grows up with a supportive father who encourages gender equality and education. There are many cultural differences such as, women’s rights, public executions, and the Taliban. The two main characters, Mariam and Laila, develop greatly throughout the novel. They push each other to be better and to stand up for equality. This plays into the themes of the novel. Women’s strength and loyalty are the two most important themes. They

Throughout the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini the colors of blue and white periodically appear before significant changes occur in Laila’s life. An example of blue and white appearing in Laila’s life is the day Mammy came out of mourning, the day “she put on a cobalt blue linen dress with white polka dots” (160 Hosseini). This symbolised a big change in Laila’s life, for months on end she was being neglected by her mother, who was so consumed in grief that she could not muster the energy to care for her family or pay attention to her daughter. This left Laila having to take over as head woman of her household. She was left to do the chores and cook the meals. It was not until the day that the Mujahideen triumphantly paraded through Kabul after Najibullah surrendered that Mammy came out of mourning and stopped neglecting Laila.

Equality and fairness is something that people have always been striving for and hoping to receive. The novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by author Khaled Hosseini displays the journey of two Afghan women during rough times due to the religious extremists known as the Taliban. These two women, Mariam and Laila, faced cruelty throughout their lives even at the hands of relatives and their so called loved ones.

The story also acts as an example for every woman in the world who sacrifices everything she has, for her family and how in the end she needs to survive any tribulations. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini shows the inner strength and resilience of women through the lives of Mariam and Laila, which ultimately becomes the key for their survival. It helps them face their fate and they are able to overcome many social restrictions such as lack of education, forced marriages, lack of basic facilities and male oppression due to their perseverance.

The writing style of Khaled Hosseini in A Thousand Splendid Suns is both sympathetic and disgusted. He feels pity on those that bear the burden of the war. He shows this mostly through the use of two major literary devices: Symbolism and Imagery. These two literary devices impact the reader because it gives a deeper insight and understanding of the pain and fear these characters were forced into dealing with every day.

The relationship between Mariam and Laila grows overtime into an unbreakable love. Mariam is a vulnerable character that experienced hardships and negativity throughout her life. Her reliance on faith and religion gave her hope. Laila however, has had a positive upbringing from modern parents. Her education is what made her a strong and intelligent girl. Their personalities contrast to bring the best out of each other. However at first, in fear of being overshadowed by Laila, Mariam says “If [Laila] thinks [she] can use [her] looks to get rid of me, [she is] wrong. [Mariam] was here first. [She] won't be thrown out” (225). As Mariam has never been a priority to anyone in her life she was very defensive over her role in the house. As jealousy embarked upon Mariam,

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

From generation to generation, the constant struggle for males to live up to the expectations of their fathers often affects the choices made and actions taken by the sons. Perhaps, the overbearing testosterone levels claim responsibility for the apparent need for sons to impress their fathers, but not all boys consider the realistic consequences of their decisions. In Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner, young Amir's admiration for his father Baba, coupled with the constant tension in their relationship obscures his mind from making clear decisions as he strives to obtain his father's love and approval.

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, follows the maturation of Amir, a boy from Afghanistan, as he discovers what it means to stand up for what he believes in. His quest to redeem himself after betraying his friend and brother, Hassan, makes up the heart of the novel. When Amir hears that his father’s old business partner, Rahim Khan, is sick and dying, he travels to Pakistan to say his goodbyes. Rahim Khan tells Amir about Hassan’s life and eventual death; the Taliban murdered Hassan while he was living in Amir’s childhood home. As his dying wish, Rahim Khan asks Amir to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from an orphanage in Afghanistan. Although Amir refuses at first, he thinks about what Rahim Khan had always told him: “There is a way to be

Hosseini’s parents are put into the characters as Laila’s parents in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. Laila’s father is was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and Laila’s mother taught Farsi and history at a high school similar to Hosseini’s parents. Hosseini place this tiny detail to emphasizes the relocated the Hosseini family to Paris when Hosseini was young ("Biography"). Somewhat similar to the Hosseini family, Laila’s family had to move to Pakistan to be in a safer condition. In Kabul, both Hosseini and Laila faced “bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet Army” ("Biography"). The event that happen to Hosseini was he was at a young age was placed on on Laila’s family, proving that this personal experience impacted him. Hosseini’s childhood memories reappear to him and by adding this as part of his novels, it shows how Afghans back then and now are still living in terror. The Afghans would have to be ready to leave their home at any time to be safe since attacks can happen to them at any time. Because of this he can relate and have more empathy towards them due to his past experience being relocating to Paris when he was a child.

The authors Khaled Hosseini and Kurt Vonnegut write novels of critical acclaim. Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns explores the life of Mariam and her struggles with her husband and society, however, she finds reason to fight through a religious tutor. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five examines the life of Billy Pilgrim who goes through the bombing of Dresden and is kidnapped by an alien species, the Tralfamadorians, who have him apply a new philosophy. Using traditional techniques, Hosseini constructs Mullah Faizullah, the religious tutor, as a wise mentor. The persona of a hermit guru was used by Vonnegut as a non-traditional guide in the form of the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five. Hosseini uses foreshadowing and a comforting