Women In A Thousand Splendid Suns

This caused to become violent. He retaliated his anger towards Mariam. She had always had to endure emotional pain in her life, but Rasheed hurt her physically during their marriage. Rasheed from the beginning had a sexist and misogynistic view. He states, “ ‘I have customers, Mariam, men who bring their wives to my shop. The women come uncovered, they talk to me directly, look at me in the eye without shame. They wear makeup and skirts that show their knees. Sometimes they even put their feet in front of me, the women do, for measurements, and their husbands sit there and watch. They allow it. They think nothing of a stranger touching their wives’ bare feet! They think they’re being modern men, intellectuals, on account of their education, I suppose. They don’t see that they’re spoiling their own nang and namoos, their honor and pride.’ ” (Hosseini

Afghanistan is one of the many countries around the world that participate in the practice of arranged marriage. There are economical

The laws made for Afghan women were much more brutal than those for men. Women could show very little to no skin if they were ever to go out in public. If they were to have a reason to go out in public, then they would need to have a mahram to escort them. If a woman was ever seen without a mahram, she could be punished in a number of ways.

By beating Rasheed with a shovel and killing him with it, Mariam reveals that she has finally decided to stand up to Rasheed for Laila and herself. Because Mariam stood up to Rasheed and killed him, now Mariam and Laila have lifted a huge burden off their shoulders and Laila can live with Tariq and her children. Mariam learns that if she wants to be happier in life she has to make her own decisions, like killing Rasheed. If she had not defended Laila, Rasheed could have killed Laila, and Mariam would have continued to live a stressful life. Throughout the book, Miriam endures on-going violence and abuse and she begins to make poor choices; she also begins to act out violently as means of learning to cope with her surroundings. Her actions drastically changed the course of her life for herself as well as others for worse and for better.

Today in the post –Taliban era, women still struggle with their rights. Resolutions were produced and rights for women have advanced since September 11th but in order to move forward, much work needs to be done. Hundreds of years of repression for Afghan women will take a lot longer than a few years to actually revolutionize. There is violence towards women that are not practicing traditions customs and fear retaliations from the Taliban. Customs are difficult to change as well as government policies. (Bora Laskin Law). In Afghanistan, religious and cultural values, politics, and an uncertain acting government have played a major part in the struggle for women’s rights.

The Constitution that was created in Afghanistan during the 1920’s, stated equal rights for women and men. In fact, during the year of 1959, new policies created educational and career opportunities and voluntary removal of having to wear the burka. Women’s roles become similarly equivalent to male roles; they had the opportunity to acquire knowledge from universities, and were provided jobs in industrial, business, and entertainment settings. The atrocities that came about during the Mujaheddin and Taliban control were unheard of years prior, when women lived in peace and prosperity

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.

Later that day, when Rasheed learns of Tariq’s visit, he begins to brutally beat Laila. He might have killed her, except, while he is, Mariam strikes him in the temple with a shovel, and kills him. For her crime, Mariam is sentenced to public execution, but Laila is finally free of Rasheed’s grasp. Now, with Tariq’s presence, Laila can finally escape to Pakistan, where she and Tariq live in a relatively wealthy town in Pakistan.

In Mariam’s last act of love, she sacrifices everything and takes the blame for murdering Rasheed. The quote is

Women are often stereotyped as powerless beings and objectified as trophies to men. This stigma that women carry is often illustrate_d inrV types of literatur(µA Thousand Splendid, ( .\\ (j{ 1 VftS , Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Hosseini illustrates e power f women, even in the most traiirnatic times of their lives. Hosseini develops a strong female protagonist, Mariam, in the novel through the use comparing and contrasting the cultural views of women durine period to the modem views of women and their capabilities to be just as powerful as men or even more powerful through the development of various traditional and nontraditional relationships. In the novel, Hosseini places a direct focus on family, in the traditional sense.

She was told this is who you are marrying and when she tried to protest, the women did not allow it. She was not in love with her husband, and he was much older than her, which she found strange. There are little to no laws on marriage in Afghanistan. It doesn't matter if the girls want to or not, a man can marry a younger woman even if she is still a teenager and the man is as old as 50 or 60. The women get no say in their lives and when it is time to get married they must marry who they are told to marry.

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

Hosseini emerge various times in the storyline which frequently presents clues of what happens eventually in a future event. When Mariam signs her name on the marriage contract and states “the next time Mariam sign her name to a document, twenty years later, a mullah would again be present” demonstrates that is not the only document she is intended to sign (Hosseini 49). The additional document Mariam intend to sign would be her death sentencing. The scene indicates that she expect to sign her name again on a contract twenty-seven years from now.

In Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila were brought together due to circumstances they could not control. Although they were both oppressed wives of a cruel and violent husband, Rasheed, they were eventually able to regain power over their own lives. The two women supported and learned from each other, finding strength in their relationship. Their relationship was an alliance of sorts and was essential to their ability to regain power over their lives. Once Mariam and Laila befriended each other, they each started to gain courage and hope and began to take more control over their lives in separate, small acts of courage and rebellion that eventually led to significant events which cemented their newly regained power. The developing of power did not come without obstacles, but Mariam and Laila were able to persevere and continue to stand up for themselves against both Rasheed and their societal constraints. Finding strength and motivation from each other and from other loved ones essential to their efforts, Mariam and Laila were able to take power over their own lives by standing up to and retaliating against oppressors in a series of events which led to the pivotal moment when Mariam kills Rasheed, finally setting both women free and giving them both complete power over

Afghanistan is a patriarchal entity, where in other countries in the region where male family member are the ones who make the decisions for themselves and their household. The role of being a male is that they are the minds of the women, whether it the female 's father, brother, husband, and possibly the brother-in-law. The male is the head of the households they are responsible for the way he is represented and is expected to take all major decisions regarding his family. Marriages in Afghanistan are arranged by the families of the marrying couple. Unlike in the United States where there relationship are initiated by the man and the women themselves. Women are married off before they reach puberty, to men who are