Cruelty In A Thousand Splendid Suns

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

Originally, Mairma would acquiesce to Rasheed’s demands: if he said “shut up,” she would (98). If she was beaten, she would take it. She felt no hope of freedom from his brutish acts so she endured through them. Wallowing in despair would only make her marital-situation worse. Later, out of routine, Rasheed’s abuse is prevented because of Laila. She pleads “please Rasheed, no beating!” over and over until he forfeits his attack against Mariam; feeling loved, it is a kindness that Mariam cannot forget (241). In Mariam’s final resistance to the churlish man, she shows her love for others. Aiming to kill, Rasheed acts violently upon Laila, and Mariam fights back. As he once beat her, she beat him back. The scene juxtaposes how she once accepted the abuse, and now she fights back because she does not want to lose the one who makes her feels that she “had been loved back”: Laila (224). After being controlled by Rasheed for the majority of Mariam’s marriage, she takes control of her own life for once by making he decision to kill him in order to protect Laila. Mariam’s fight back shows her willingness to sacrifice to prevent Rasheed’s cruelties further. Risking worse abuse, Mariam chooses to save Laila’s life in exchange for her own. Laila brought Mariam an unmistakable happiness: “[Mariam] was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. ... It was not so bad ... that she should die this way ... This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings” (224). Mariam gives Laila the opportunity to live a life sans of Rasheed’s barbarities to plague them after learning herself how inhumane he was. Moreover, the cruelties Mariam faced against Rasheed revealed her endurance as a woman. Mariam remained strong throughout her marriage and fought back against her husband, an act