Please edit and revise, constructive criticism is welcome! I need this by tonight, thank you!
No one will deny that women have always and will continue to struggle for equality. My paper is about Khaled Hosseini's use of; symbolism, similes, and analogies to capture the persona and inner strength of Afghan women even in the darkest of times.
Khaled Hosseini's, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is an epic tale of two young Afghan women; Laila and Mariam. Although they differ greatly in age and routine, they share the same heartache, pain, and tribulation of living in a country ruined by political oppression and war. The role of women in Afghanistan is an unjust and unreasonable position in which they are constantly denied many freedoms and rights which we take for granted in our daily lives. The women in the story's personalities seem almost real as Hosseini gives us insight into their lives in which they are both married to an abusive man Rasheed, and live under constant fear under the Taliban.
The first instance of analogy can be found when Mariam is reminiscing on her mother's wisdom, "Mariam remembered nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up to the sky, gathered into clouds, and then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us" (Hosseini45). Hosseini uses the analogy between something as fragile and pure as a snowflake in order to emphasize the dark trials and tribulations forced upon women on a daily bases.
In addition, Hosseni uses simile again from Mariam's mother Nana, "like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman" (Hosseini57). A simple simile that screams out the plague of gender inequality. Hosseni uses this in order to portray the depth of the atrocities of how unequal women are treated. They can literally be accused of anything and thrown into jail, without any evidence whatsoever. Through this simile, we are given a taste of just how easy it is for women to be accused of something which they are not guilty of so easily in Afghanistan, yet Mariam, who symbolizes hope, perseveres throughout the novel with her inner strength.
The last literary device used by Hosseni in the novel is through the use of symbolism. The title, A Thousand Splendid Suns refers to a poem by the Persian poet Hafiz, in which he compares the mystical relationship with God to the power and brilliance of "A Thousand Splendid Suns" within you. On how has attained this mystical relationship cannot be harmed by evil, for they have joined eternity. This is symbolic of Mariam in that in that she has endured a difficult life herself, yet gives herself up for Laila, someone she loves. Mariam overcomes adversity in a world around her that is bleak she finds hope. The book ends with, "Mariam is in Laila's own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns..." (467). Mariam has reached an eternal bond with Laila, and she is the symbol of hope for the future of Afghanistan.
In conclusion Hosseini has created a world where the reader is able to delve into the deep world of Afghanistan, Islam is a religion which defends human's rights and holds women as equals. The Taliban put to shame the religion of Islam with their savage practices. In this book Hosseini redeems all of Afghanistan by portraying these two women's humanity. He shows that in a place whose beauty was written about in a seventeenth century poem is a city that can once again be illumined by the light of "A Thousand Splendid Suns" once again.
