Summary Of ' A Thousand Splendid Suns '

“An heirloom-breaking, clumsy little harami” (Hosseini 4), sets the tone for the beginning of Mariam’s life throughout the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. Many women are mistreated throughout the novel, but Mariam’s childhood is much tougher because she is a harami, or “bastard child”. Mariam tries to find emotional and physical shelter in her lifetime, but struggles to find it. In the beginning of her life she can’t find emotional shelter from her mother, Nana, so she tries to find shelter from her father, Jalil, but can’t find a connection. She then was forced to marry Rasheed, but can only find physical shelter in him. Later in the novel, she becomes friends with Laila,

Afghanistan. I have always wondered how different life would be out there. Khaled Hosseini has done a great job at making me feel like I actually experienced what the main characters went through, in the book “ A Thousand Splendid Suns”

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini uses the colors of blue and white to represent change in Laila’s life. An example of when they appear is on the day a bomb hit Laila’s house and kills her family. On 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 is moments after Laila notices her mother's dress that the young girl's life dramatically changes; her family is now blown to oblivion by a stray rocket that leaves her fading in and out of consciousness in the desolate remains of her house. Khaled Hosseini uses the colors blue and white here to not only symbolize oncoming change, but to also give the reader a greater insight into the events to come. The white of the dress

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

Khaled Hosseini’s critically acclaimed novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, follows two women whose lives intertwine and their fates become connected. Laila is a young girl who falls in love with a man who she cannot be with and is carrying his baby when she marries Rasheed. Rasheed’s first wife, Mariam, is a lovely woman who becomes Laila’s companion in their mutual hatred for the abusive Rasheed. With alternating perspectives, Hosseini gives insight into both women's lives and relays the cruelties they are forced to endure, and how the brutality they face affects their lives, specifically Laila’s, whose motherly instincts allow her to endure much more than otherwise.

In “A Thousand Splendid Suns” Mariam experiences loss, rejection, depression, and helplessness throughout her entire life. I can relate to her life in some aspects. Mariam experienced several deaths and whenever death is brought up it twists my stomach. Everyone is like a gallon of milk- we all have an expiration date that cannot be changed. I have experienced death and loss and it was a major event in my life. Mariam and I experienced similar emotions that both assisted in shaping who we are.

powerful and moving story about two brothers, however it also does an outstanding job at portraying the culture and norms of Afghanistan; both the positive aspects and the negative aspects. Hosseini directly and

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, independence involves the desire to become educated. Considering the political and societal conditions, education is not acceptable during this time, and if it is discovered that school of any sort is being run, the Taliban will punish the perpetrator of the crime. The main character in the text that is used to support this is Laila. “Marriage can wait, education cannot. You’re a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You can be anything you want, Laila” (Hosseini 114). For Laila in particular, education is an achievable and desired factor in her freedom. Babi depicted to Laila at a young age that schooling is the most important thing in her life, after her safety. Due to the fear of the Taliban, families commonly discourage any sort of education in the lives of their children, especially their daughters, as it could harm her well being. Laila is seen disregarding conventional norms and encouraged by a wise man, Babi, to pursue her interests, which she eventually does. “Members are identified and recognized as different and distinct from another nation or its members” (Khan 3). The connection to the theme of autonomy is evident here. Khan describes that the members of Afghanistan are all unique and not one person is the same as someone else. Independence is something that is only accomplishable by the individual themself, and it takes a distinctive character to be capable of doing so. The concept that all people are different is crucial in the

In a nation brimming with discrimination, violence and fear, a multitudinous number of hearts will become malevolent and unemotional. However, people will rebel. In the eye-opening novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini, the country of Afghanistan is exposed to possess cruel, treacherous and sexist law and people. The women are classified as something lower than human, and men have the jurisdiction over the women. At the same time, the most horrible treatment can bring out some of the best traits in victims, such as consideration, boldness, and protectiveness. Although, living in an inconsiderate world, women can still carry aspiration and benevolence. Mariam and Laila (the main characters of A Thousand Splendid Suns)

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a real life depiction of the oppressed women of Afghanistan’s controlled existence. Since the beginning of Afghanistan’s history, women have been degraded and abused. Afghanistan’s women have endured such injustices as being married off as young as 13, not allowed to go to school, unable to leave home without a male escort, to name a few. Most noticeable was the fact that the women were required to cover their entire body, from head to toe, with a burqa.

Trying to keep one’s sanity is hard in tough times. Imagine living in Afghanistan and having to conform to the country’s version of marriage and laws. A marriage in which women are to blame for everything and punished with beatings. In A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, two women named Mariam and Laila, decades apart in age, are married to one man named Rasheed. They face their society’s rules and laws as they battle between being treated like they are less than and not important, and facing the cruel aftermath of their crime with what it truly feels like to love a family. One lesson to bring out of this: life requires strength, companionship, and patience to truly endure the constraints of society.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, main character Mariam is forced into exile after a horrific set of experiences. After her mother’s suicide, she is removed from her home and is later arranged to marry a random man she never met before. Before her departure, Mariam lived in a “kolba,” a small hut on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. With no other place to go, she disapprovingly lives with her father for a short period of time before being shipped off to her new husband. Her encounter with exile is almost unbearable, yet she endures and grows into a hardworking and respectable woman. For Mariam, exile is both alienating and enriching; it illuminates how withstanding life’s challenges and learning to overcome them with love will ultimately be beneficial in the end, no matter what happens.

When reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, one would feel a sort of culture shock due to the extremely differing folklore of the people of Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2000s compared to the United States of 2017. Some of the different cultural concepts are

“His people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence-forces that continue to threaten them even today” (Hower). Khaled Hosseini’s novels have brought many of his readers a different perspective of Afghanistan. Many people after reading Hosseini’s books start to notice this place more and have sympathy feelings rather negative views about it. Usually people believe the media’s information that conveys about Afghanistan as a poverty place but does not specify why they live in this conditions and how those states affect their everyday life. In the two novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the author Khaled Hosseini wrote the political events that happen in Afghanistan and show how those events affected

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