Feminism In Khalid Hosseni's A Thousand Splendid Suns

Women throughout the world has been struggling for a long time to gain equal rights and power as compared to men. They were known as feminists. Feminism is a movement that was started during nineteenth and twentieth century. The aim of feminism was to accomplish gender equality in different fields like social, economic and political etc. Although women from all races and countries had to face gender inequality however, women from the Islamic countries have to face the brunt of gender discrimination at most. Khalid Hosseni in his novel, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ depicts the plight of the Afghani women. The novel shows that despite being repressed by the conservative rule of the Talibans and the misogynistic thinking of men, the female characters emerge as strong Afghani women fighting for their rights, children and lives.
The novel follows the story of two girls, Maryam and Laila. Maryam is the “Harami” child of a rich businessman Jalil and his former housekeeper Nana. She is quiet, shy and a very thoughtful child at the start of the novel. Her unconditional love for his father and her mother’s strict ways forces her to take a hasty decision and she runs away from her mother’s house in order to live with her

As a young child she was taught the importance of education by her father. “Marriage can wait, education cannot.” These words spoken by Laila’s father reflects upon the importance and need if education. It was evident to him that Afghanistan will need women “as much as its men.” Here the importance of women is clearly portrayed as the women are given equal right at the end of the novel. It is a woman who is teaching in the orphanage hence helping the new generation of Afghanistan to gain knowledge so that they can be a better and a much developed