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    A Thousand Splendid Suns

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    Alia Shabbir
    Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the struggles of women in Afghanistan over several decades. Through the stories of two women, Mariam and Laila, Hosseini illustrates the difficulties Afghan women face, such as early arranged marriages, domestic abuse, and lack of freedom. Hosseini draws on his own experiences to shed light on the cultural prejudices against women, depicting a society where merely existing as a woman is a burden to endure.

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    A Thousand Splendid Suns

    Uploaded by

    Alia Shabbir
    265 views1 page
    Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the struggles of women in Afghanistan over several decades. Through the stories of two women, Mariam and Laila, Hosseini illustrates the difficulties Afghan women face, such as early arranged marriages, domestic abuse, and lack of freedom. Hosseini draws on his own experiences to shed light on the cultural prejudices against women, depicting a society where merely existing as a woman is a burden to endure.

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    a thousand splendid suns

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    Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the struggles of women in Afghanistan over several decades. Through the stories of two women, Mariam and Laila, Hosseini illustrates the difficulties Afghan women face, such as early arranged marriages, domestic abuse, and lack of freedom. Hosseini draws on his own experiences to shed light on the cultural prejudices against women, depicting a society where merely existing as a woman is a burden to endure.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    265 views1 page

    A Thousand Splendid Suns

    Uploaded by

    Alia Shabbir
    Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the struggles of women in Afghanistan over several decades. Through the stories of two women, Mariam and Laila, Hosseini illustrates the difficulties Afghan women face, such as early arranged marriages, domestic abuse, and lack of freedom. Hosseini draws on his own experiences to shed light on the cultural prejudices against women, depicting a society where merely existing as a woman is a burden to endure.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Cultural Essay

    A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a great piece of literature that shows its readers
    the struggles of people in Afghanistan over the years. Hosseini uses his novel to show the world just how
    big of an affect the wars have had on the lives of millions. His purpose in writing this book is to show
    how hard it is for a woman in Afghanistan. Through the use of two characters Laila and Mariam Hosseini
    shows just how many difficulties Afghan girls and women have to face. The book is divided into two
    parts which follow two Afghan women who are born two decades apart and whose lives are brought
    together through a series of largely tragic events.

    In his novel Hosseini lays bare the truly horrendous existence of women and girls in Afghanistan.
    The reader is introduced to this early on in the story, through the words of Miriam’s mother Nana, when
    she says that a woman’s lot is to “endure.” Throughout the story it’s seen that being women in
    Afghanistan is a bordering criminal act. Hosseini uses his personal experiences and stories he’s heard to
    write a novel that shows the readers the cultural prejudice against women in Afghanistan.

    In the first part of his novel Hosseini shows his readers that from early on in her life Mariam the
    illegitimate child of a wealthy businessman from Herat has seen struggles. Her father did not have the
    courage to marry her mother after “dishonoring” her, and so he moves them away from his house.
    Under pressure from his family, he marries off 15-year-old Mariam to Rasheed, a shoemaker 30 years
    her senior. Mariam has several miscarriages which infuriates her husband and he subjects Mariam to
    cruel acts of physical punishment. Al these early struggles are bestowed upon this girl for no other
    reason other than the fact that her existence may have an affect oh her “respectful” father’s reputation.
    Mariam put all her trust in her father but when the time came he didn’t say anything to Mariam except
    “Goddamn it don’t do this to me”, as if he were the one being forced into a marriage. Her father used
    marriage as an excuse to get rid of the last trace of his scandalous mistake.

    The second part of his novel Hosseini centers on Laila, the daughter of a university teacher. Her
    story seems quite normal at first but as it progresses Hosseini shows how easily a girl’s life can change in
    a country like Afghanistan. Laila loses her parents when a stray rocket hits their house. To avoid social
    disgrace and in search of protection, she too marries Rasheed. But soon she also losses her affection
    when she gives birth to a daughter. Rasheed’s behavior towards his daughter is appalling. He would
    complain about every bit of her behavior and used words like “that thing” to summon her.

    Hosseini uncovers valuable social truths through the lives of the main characters. The reader
    gets an impression of the incredibly precarious existence of young people during the most recent period
    of afghan history through the fate of Laila and Tariq. But above all, the novel lays bare the truly
    horrendous existence of women and girls in Afghanistan.

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