Analysis Of A Thousand Splendid Suns

Ruicheng Xu

Honors English 12

Mr.Riodan

Cruelty of male-dominated culture

The book A thousand splendid suns tells a story of two woman Mariam and Lilia, one is a illegitimate child raised up by a spiteful and stubborn mother; one is a young, intelligent girl from a loving family, they met each other in a coincidence, from being hostile to each other to friends that went through all the cruelty against women in Afghanistan. This book presented the cruelty of Afghanistan society under Taliban’s Oppressive Regime through the sense of unequaled treatment and abusive policy in the story.

The abuses towards woman started from the rise of Taliban, addcording to Bereau of democracy, Prior to the rise of the Taliban, women in Afghanistan were protected

The Taliban closed the women 's university and forced nearly all women to quit their jobs, closing down an important source of talent and expertise for the country. While the book mentioned Laila send her daughter to orphanage to receive education, Afghanistan women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught. At the same time women were forced to quit their jobs as teachers, doctors, nurses, and clerical workers when the Taliban took over, women could work only in very limited circumstances. When woman lost their opportunity for education, they automatically lost their potential of speaking, because the next generation will be raised up with no education except the sacrifices on their self-respect, then the grownups in the future will have no ability or knowledge or even lack of believe to stand up for themselves. What’s worse, women were not allowed to be treated by a male doctor unless they are accompanied by a male chaperone, it could be worse while most of the women were force to leave their job, include doctors and nurse. All of these lead to the astonishing scene when Laila goes to hospital to give birth to Aziza and was told that founding from united nation was taken away from Taliban, she went through caesarean birth with no basic hygiene supply, not even anesthetic, gave birth to Aziza. Mariam killed Rasheed, turning herself to Taliban and was executed in public, everything in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” reflects reality, a mother of seven children was executed in front of 30,000 spectators in Kabul’s Ghazi Sport stadium for murdering her husband, such execution always happen in Afghanistan. The result of Taliban’s sexism regime is not only bad for women in Afghanistan, it is also a disaster for the whole