A Thousand Splendid Suns Essay Women in the 1990’s had it rough after the Mujahedeen take over. After his takeover, an increased number of laws were made to limit the freedom of women when before, women were happy, they could get educated and roam freely. The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini demonstrates the life of an Afghan woman before and after the Mujahedeen take over. Babi, the father of Laila tells the reader that women were lucky to be living during their time, “It’s a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan.” (Hosseini, 86). But after the Mujahedeen took over, women were treated horribly especially by their husbands and were sometimes the punching bags if something wrong happened. The novel does a great job on letting the readers know why women were always blamed and/or beaten, what happens after the men blame the women for something and shows examples of little things that a woman has done or does that trigger the men to become angry or upset. If you dig deep …show more content…
Rasheed blames Mariam many times such as her inability to become pregnant and for her bad cooking. It’s not her fault that she can’t have a baby and she tries to make good food for her husband but it could an excuse to hit or abuse her. When Rasheed is angry about this, he takes his anger on Mariam by beating her or such as forcing her to try to chew on rocks. “Now you know what your rice tastes like. Now you know what you 've given me in this marriage. Bad food, and nothing else.” (Hosseini, 67). Rasheed is blaming Mariam for giving him a bad marriage because of the bad rice that she cooked. If men saw what happens to them if they abuse anyone, then they wouldn’t abuse in the first place, but in the novel, there wasn’t any so a man like Rasheed did it when he
Given the oppressive rule of the Taliban, how could women survive without men in their family? The book The Other Side of the Sky by Farah Ahmedi and Tamim Ansary, answers that question by the journey of Farah and her mother. Their journey goes from Afghanistan all the way to America. On this trip, Farah and her mom face many hardships, including their physical injuries and losing their family. In Afghanistan and Pakistan women lacked various rights under Taliban rule that limited their freedoms, but conditions have improved since the Taliban relinquished their power, which shows that given the opportunity women can become independent.
In regards to the historiography of gender politics in the Victorian era, the social position of women and femininity had become a problematic issue. Similarly, the gender apartheid instilled prior to the civil war in Afghanistan. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, initially published in 2007, is set in Afghanistan from the early 1960s to the early 2000s. In this, it explores the story of Mariam and Laila as the protagonists, who teach the reader the reality of life as a woman in a backward Islamic country. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny seen from the perspectives of these two women and observes how they become to create a bond, despite having come from previously living in very different backgrounds.
Hardships endured by Two Afghan women. If we could all put our problems in a pile and see other people's; we'd take ours back. According to Sighn (2013) "women in Afghanistan have been going through gender equity in its severe form since ages. Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns depicts the plight of women behind the walls of Afghanistan during several invasions in the country".
Rasheed treated Mariam as property instead of an actual spouse. Mariam had no voice of her own, Rasheed controlled every aspect of her life, from what she wore to where she went. Mariam could not carry out a pregnancy causing Rasheed to build anger against Mariam, this led Rasheed to lash out and abuse her. Mariam dealt with endless beatings from Rasheed, over the simplest mistakes, because she was too afraid to stand up for herself or leave Rasheed. “It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat.
Hosseini portrays how this treatment of women was accepted in Afghani culture because men’s superiority was derived from tradition. He depicts a culture in Afghanistan where wives were seen as mere possessions, so their husbands found fault with them for the inconveniences they experienced. Hosseini demonstrates the mistreatment of women in Afghanistan through the multiple examples he provides where men laid blame with women for circumstances beyond the women’s control or for which were not solely to blame for, just as Nana had warned Mariam that they were prone to do. The first instance in which Nana’s statement rings true is when Nana found out for herself how easily women in Afghanistan could be held completely accountable for things that were not solely their responsibility.
“But in Rasheed’s eyes she saw murder for them both. And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raised it as high as she could, arching it so it touched the small of her back.” (349). This quote was the moment before Mariam’s life would end, she killed Rasheed to save the people she loved which was Laila, Aziza, and Zalmai. But, Mariam’s action would have conscious she knew that she would have to admit to the police.
Rasheed treats her lovingly and assures her that she will get whatever she needs. He says, “anything you need done just ask Mariam and she will do it for you.” “And if you fancy anything, I will get it for you” (Hosseini, 2007, p.
When Laila’s parents were killed and she was injured, Mariam took her in and sacrificed her time and space in order to take care of Laila (199). Mariam didn’t have kids of her own, yet took care of Laila as if she were her own daughter. She cared enough for the young girl’s well being to take her in and show her kindness. When Rasheed is about to kill Laila, Mariam hits Rasheed with a shovel so hard that it kills him (349). She viewed Laila as her own daughter, and she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her daughter.
Once you step inside the life of a “harami”,you’ll never be the same with your new insight. The story starts with two interchangeable characters, Laila and Mariam. Similar in many ways, both of these women are introduced in the novel as young children. The author expertly describes events Laila and Mariam encountered within their everyday lives that has either affected them or helped them progress and deal with the modern rules for women rooted within Afghanistan.
In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, the author Khaled Hosseini emphasizes the importance of education in woman. With the importance of education in women comes the endurance of woman. Hosseini displays the endurance of hardships that women face in Afghanistan through his female characters in the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Mariam wants to go to school and be able to learn like other children,“She pictured herself in a classroom with other girls her age.
Equality of genders is a basic human right that all should posses. However, in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, the reader explores Afghanistan’s true nature of extreme gender inequality towards women and how it affects all the characters within the novel. The novel explores how within a marriage, women have unequal rights, undergo major amounts of physical abuse, and are emotionally and mentally tormented by their very own supposedly beloved husbands. A marriage is defined as a union of two people as partners in a personal relationship.
In the story, the women are oppressed by the society. This is narrated through the delivery of the main antagonist’s id, the gender inequality in enforcing laws and the marginalization of women. As a result of Rasheed’s id, Mariam and Laila are consistently physically and emotionally
Taliban’s Influence in Afghani in The Kite Runner Every since September 27, 1996 , the Taliban have started putting fear in the Afghan women and men heart by ruling in horror and terror. When the Taliban took over, Afghanistan became one of the most poorest and most troubled places in the world. In Khaled Hosseini 's novel, The Kite Runner, the Taliban influence on Afghani culture is affected by the Taliban Laws, The Mistreatment of Hazaras and The Mistreatment of women. The Taliban Laws was forced on women and men.
They represent the plight which the Afghan women have been facing since ages. These characters give hope to the countless women who still suffer the dominance and hardships of the Afghan society. The actions of these characters symbolize their strength to endure things as they join together and retaliate against the man, and in turn the society, who has taken away their rights to live their lives according to their own choices. The ‘thousand splendid suns’ represent the thousands of Afghan women with immense potentialities who are still under the clutches of patriarchal domination and are forced to hide behind the walls. Khaled Hosseini has beautifully portrayed the cruel realities of the lives of Afghan women through Mariam and Laila and this is what separates A Thousand Splendid Suns from literary works that deal with Afghan women.
This highlights the importance of how these acts of cruelty Mariam and Laila faced; ‘fear of the goat, released in the tiger’s cage’ is what ultimately defines their inner feminist strength, ‘over the years/learned to harden’ which shows that Mariam and Laila’s past indirectly prepares them for The Taliban’s arrival. The Taliban take away the basic rights of Mariam and Laila ‘jewellery is forbidden’, but they fail to do so. Ironically, it is the society itself that gives them the strength and platform to strike back against Rasheed, who is a cruel, male-dominating character who symbolised and reinforced everything the term ‘anti-feminist’ stands