A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns

 

1.  Nana, Mariam’s mother teaches her daughter how to disrespect those she has sees as inferior to her.

 “Nana yelled at the boys as she carried bags of rice inside, and called them names Mariam didn’t understand.  She cursed their mothers, made hateful faces at them.  The boys never returned the insults.” 

    Mariam felt sorry for the boys.  How tired their arms and legs must b e, she thought pityingly, pushing that heavy load.  She wished she were allowed to offer them water.  But she said nothing, and if they waved at her she didn’t wave back.  Once, to please Nana, Mariam even yelled at Muhsin, told him he had a mouth shaped like a lizard’s ass- and was consumed later with guilt, shame, and fear that they would tell Jalil.  Nana, though, laughed so  hard, her rotting front tooth in full display, that Mariam thought she would lapse into one of her fits.  She looked at Mariam when she was done and said, “You’re a good daughter.”"(p.14)

At what time is Mariam similarly treated throughout the book?

2.  Mariam is definitely a smart girl with a spirit of honesty.  She definitely holds no illusions about being handed a bill of goods.  The omniscient narrator reveals her thoughts regarding the imminent engagement to her husband. 

  “Yes.  But I’ve seen nine-year-old girls given to men twenty years older than your suitor, Mariam.  We all have.  What are you, fifteen?  That’s a good, solid marrying age for a girl.”  There was enthusiastic nodding at this.  It did not escape Mariam that no mention was made of her half sisters Saideh or Naheed, both her own age, both students in the Mehri School in Heart, both with plans to enrol in Kabul University.  Fifteen, evidently, was not a good, solid marrying age for them.” (pg. 44)

3.  Mariam  seems to have an insight into how the world works which is well beyond her years. Do you think the author later uses this to further highlight her eventual decline into submission and despair?  “They had been disgraced by her birth, and this was their chance to erase, once and for all, the last trace of their husband’s scandalous mistake.  She was being sent away because she was the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame.

4.  Do you know much history of the region?  It seems that the political situation is more that a backdrop to the domestic situation.  “Women have always had it hard in this country, Laila, but they’re probably more free now, under the communists, and have more rights than they’ve ever had before..it’s a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan.  And you can take advantage of that, Laila.  Of course, women’s freedom – ..is also one of the reasons people out there took up arms in the first place.  ” (p121)

5.  If one were to examine a pattern it the book, I might say that it is a constant deflation of expectations.  Once an ideal is set, it is later seen to be false, hopes are dashed, egos destroyed, futures squandered.  Does this apply to the conclusion too? “It slays Laila.  It slays her that the warlords have been allowed back to Kabul.  That her parents’ murderers live in posh homes with walled gardens, that they have been appointed minister of this and deputy minister of that, that they ride with impunity in shiny, bulletproof SUVs through neighborhoods that they demolished.  It slays her.” (p363)

6.  Gender bias is strongly suggested throughout the novel.  “Nana had said to her, “Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman.  Always.  You remember that, Mariam.” (p.323)  Is that image at all counter – balanced with positive male figures?

7.  Hosseini uses irony, dramatic irony and a Platonic truth in his imagery.  Consider some of the buried item revealing hidden gems.