A Thousand Splendid Suns

1010 Words3 Pages

I’ve never been to Afghanistan or even thought much about the Afghan people. After I read the book A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini, I personally loved and took this book to my heart. This book took me through the unthinkable as if I were there with immersed words. This adrenaline rushed science fiction put me into the shoes of the women and children in the Middle East. The reader will read about the historical fictional events of 9/11 when the horrific tragedy of the Twin Towers falling and how the Afghans felt. This story is about two women who were told that they would have to endure to survive throughout their lives and now are actually having to do it. The title of this book, A Thousand Splendid Suns will unravel throughout …show more content…

For five year old Mariam the abuse just started in her life as the word “Harami” meaning bastard sets the scene in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Mariam is not allowed to attend school and most certainly isn’t allowed to leave her controlling mother and her home. As the book progresses, the reader will see her neglectful father in and out of her life and her husband at fifteen, Rasheed. Rasheed takes Mariam away and requires her to fulfill wifely duties around the house and for him. Rasheed and Mariam try to have children and as tragedy occurs, Mariam fails to give a son to Rasheed. Rasheed grows hateful towards her, angry at everything she does. When she fails to meet his high requirements, he forces pebbles in her mouth making her chew, breaking her molars, without a doctor. As she grows up into a more mature young lady she develops a stronger side helping her to endure the abuse around her being a women in the Middle East. Through a violent, occurring war in a town a young girl tries to live a normal life with an education and a happy marriage. Young Laila grows up healthy and happy in a loved home with an involved authoritative father and a sickly ill mother. Laila hopes to marry her childhood friend and now teenage lover Tariq. Tariq and Laila express their love through the freighted city in a home when “Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then a thing both lovely and terrible for you he said, I would …show more content…

Khaled Hosseini made his point very vivid when he wrote this book. This story wasn’t just a story he made up and wrote, it was more. It was to explain a whole other hidden side of the women that they can’t explain or say for women in the Middle East. He wrote this for the women, this point of view is from women, education, children, religion and humanity. Hosseini writes how the women really feel when he explains the vulgar comments and beatings and how scared they really were just trying to survive day by day. Hosseini explains the children’s thoughts and views when he simply wrote and described what the children drew in their pictures in the orphanages. He could have left this out but he thought this was important when he explained how scared they were when they drew those pictures sharing their own horrific experienced vision. Khaled Hosseini did more than explain and accomplish his goal of breaking the stereotypes of Middle Eastern people. He applied knowledge that people would have never known about. He supplies the courage of education, knowledge and

