What Does The Color Symbolize In A Thousand Splendid Suns

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Blue. Red. Green. Yellow. White. Black. Colors. They can have positive or negative impacts on characters in literature. Khaled Hosseini clearly reveals this concept in A Thousand Splendid Suns. In the novel, Hosseini uses various colors to symbolize emotions, reveal thoughts, and foreshadows the events in the characters’ lives.
Colors can have positive meanings in literature. In the novel, Hosseini uses the colors green, blue, and white to show some positive aspects. Green means growth and hope. When Mariam wore “...a green hijab over her hair”, she wore green in hope of seeing her father (29). She also grew as a person though because she learned what type of person her father was. When she grew stronger as a person, it caused her to open …show more content…

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini uses the colors yellow, black, red, and green to show negative effects. In literature, yellow means decay. “His nails were yellow-brown, like the inside of a rotting apple” symbolizes that Rasheed will do some dangerous things with his hands (53). He ends up strangling and abusing his two wives, Mariam and Laila. Using yellow as the color of his nails could also foreshadow his death towards the end of the book. It is important to the story because without Rasheed acting the way he did towards the women, they would not have grown as strong as they did mentally. The women had enough courage to stick up for each other and against Rasheed. The color black symbolizes death, mystery, & chaos. In Part Two of the novel, Mammy received the news of the death of her sons. The days after the funeral, Mammy laid in bed most days and “she wore black” (145). It was a devastating time for her and she was falling apart. She wore black to represent the death of her sons and the misery she was going through. She also suffered from Outward Manifestation Inward Strife which occurs when the body shows signs of emotional stress. “Chest pains and headaches, joint aches and night sweats, paralyzing pains in her ears, lumps no one else could feel” (141) shows some of the signs Mammy was having during her time of stress. She was taken to the doctor but they found no

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