Friendship in "A Thousand Splendid Sons" by Khaled Hosseini

1614 Words4 Pages

“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.

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