A Thousand Splendid Suns Paper

November 6, 2011

A Thousand Splendid Suns Essay

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, author Khaled Hosseini depicts the lives of two women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives have been intertwined in the most unfortunate of ways. Although the two women have resentment towards each other at first, they soon realize that befriending one another is their only chance at survival and happiness. Hosseini explores the lives of these two women to develop two major themes that are evident throughout the novel: oppression and hope, and shame.

Hosseini depicts two very different characters in Mariam and Laila. He demonstrates the polarizing differences in the lifestyle of these two women. However, the message is clear that women, as a whole, regardless of their background or class, still face the same struggles in Afghanistan. Hakim, Laila’s father, provides a completely different view of education for women as compared with Nana, Mariam’s mother. As a parent, Hakim hopes for a bright future for Laila; he has faith that his daughter will be successful. This is evident when he says, “Marriage can wait, education cannot…You can be anything you want, Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila. No chance” (Thousand 114). This is a blatant contrast to Nana's advice to Mariam that school would be wasted on her. Nana conveys this message when she says that women need “Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure” (Thousand 18). Through these scenes of Hakim educating Laila versus Nana's emphasis on endurance, Hosseini develops the characters so that it is easy to understand the key differences between Laila and Mariam.

The development of the contrast between the lives of Mariam and Laila helps the reader understand and appreciate the issues that all women are faced with in Afghanistan. Time and again, the women in Afghanistan are faced with the hope for change that quickly turns to heartache. Mariam’s journey of hope begins when she asks Mullah Faizullah if she could attend school. She dreamed of being in a classroom with other girls her age and placing a ruler on a page to draw