Examples Of Justice In A Thousand Splendid Suns
674 Words | 2 Pages
Justice and perception are words that often overlap. What is seen as justice by one generation can be seen a hateful act of violence by the next. The point is, justice can only truly be construed by the one perceived as the victim. In A Thousand Splendid Suns a picture of sorrow and desperation that grasp Afghanistan is painted as the backdrop to the story. Mariam, a harami, was taught by her mother to endure. That her sole purpose as a woman was to endure the suffering that a man causes. Then, one day, she takes justice into her own hands and kills her abusive husband to save her sister wife and only true companion in her life. This crime leads to her execution; even her final moments a sense of purpose fulfills her because she knows that by sacrificing her life and saving Laila’s, Laila can start anew.
Read More
A Thousand Splendid Suns
1242 Words | 3 Pages
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) are able to retain their consideration, boldness and protectiveness, as sufferers in their atrocious world.
Read More
Sexism In The Women's Swimming Pool By Nawal El Saadawi
926 Words | 2 Pages
Both el Saadawi and Al-Shaykh both show how perception and expression are both affected within the confines of politics, social opportunities, and male privilege depicted in their stories. Whether the reader is a follower of the feminist movement or not, it is very clear and easy to see that these women are not being treated with the respect that any human being deserves. The misogynistic stranglehold on society, especially in this part of the world, is excessive and avoidable in today’s world but it is very likely that the traditional, conservative ways of the past will continue to control and inhibit women from being able to be fully treated as equals for many years to come, perhaps even after this generation has
Read More
Examples Of Social Injustice In A Thousand Splendid Suns
1242 Words | 3 Pages
Social injustice is revealed throughout the novel and Hosseini really goes in depth and indulges the reader by portraying every aspect of the life of women in Afghanistan at the time period. He also reveals most of the social injustice women still have to deal with today. This novel is based on two young women and the social injustices they face because of their gender. Gender inequality was very common in Afghanistan
Read More
Responsibility of Friar Lawrence in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
678 Words | 2 Pages
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star- crossed lovers take their life, Whose misadventured piteous overthrows, Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.”
Read More
Who Is Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns?
604 Words | 2 Pages
Both Laila, the lucky girl with breathtaking beauty, whose luck suddenly vanishes, and Mariam, the unlucky and illegitimate daughter, whose luck goes from bad to terribly worse, become dynamic and complex characters. This transformation is brought about by the gradual revealing of Hosseini’s motivation. In fact, Hoesseini is evidently motivated to reveal the truth, and let the emotional and physical realities of Afghani women’s lives be known to the
Read More
Justice In Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns
784 Words | 2 Pages
Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, tells the stories of women in Afghanistan in the late twentieth century. Hosseini shows the women’s strengths, weaknesses, tribulations and accomplishments through their own actions, and how they are treated by other characters in the book, particularly the male characters. Hosseini portrays men in A Thousand Splendid Suns to create themes of justice and injustice within the novel. The justice, or lack thereof, served to the male characters is a result of their treatment and attitudes toward the female characters in the book and towards women in general.
Read More
Cruelty In A Thousand Splendid Suns
1206 Words | 3 Pages
Women are beaten, and it is culturally acceptable. Like routine, women are beaten in Afghanistan almost every day. When a person purposely inflicts sufferings on others with no feelings of concern, like the women of Afghanistan, he is cruel. Cruelty can manifest from anger, irritation, or defeat and is driven by self-interest. An idea that is explored in many works of literature, cruelty also appears in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns in the relationship between a husband and wife. In their case, the husband uses cruelties in the form of aggression are to force his wife to submit. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini’s use of cruelty elucidates the values of both Rasheed and Mariam as well as essential ideas about the nature of
Read More
The Space Between Us andA Thousand Splendid Suns
1287 Words | 3 Pages
The centre of economy and the focus of many lives, the power of money is punctuated by the difference in wealth in Bhima and Sera’s lives in The Space Between Us. The importance of money is stressed in A Thousand Splendid Suns with the contrast between Mariam’s father’s prosperity and her mother’s poverty and the difference in Laila and Mariam’s lives before and after war. Centred on the newly abolished caste system, the distinction between Bhima and Sera’s financial situations underlines the difference money makes in their society. While Bhima is forced to live in a slum, Sera enjoys the luxury of her home and the employment of Bhima. Another luxury Bhima can’t afford is to welcome Maya’s baby. Instead she is forced to watch her granddaughter suffer from the emotional effects of an abortion. While Sera eagerly awaits the birth of her own grandchild she is the one who financially facilitates the abortion of Bhima’s great-grandchild. Furthermore, because of the pre-existing social constraints of the caste system, Bhima is not permitted to sit on the same furniture or use the same dishes as Sera. Similarly, Mariam’s life is also restricted by her mother’s pove...
Read More
A Thousand Splendid Suns Setting Essay
660 Words | 2 Pages
A Thousand Splendid Suns takes place in Afghanistan, more specifically in cities like Kabul, Irat and Muree. The story of this novel happen on a long period of time, approximately from 1974 to 2003. What should be retained from those facts is that the story is going in the Middle East, a Islamic country in which the religion has a major influence in the culture and that Afghan society is known to be misogynist. Also, during the
Read More
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossieni
975 Words | 2 Pages
...ound.”(274) Rasheed’s want for power increases after talking to the Taliban because he believes the he is the real master behind everything, making him the true hero to Mariam and Lila. It is ironic Rasheed believes that his is the true hero because the actions that he had towards Mariam and Lila made them the people they were and it made Mariam’s heroism come over even more.
Read More
A Thousand Splendid Suns
899 Words | 2 Pages
Next let us examine Mariam's plight. She is denied the chance to go to school. "What's the sense schooling a girl like you? It's like shinning a spitspoon." She lives with a cruel mother. "You are a clumsy little harami. This is my reward for everything I've endured. An heirloom-breaking, clumsy little harmi"(4). She has a neglectful father. "Mariam kept thinking of his face in the upstairs window. He let her sleep on the street. On the street. Mariam cried lying down"(35). Her mother commits suicide and Mariam blames herself. "You stop that. These thoughts are no good, Mariam jo. You hear me, child? No good. They will destroy you. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault no". Mariam nodded, but as desperately as she wanted to she could not bring herself to believe him"(44). She is forced into marriage to a man she does not love. "I don't want to," Mariam said. She looked at Jalil. "I don't want this. Don't make me"(47). She is sent to live in a strange city were she does not know anyone. She has a physically abusive husband. "Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars"(104). Her husband is cruel and says hurtful words to her. She can not do anything right in his eyes. When he is not ignoring her he is being verbally or physically abusive towards her.
Read More
Book Report: Return of the Pharaoh
1145 Words | 3 Pages
Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt.
Read More
Theme Of Hypocrisy In Woman At Point Zero
1092 Words | 3 Pages
The oppression of women in the Middle East and North Africa was commonplace, with women often beaten and deprived of fundamental rights. Entrapped by social constraints, there was little hope for opposition, as the patriarchal perspectives of society were enforced by everyone, even women themselves. One of the most prevalent ways was through the use of hypocrisy and double standards to cast an illusion of justice and equality, when in reality, women were disadvantaged in nearly every aspect. The hypocrisy of society is demonstrated in Nawal El Saadawi’s novel Woman at Point Zero, where women such as Firdaus are dominated by double standards. She finds both initial hope and consequent
Read More
The Novel Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
1221 Words | 3 Pages
The novel Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi and the article “With Tasers and placards, the women of Egypt are fighting back against sexism” by Laurie Penny can be connected both internally in regards to the text and outwardly to the time and place surrounding the novel and article. Although Woman at Point Zero provides a fictional journey, one that is at heart and by inspiration very genuine, the ideas incorporated into this novel are just as authentic as those provided by the first hand account given by Laurie Penny. Woman at Point Zero follows the story of one woman, Firdaus, who is forcibly raped on numerous occasions. Firdaus later finds security by means of prostitution, which leads her to be targeted on a more authoritative scale. Ultimately Firdaus finds strength to retaliate against the men who have harmed her, as can be seen when she defends herself, killing her pimp.
Read More

Open Document

Wait a second!

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Examples Of Justice In A Thousand Splendid Suns