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a thousand splendid suns analysis
literary analysis essay a thousand splendid suns
critical interpretations of a thousand splendid suns
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“Without relationships there would be no form, no creation, no intelligence, no love and no universe”. Relationships are defined as emotional bonds between people whether they are peers, parents or admirers. This specific quote by J.J. Dewey expresses that without relationships love, specifically ceases to exist. An important type of relationship in our society is friendship. Women, specifically create nurturing and emotionally-fulfilling bonds with each other. They can create satisfying exchanges of ideas and feelings and find a way to increase inner strength and fulfillment in each other. An example of strong female bonding occurred in an epic novel, A Thousand Splendid Sons. Hosseini’s development of character through female bonding is depicted through three different relationships. These include mother and daughter relationships between Nana and Mariam, Laila and Aziza and a powerful friendship between Laila and Mariam. The theme of female bonding in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” displays that women who forge strong bonds with one another are able to find inner strength and fulfillment.
The beginning of the novel opens with the introduction of Mariam, a young girl growing up in a small village in Afghanistan. She lived with her mother Nana, a bitter woman who verbally abused Mariam with phrases such as “clumsy little Harami" (pg 4) and "stupid girl" (pg 27.) These insults created an unhealthy mother and daughter relationship between Mariam and Nana. With each insult Nana unconsciously destroyed a bit of Mariam’s self esteem. Although their relationship seemed weak and abusive Nana did display her love for Mariam through various compliments, unsupportive ways and through her final suicide. This included Mariam’s act of pleasing...
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In conclusion the women who forged female bonds in Hosseini’s novel were able to find inner strength and fulfillment. In addition each female relationship displayed love and companionship in different perspectives. This included Nana and Mariam’s mother and daughter relationship which portrayed an abusive and weak bond, Laila and Aziza’s mother and daughter relationship which consisted of love, support and strength and Lastly, Mariam and Laila’s friendship which was the strongest bond that led to companionship and prosperity in death and life. For each female bond, Hosseini was trying convey a message of prosperity. This was because through each bond he displayed women conquering fears with the help and support from each other. In the end, his female characters display an important message about the importance of female bonding, love and friendship.
For her 15th birthday, Mariam asked Jalil if he could take her to his cinema to watch Pinocchio. She also asked if Jalil could bring her brothers and sisters so she could meet them. Both Nana and Jalil thought it wasn’t a good idea, but Mariam insisted on going, so Jalil said he would send someone to pick her up. Mariam did not like this idea and said that she wanted to be picked up by Jalil. Jalil reluctantly agreed. Later that day, Mariam gets the backlash and hate from her mother from her decision: “Of all the daughters I could have had, why did God give me an ungrateful one like you? …How dare you abandon me like this, you treacherous little harami!” Mariam wakes up the next day, disappointed and fed up since Jalil did not come to pick her up. She heads out to town to find Jalil herself. She makes it to his house when a chauffeur tells Mariam that Jalil was “away on urgent business.” She slept outside of his house and was awoken by the chauffeur, telling her that he would take her home. Mariam snatches away from the chauffeur’s grip and turns around towards the house, to see Jalil in an upstairs window. It was then that Mariam figured out that all she was to Jalil was a disgrace. Jalil had always been careful with the information he told Mariam. He may have loved her, but only on his own terms. Once Mariam realizes that her father allowed her to sleep on the street rather than bring her into his
In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by the author Khaled Hosseini presents the tragedy that Mariam went through. Mariam the unwanted child for her father because he was not married to Mariam’s mother when she get pregnant from him. She lived in a village with her only family member, her mother. One day she left her mother and went to the city that her father lived in. Her mother felt abandoned and committed suicide because Mariam is all she had. After the death of her mother, Mariam moved with her father to Kabul. She was a burden to her father so after some weeks she was forced to marry a forty-five year old man when she was only fifteen year old. She moved to another city with her husband where she had to live with a man that she never
The majority of the women, females of the age 14 and higher, are arranged to marry men much older than them, and in this case, at the age of fifteen, Mariam is forced to marry her husband, Rasheed, who is at least 35 years older than her. The first sign of dehumanization is shown when Rasheed, newly wedded to Mariam, rapes her in her bed and then leaves her to bleed. Although Mariam doesn’t experience much of dehumanization until she lives with her husband, her mother, Nana, was definitely a victim of it. Despite the fact that little Mariam loved her father, Nana always ranted about him to Mariam. She told Mariam that “like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.” (Hosseini 7). She was also never shy about telling her daughter the truth about women in Afghanistan: “There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don’t teach it in school . . . Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure . . . It’s our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have. Do you understand?” (17). Later on, Forty-year-old Mariam, suddenly realizes that her crazy mother was right. She grows bitter and slowly starts becoming like Nana. She collectively starts hating men, not only the ones she personally know, but also the men in the
Mariam has built a mutual relationship with Jalil in her childhood, with weekly visits every Thursday. Mariam has hid behind a wall of innocence, and Jalil helped her get past the wall with the harsh realities of the world. Mariam was an innocent being at childhood: she was stuck indoors in Kolba. Mariam does not know what is going on around her home, because she has not experienced the outdoors as well as others. All she gets at is from Jalil’s stories, and Mullahs teaching. She does not understand that the world is not as as happy as it seems. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini uses Jalil’s character to show development in Mariam's life, in order to emphasize how significant the impact of trust breaks Mariam’s innocent in the story.
