Having meaning in the world is what most of us long for. The woman in Afghanistan don’t even have a reason to think about having meaning, because of the way they are treated. Women by the Taliban get treated as an object. Reading A Thousand Splendid Suns gives you a clear portrayal of what the women in the book was Mariam. Can’t even imagine how frightened she must have been. Mariam is married to Rasheed. Rasheed a controlling shoemaker, who is motivated to replace his dead son. After discovering Mariam cannot conceive a child, Rasheed started to abuse Mariam. Rasheed unhappy that he can’t replace his son, he marries Laila. Laila gives Rasheed the son that he wanted. Rasheed having two wives, he abuses them both. “Laila insists that it isn’t fair for Mariam to stay and face punishment for Rasheed’s death, but Mariam tells her it is. She says she has killed their husband and deprived Zalmai of a father. It isn’t right that she runs. She will never escape Zalmai’s grief. How will she look at him in the future? She says, “For me it ends here. There’s nothing more I want. Everything I’d ever wished for as a little girl you’ve already given me. You and your children have made me so very happy. It’s all right, Laila. This is all right. Don’t be sad.” (Hossini.319)” When drawing Mariam it wasn’t hard. Even though there was no visual description of …show more content…
“This is a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings.” She begins to say a few words from the Koran as the executioner tells her to kneel and look down. “For one last time, Miriam does as she is told.” (Hossini.329)” It’s very unfortunate that Mariam, Laila, and many other women go through this every day for the rest of their lives. In spite of the hand of Rasheed and the abusive treatment of women by the Taliban. They remained
Rasheed later takes her under his wing. Mariam didn 't receive the same love that Laila did from Rasheed, which stirred up jealousy. Unlike Mariam, Laila was able to bare a child, in which Rasheed was exhilarated. Laila starts getting the same treatment as Mariam when Rasheed finds out the child 's a girl. The birth of the child brought Mariam and Laila closer and that 's when a breaking point stirred when Rasheed comes to abuse Laila and that was Mariam’s last straw.
She was born into a somewhat stable life and a loving family consisting of Mami and Babi the teacher, but Laila’s life would soon turn that normality around. Her fond friend Giti blew up, Her parents had been hit and killed with a missile that also struck Laila but didn’t end her, and she ended up marrying Rasheed to save not only herself financially but her and Tariq's (a love interest who is now thought to be deceased) fetus. Once she would recover from the missile, she would endure the abuse of Rasheed, until her eventual escape from his wrath through the heroic sacrifice of Mariam. Laila would flee to Pakistan, then become a teacher following in her father's footsteps. Before becoming a teacher Laila goes back to Afghanistan even though she had endured so much suffering there.
One day, Tariq stopped by Rasheed’s house to see Laila. This came to Laila as a surprise because Rasheed had made everyone believe that he was dead. After learning that Tariq had been there, Rasheed began to beat Laila for being with Tariq. ( Hosseini 182) Mariam had realized that Rasheed’s anger had overcome him and that he was going to kill Laila.
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.
When she married Rasheed and he was abusive to her, part of the reason why she didn't stand up for herself was that she didn't think she was deserving of a happy life due to the constant invalidation of her feelings in her childhood. According to the article "How Attachment Styles Affect Adult Relationships", adults with an anxious ambivalent attachment style crave emotional intimacy but worry that others don’t want to be with them, and throughout the book, we can see there are some times when Mariam worries that she is not good enough for Rasheed, even if he is abusive. According to the same article, these adults need constant reassurance and validation from their partners because they did not receive this in their childhood. On page 46, Rasheed makes compliment about Mariam's cooking, and this makes Mariam very satisfied. "A flare
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.
“I admit to what I did, brother,” Mariam said, “But, if I hadn’t, he would have killed her. He was strangling her” (P365). This shows that Mariam is willing to take responsibility for her action she knew that there would be conscious, but she also knew that what she did was to save Laila and her children. Mariam’s actions would lead to this moment, “Kneel here, hamshira. And look down.”
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.
Her husband happens to become Rasheed. He finds Laila unconscious after a bomb went off, dissipating her entire family. Rasheed then takes her in and nurses her back to health. He feels that because he saved her, he should be rewarded, “The way I see it I deserve a medal”. Rasheed later practically forces her to have sex with him.
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.
They work together to free themselves from Rasheed. However, they are only friends because of the abuse both have endured. After Aziza’s birth, Laila had been lowered to Mariam’s rank and was starting to be abused just as harshly as her. Rasheed wanted a son, but Laila had given birth to a baby girl.
Mariam longed to place a ruler on a page and draw important-looking lines”(Hosseini ). Mariam is an example of how women are banned from an education and whose life could have been changed by education. Instead of being educated, she is sheltered by her mother and lives the rest of her life without high expectations of herself. Nana teaches her that an Afghan woman has to endure the life that is chosen for her because she does not have a say. Nana even says "There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don't teach it in school.
Hosseini 104).When Rasheed forces Mariam to eat pebbles, he represents the corrupted person, or vampire, who only perceives his wife as an object that seeks to serve him and his relentless demands. After a while, Rasheed begins to look at Mariam as a burden that needs to be lifted off of his shoulders, so he tortures and abuses her, turning himself into a monster in the process. Furthermore, Rasheed does the same thing to his other wife, Laila, and his daughter. When Laila and Aziza attempt to escape, Rasheed is outraged, so he asserts his power when, “ [He] had not given them any food, and worse, no water. That day, a thick, suffocating heat fell on them.
When Mariam unexpectedly killed Rasheed, Laila was terrified by what had happened and Mariam “had Laila lie down, and, as she
Rasheed however asks her to wear a burqa before going out. He makes it very clear to Mariam and later on to Laila, that a “woman 's face is her husband 's business only”. However when Mariam fails to bear a child, after several miscarriages, Rasheed begins to torture her both physically and mentally. Rasheed also becomes cross on Laila when she gives birth to a girl child. Later on Laila gives birth to a boy, but this does not improve her status in front of Rasheed.