There is regret born from a life destined to be a hostage of ideals that deter free will. In “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khalid Hosseini, taking on a feminist perspective, the way women suffer under an oppressive culture asks the reader, just how does patriarchy affect the lives of women? The answer is fault and blame. The women introduced in this story have no reason to be treated as they are, yet the absence of choice begins to nibble at the idea that lack of free will results in passivity. It's easier to adopt the mindset of self-blame and fault when the word unjust is not part of your vocabulary as a woman. Many of the struggles faced by the women in this book are rooted in something they can not control, making their regrets self-inflicted wounds. Hosseini can write about feminist literacy as he makes a commentary on how this affects women as a whole.
Hosseini writes Nana as an unforgiving mother, abusing her daughter due to regrets born from a society led by men. Nana places her frustrations on her daughter when the man to be blamed is Jalil. But because in this culture men hold no entitlement to emotions of weakness or fault, the woman is the gateway for these emotions. In their defeat, this woman can’t revolt against the principles that jail them to their state of discontent. The most they can do is frustrate their existence as their suppressed will resents its existence. This is a truth known by Nana, in her own words to Mariam she bluntly says it as it is, that life for a woman, “isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed, it won’t stretch to make room.” In their culture, Mariam has nothing, as a woman she is “nothing.” Nana is utilizing degrading themes not only to disturb Mariam but in addition undermine her. She is utilizing this selection of words to either assault her perspective, self-image, and confidence or as a method of molding. Terrifyingly Nana is making Mariam dread the world by utilizing debasing and unreasonable images. Nana is making Mariam dread a world that is outside her home, guaranteeing she never leaves Nana's grip. The question that stands is, why does Hosseini write a mother and daughter's relationship in this manner? The most definitive conclusion to this is that Hosseini is making a statement on how often their hardships as women can entrench the relationship built with their daughters. In feminism we are faced with the articulation of the mother-daughter relationship as a uniquely singular experience, the way Hosseini translates this into feminist criticism is by inversely making an argument for the females of this society not undeliberately but often deliberately sharing the plight of a patriarchal society. Nana is more or so what tragedy invokes for most of the females of this story, a redundancy for tragedy that ultimately serves as the hereditary pain passed down by a generation of females.
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As a young woman you have yet to grasp the outlines of how society works, this can often limit your choices and make you easily influenced by what is accepted of you, or anticipated. In afghan, women will live under a man's authority, so if you are married young the chances of simply accepting and incorporating the patriarch culture is easier and can be otherwise idealistic and unquestioned by women later in their lives. This then creates a cycle of indoctrination which is the leading argument for Hosseini. For the most part, humans are driven by desire, the strongest of which is love. Sometimes hardships are ignored to preserve comfort, the cheek is turned, and the truth is kept to avoid pain. Acceptance incorporates this emotion greatly, the comfort found in belonging can only bring satisfaction. Often to be passive is to belong to something, somewhere, someone. Hosseini details Mariam's first use of the Burqa to depict how women are immured by their male counterparts. Hosseini writes how Rasheed is the one helping Mariam put on the Burqa. His specific explanation of the Burqa being 'tight and heavy', especially on Mariam's head, can be interpreted as the physical and psychological aspects the cloth has for women. Hosseinin implies the Burqa is how the male retains control and censorship over his wife. For Mariam, the Burqa is an uncomfortable cloth that causes her to keep 'stepping on the hem and stumbling.' For us as readers, Hoseeini's use of diction indirectly assumes Mariam's ability to act on her own has ceased to exist, now she is physically confined to the authority of her husband alone. Hosseini then comments this cloth is the veil of comfort and security for Mariam. When visiting Kabul’s city Mariam is visibly erratic, with “a hint of the same anxiety as the day at the tandoor stirred in her stomach, but Rasheed’s presence was of some comfort, and after a while, she did not mind so much the music, the smoke, even the people. And the burqa, she learned to her surprise, was also comforting. It was like a one-way window. Inside it, she was an observer, buffered from the scrutinizing eyes of strangers. She no longer worried that people knew, with a single glance, all the shameful secrets of her past.” Gynocriticism appears to be the literary criticism of this specific text. Because an illegitimate daughter is represented as a sin, Mariam grows to internalize this and feel shame. That is why Mariam comes to find comfort in the Burqa as it hides her identity, this way she is not judged. However, this label is not seen on her skin so the burqa is not necessarily hiding her from this truth. This only helps to show that Mariam has internalized this stereotype to a point where she accepts herself to be shameful. In this scene Mariam is with her husband in a crowded scene, despite not knowing this person she fears judgment, growing up she was always called a bastard child, so she would expect this same attitude from others. In this context, one could say Hosseinin considers the Burqa as some form of freedom that ties into stereotypes perpetuated by men destructive to women. The key aspect of this scene is that more than often women are unaware of the many forms male dominance can be established, in this culture this results as the norm. A norm that when left to be unquestioned becomes nothing but a cultural predestination that scapes the female sentiment.
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