Finally, even though, for a long time, the roles of woman in a relationship have been established to be what I already explained, we see that these two protagonists broke that conception and established new ways of behaving in them. One did it by having an affair with another man and expressing freely her sexuality and the other by breaking free from the prison her marriage represented and discovering her true self. The idea that unites the both is that, in their own way, they defied many beliefs and started a new way of thinking and a new perception of life, love and relationships.
Fatima Mernissi is a superb writer who introduces the reader into a harem through the mind of a nine-year-old girl. In this autobiographical novel young Mernissi talks uncensored about the contradictions of life in a harem, surrounded by the extraordinary women in her family who are restrained from leaving the family courtyard. These women’s is a struggle of complete lack of freedom. They are not allowed to leave the courtyard except on very few occasions, and escorted by men (Mernissi 39). Their lack of mobility is also accentuated by lack of other freedoms such as education and financial freedom, although they have a voice in the decision making of the crucial changes in the harem life.
Sula and Nel’s friendship in their childhood was beneficial for both of them. Sula’s meeting of Nel was fortunate, because they find a soul mate within each other. They are both the daughters of “distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers” (Morrison, 50). Both girls lack affection in their relationships with their mothers. They can’t find this affection in their relationships with their fathers either, because Sula’s father is dead while Nel’s father is away at sea. They find the affection they need with each other. Their friendship was a way to mother each other. Since they can’ find the support they need from their families with their families they began to support each other and figure out what each other need in their life. The significance
To begin Bazán theme on the relationship between male and female, it similar to millennial ideas of a relationship. She expresses that women have
The story told in “Beloved” contains a process of memorialization and change. In this process, the relationship between women is very important. Some relations are dominated by violence and hate, others are full of confidence and love. In those relationships rememory and storytelling are important factors, because the women get to know each other better by telling stories about the past. They get to know much more about each other, through which their relationship dóes change.
One thing that has been pointed out by Hosseini is that the family plays a huge role. In the Arab culture family is an integral aspect. In most countries, men and women have very separate roles in the family. The man is generally expected to take care of the family financially this has been shown especially with Mariam and the relationship to her husband. Yet it has also been portrayed with Laila as well who has faced similar problems. Such as Mariam being abused by her husband this has a lot to do with the norms of the Arab culture and how men are under the impression that treating women like this is
The article “The Character of Friendship” by Laurence Thomas talks about the difference between parental friendship, companion friendship and their peaks and valleys. Parental friendship is beautiful bond between the child and parent that is essential for the infant's survival and development. This attachment is strengthened by mutually satisfying interaction between the parents and the child throughout the first months of life. With time, most children have formed an attachment relationship, usually with the primary caretaker. Progressively, children begin to expect that their parent will care for them when they cry. Progressively, parents respond to and even anticipate their children’s needs. This creates the base for a developing relationship.
As stated previously, Nana was shamed not only by her former employer and his employer’s wives, but her own father, the only other man in her life. The pivotal result from this is her severe depression which she kept through her life with Mariam. One of the specific factors contributing to Nana’s depression is Jalil’s betrayal and irresponsible actions with one of his employees. A result of this is Nana having to birth Mariam herself, cutting the umbilical cord and all. However, Mariam, the only other person in Nana’s life that actually loves, cares for, and stays with her, has Jalil visit their little hut that he built for Nana. Every week, she attempts to dress herself up in her most appealing clothes and masquerades herself behind a face which says that she is fine as a single mother, when in reality, she is not. “Despite her rants against him when he was around, Nana was subdued and mannerly when Jalil visited” (20). In sum, Nana’s passionate hate for the man who turned her life inside-out affects her daily mood and mindset, ultimately leading Nana to her
The characters of Nana and Mariam show the archetype of a mother by sacrificing to make their children’s life better. Towards the beginning of the book Nana describes Mariam’s birth to Mariam and mentions, “ I cut the chord between us myself. That’s why I had a knife.”(11). As Nana mentioned she sacrificed throughout her pregnancy though the pain and separated the umbilical chord herself because she wanted her child to have the best chance that she could. She also mentions the knife, which could have been use to kill the baby, similar to what Laila almost did with the rusty bicycle spoke. In addition, the knife could have been used to kill herself to end her suffering. Nevertheless, Nana does not carry out this plan and instead she decides to give up her feelings for the child’s. Mariam too goes through moments where sacrifice is necessary. For instance, when the drought hit and Rahseed looses his shoe store she realizes that in order for her family to survive she must ask Jalil, her father, for money. In order to contact her father she travels in the hot sun, calls the mayor, and says, “I know you have important things to tend to, but it is life and death”(310). Mariam swallows her pride and begins to realize her negative reaction towards her father w...
When I read this novel last year I passed the scene of Marilia nagging about adopting a girl at a glance . However, after spending few months in women's and gender studies master program, this scene was one of th...
The Narrator’s family treats her like a monster by resenting and neglecting her, faking her death, and locking her in her room all day. The Narrator’s family resents her, proof of this is found when the Narrator states “[My mother] came and went as quickly as she could.