A thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Extracted from “Reading Khaled Hosseini” by Rebecca Stuhr

The Plight of Women and the History of Afghanistan: Themes in A Thousand Splendid Suns

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini tells the stories of Mariam and Laila, but he also tells the story of Afghanistan. Through his storytelling, he describes a changing Afghanistan, a country of social, cultural, and economic diversity, a country that has undergone destructive political upheaval, a country of beauty and history, and a country of desolation and deprivation. Through Babi, Laila’s schoolteacher father, Hosseini informs the reader about the history and literary traditions of Afghanistan. Babi takes Laila and Tariq to see the two giant Buddhas in Bamiyan. Many readers may be familiar with the story of these ancient structures, but Hosseini makes sure that the reader knows that there was a living history associated with these statues. They are not mysterious remnants of the past like the Sphinx; their purpose and use are known. They represent religious tolerance, hospitality to the stranger, and a place of learning. Babi also talks about Shahr-e-Zohak, the Red City, and it is through Babi that we hear about the Persian poetic tradition of Afghanistan. When a shell tragically strikes Laila’s house during the civil war, she loses not only her family, but also her father’s library. This loss symbolizes the loss of Afghanistan’s literary tradition, which Babi, through his love and devotion to the poets, had preserved through the occupation and the civil war. We read that the pages of Khalili, Pajwak, Ansari, Haji Dehqan, Ashraqi, Beytaab, Hafez, Jami, Nizami, Rumi, Khayy_am, and Beydel are going up in flames.

Most North Americans know about Afghanistan from what we have heard about the Taliban during the 1990s and from what we hear about the conflict and efforts to establish a new state in the early twenty-first century. Hosseini seems to want his readers to know about an Afghanistan that was productive and flourishing. From the heights of the Buddhas, Laila and Tariq see a Bamiyan with “lush farming fields”, wheat, alfalfa, potatoes, poplars bordering fields and lining streets, streams, irrigation ditches, rice paddies, and barley fields; they see tea shops, barbers, small shops, horses, sheep, and cows. Babi tells them, ‘‘see your country’s heritage’’ and urges them to “learn of its rich past”. Earlier in the novel, Hosseini describes Mariam’s first visit to Herat. Mariam sees a bustling city, with cypress-lined streets and flowerbeds; people walk the streets and the street markets are abundant. Not only is the city beautiful, but it also is safe and friendly even for such a young girl as Mariam. Although she walks alone and is clearly of meagre means, no one points or shouts at her, and no one questions the fact that she is walking alone or suggests that she has anything of which she should be ashamed. In fact, a taxi driver picks her up and takes her to her destination. This is in stark contrast to Mariam’s experience in the Kabul market and her sense of safe anonymity within her burqa, and to Laila’s terrifying trips to visit her daughter Aziza in the orphanage.
The story of Afghanistan includes the story of the role and place of women in Afghan society. Hosseini touches on this in The Kite Runner, but he has clearly dedicated himself to examining the condition of women in this novel. Laila is the beloved daughter of her father, but her mother focuses primarily on Laila’s brothers. Laila is all but forgotten in her mother’s grief for the loss of her two sons. Mariam, in contrast to Laila, lives in poverty but has the rough love of her mother and the apparent doting of her father. Both girls’ lives change abruptly and clearly for the worst when they become connected to Rasheed through marriage. They each enjoy a brief honeymoon period with their husband, but they are ruled by his wishes and desires and defy him at great risk to their wellbeing, and in Laila’s case, the well-being of her children. It may pass through the mind of the reader to wonder whether Hosseini has overstated his case. Rasheed’s treatment of Mariam predates the Soviet invasion and the civil war, and his relationship with both Laila and Mariam predates the Taliban. At no time does it appear that Laila or Mariam have any legal rights. But Hosseini carefully portrays both Laila, whose parents raised her with a greater sense of entitlement and privilege, and Mariam, whose mother taught her to endure by taking control of the conditions under which they lived to the extent that they possibly could. When Mariam finally softens to the infant Aziza and reconciles herself to the presence of Laila in her household, they become allies.
Rasheed’s marriage to Mariam and Laila is one representation of marriage in Afghanistan. However, Laila’s parents married for love. They were cousins, which is common and even preferred in Afghanistan, but their marriage was not arranged. Laila’s father is in the weaker position in the marriage, with the mother influencing decisions and the tenor of domestic life. Nana, Mariam’s mother, had been engaged to a young man in the more typical manner of an arranged marriage. Her illness, perhaps epilepsy, or as she calls it, her Jinn, became apparent before the engagement was finalized, and the suitor’s family abandoned her. This abandonment was a stigma that Nana carried with her to her death. Mariam’s father, Jalil, has several wives in the same manner as Rasheed. The impression given is that his is a domestically peaceful arrangement. Jalil and his wives are compatible and all make decisions together. The wives together are able to influence Jalil to marry off Mariam, a decision that he accepts but soon regrets. Laila and Tariq are perhaps the fairy tale romance of the novel. They are neither cousins nor even of the same ethnic background. They are childhood friends who drift into a romantic attachment at an early age. Presumably parted for life, they find each other again, older, wiser, and painfully more experienced. Despite their experiences, they are resilient enough to love each other and to form a loving family for the children. The novel ends with the knowledge that another child is on the way.
Mariam makes the ultimate sacrifice for the woman and children who have become her family and for the relationship she sees that Tariq and Laila might have. Although her final act is tragic, it is also heroic and a choice that she makes. Mariam lives out the final days of her life in the Walayat Women’s Prison. To the women in the prison, many of whom are imprisoned for attempting to run away from their husbands, Mariam, who has killed her husband, is a hero. She is honored and cared for by her cellmates and loved by their children until her final day. It is well to recognize that Hosseini’s characters are neither passive nor helpless, but they are abused and their lives are made tragic by social and religious mores and the political restrictions placed on them and the lack of any kind of support afforded them. Hosseini strengthens his case in pointing out the hypocrisy behind laws put into place by the Taliban who forbade women from working outside the home even when no males in the family could support them, who prevented females from attending school, and who endangered the lives of women and children by limiting the availability of health care for women to one severely understaffed and unfunded hospital in Kabul.
Finally, Hosseini provides insight into the daily life within Afghanistan both in the city and in the rural areas. We hear about how meals are prepared and about the foods that are eaten; we learn about the interaction between males and females in public and within the home; we learn about celebrations and festivals, Tajiks and Pashtuns, dialects and languages.
Hosseini ends A Thousand Splendid Suns on a note of hope. There is no celebration—but there is hope and a desire for betterment. Interestingly, both of Hosseini’s novels end with a focus on children. Laila and Tariq are working with the orphanage in Kabul, and Hosseini ends his first novel, The Kite Runner, with news of the construction of a new pediatric unit near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. Perhaps Hosseini is suggesting that it is with the children that there is a chance for a better more humane Afghanistan, and so his characters focus on the well-being of the children, the most vulnerable in times of war and famine, acting to protect them, nurture and care for them, and keep them safe.