A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a novel that reveals a society that objectifies women, deprives them of basic human rights, and glorifies hegemonic masculinity (Carrigan) in Afghan society. Hosseini was born in Afghanistan but sought asylum in the US as a child. He chose to highlight some grave issues that have enveloped society for many decades. As a diasporic novel, Hosseini aims to “tell others about Afghanistan’s culture, traditions, people and the truth about his nation and country” (Ruzmatova, 2018). In general, the world over, it is known that specific experiences and adversities can connect specific people who can identify with the circumstances, as it enables them to be empathetic and understanding with each other and hence, gives rise to resilience. Such situations bring individuals closer, despite being of disparate backgrounds, classes, or social statuses.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a story of women utterly oppressed and subdued under the regime put in power by the men, to only benefit men, to glorify patriarchy, to promote misogyny, gender inequality, a warped sense of strength, and extreme abuse of the Sharia laws. The story highlights the men’s continual employment of violence and force to subjugate their women, the perpetual blaming of women for every wrong, even the one where they are subjected to ongoing mental, physical, and emotional abuse, It is the women ‘supposedly’ that brought this treatment upon themselves for not acting in obedience of their men, society, faith or law, all of which remain biased in favor of men.
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Hosseini’s center of focus is the marginalization of the female characters as they face exile both socially and politically. The story revolves around two female protagonists, Mariam and Laila, both married to the same man, Rasheed – as the story progresses, he becomes increasingly despotic. They both come from very different backgrounds. Mariam, an illegitimate child of a wealthy man and his former housekeeper is as good as an orphan whose father abandons them, and later her mother commits suicide. She is constantly addressed as a harami by her mother, a bastard, a status she internalizes and one which deprives her of the right to love family and acceptance. Laila, on the other hand, is born into a sensible family with a supportive father who believes in educating his daughter which will allow her greater independence in the male-dominated atmosphere. Hosseini uses two very contrasting characters in order to show the complexities of Afghan society. Setting the novel during a time of upheaval makes the story about shared experiences and how the starkly disparate backgrounds of both women become irrelevant in such a context. Mariam’s father Jalil, is someone who she views as a source of emancipation. Following her mother’s death, Jalil gets her married to Rasheed, an unscrupulous, abominable, and ill-tempered man, twenty years her senior. In her marriage, she is left to endure the constant physical and emotional abuse at his hands and is expected to provide him with a male child. After she suffers several miscarriages, her marriage becomes an ordeal: 'Mariam was afraid. She lived in fear of his shifting moods, 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”. Not only is she left all alone to bear the emotional pain caused to her mind by the loss of her fetuses, but also of the one inflicted upon her body and psyche by her brute husband. There is shown to be a complete disregard for her feelings, this is reinforced when Rasheed violently coerces her to “chew a mouthful of pebbles”. Rasheed’s aggressive behavior is not limited to physical abuse. He also uses psychological aggression in the form of silence towards Mariam: “Most nights when he came home he hardly talked anymore […] It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her…like she was nothing but a house cat”. This society, riddled with cruelty and prejudices, is shown to be so benighted, one that believes that bearing children is the only virtue a woman is capable of, that one cannot expect any civility to provide the much-needed emotional support to the woman during pregnancy that could lead to a healthy childbirth. In every which way, it remains the woman’s fault. They simply “tolerate oppression, cook, and are children-producing machines” (Sushmita Banerjee). As Mariam’s mother, Nana, tells her “Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman”. Hosseini switches the story from Mariam’s life to Laila’s. He uses a different perspective in order to show the reader the plight of women at the time. Laila experiences a very different upbringing to Mariam. She is exposed very early on to the importance of education and receives immense support from her father. However, her situation changes very drastically as her home is destroyed by an accidental bomb taking her parents with it. Laila is helplessly by herself. Rasheed, in his most conniving way, uses this opportunity to lie his way into her life by expressing false sympathy and offering her refuge by taking her as his wife despite opposition from Mariam, which is also a form of psychological abuse as he deliberately disregards Mariam and her wishes. Laila, who is carrying Tariq’s child when she marries is later told that he is dead and goes through the physical pain during Aziza’s birth while being emotionally scarred by the knowledge of Tariq’s death. She is able to do this by the love and support she receives from Mariam. Laila giving birth to a girl causes Rasheed to unleash his fury onto her through physical torture. Hosseini wants the reader to condemn Afghanistan’s deeply patriarchal society, where sons are highly valued over girls and in some cases, a family is seen as ‘incomplete’ without a boy, says Nadia Hashimi. This ideology is what has led to the practice of ‘Bacha posh’ in some conservative parts of Afghanistan, where families without a son will coerce their daughter to live and behave like a boy. Hosseini’s story may seem rather too melodramatic, as one suffering succeeds another and the torment in women’s daily experiences seems relentless. But Natasha Walters, a British Feminist writer, argued that “many of the Afghan women in Kabul had stories to tell almost as melodramatic as this”. Both Laila and Mariam are Rasheed’s victims in the same physical space. Both can empathise with each other which brings them closer as a result. The moral bond of compassion and empathy between the two women gives them the will to carry on with strength through the adversities. Hosseini attempts to show that in such a patriarchal regime, the forging of bonds between women is pivotal in retaining mental strength and resilience in such awful circumstances. The novel uses an omniscient narrator, we never get a first-person perspective from Laila or Mariam. This is reflective of the oppressive regime that they were subjected to.
Rasheed’s violent acts towards both women are an attempt to prove his hegemonic masculinity and to assert male dominance over them. We see Rasheed’s male persona from the very beginning of his appearance – when Mariam fails to leave her room following their marriage, he tells her: “As of tomorrow morning I expect you to start behaving like a wife. Fahmidi? Is that understood?” Similarly, Rasheed’s wish for a boy stems from his desire to pass on his male dominance to generations. Rasheed and Jalil are shown to behave in ways that are ethically shameful as they both seem to prioritize reputation, honor, and pride at the expense of others. For instance, Rasheed talks of “nang and namoos” and arguably uses this to justify his abhorrent actions towards both women. In comparison, Jalil casts out Nana of his home after she becomes pregnant with their illegitimate child, providing her with the squalid and sub-standard conditions of a Kolba. Likewise, he coerces Mariam into marriage to remain reputable.
The end sees Mariam giving a fatal blow to Rasheed’s head when he tries to suffocate Laila. Mariam’s love offers Laila and Tariq a chance to leave the country while she takes the entire blame for the killing. Though the death penalty looms over her head, Mariam finds peace in her heart that comes from the love she finally found in her life through Laila. She is content in bringing to an end the illegitimacy of her birth that shaped her life. In her heart, she is triumphant even if it comes at the cost of her life. Hosseini is showing that sometimes, the only way out for a woman in Afghanistan is to take the oppressor’s life, which too then would lead to the public execution of the accused under the fundamentalist Taliban rule. The man, on the other hand, would never be accused of any wrong if he killed a woman because, apparently, the woman might have provoked him and so deserved her fate. The ending of the novel reinforces the tragic fact that often, in such a society, women are constantly disadvantaged.
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