One of the book's main characters is Mariam, within part one she is known to be a very quite, timid. and thoughtful girl. However, Mariam was brought into this world to endure, she is a harami, a product of forbidden sex. Her father Jalil was a wealthy businessman who tried to get rid of what he did by sending Mariam and her mother Nana to the outskirts of Herat, though to live the rest of their lives in there small kolba (small shack) . By doing this he tried to keep his “reputation” good among the community; however, doing so Mariam would come to consensus about her father's true intentions. For example, in chapter 5, Mariam wished for Jalil to grant her access to one of his cinemas, at first he was very hesitant trying to give …show more content…
We endure. It’s all we have.” (Chapter 2, pg 14) this statement gives a sense of foreshadowing on how Mariam's life will give her much pain and mental hardship. The life of an afghan women is very suppressive and they must adhere to the male figures in their lives. Therefore, this quote suits one of the many underlying themes of One Thousand Splendid Suns. For example, many of the women are forced into marriage and must abide to wear burqas if there husbands demand for it. They also do not have basic rights, many of these women are victims of abuse and very violent male counterparts. Just like those women, Mariam was a victim of being put under a burqa and having to deal with Rasheeds outrages, “Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid And Mariam was afraid She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies and sometimes not.” (Chapter 15, pg 64) Furthermore, this quote emphasizes how Mariam's way of thinking has changed through the abuse and ridicule Rasheed would display to her. Also, she had to go through the loss of her “first child”, with this Mariam came to the realization of “As a reminder of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.” (Chapter 13, pg 59). These …show more content…
His father was a diplomate of the Afghan Foreign Ministry, while his Mother was a teacher of Farsi and History at a high school situated in Kabul. Around 1976 Khaled and his family were deployed to paris by the Foreign Ministry, however, his family had wanted to return around the 1980s to their home city. Luckily, the ministry had just sent them in time before the coup of the communist party and the invasion of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan began. This was a very hard time for the citizens of Afghanistan, many people rebelled over the government causing a civil war among them. Within the story Mariam was also being brought up with war and the communist party. Although it did not affect her life as much as it did the second protagonist of the story Laila. She had lost her parents to a bombing occurring on the city of Kabul, one of the bombs landed on top of her house killing both her father and mother. This is just one of the examples of thousands of people losing their lives to this war. With this occurrence, Khaled and his family then looked for refuge in the United States, where he came to write the book One Thousand Splendid Suns .
Review:
One Thousand Splendid Suns: Khaled Hosseini: RiverHead books, 2007. 384 pg.
One Thousand Splendid Suns is a fiction novel based off the lives of the two female protagonist of the story, Mariam and Laila. This story takes