Discussion Topic A

Vividly painting scars upon our own imaginations, Khaled Hosseini In the novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns," addresses physical and verbal abuse suffered by women in Afghanistan; using the literary device Imagery to place the reader behind every punch, kick, and verbal assault Rasheed passed along to his wives. Creating the allusion of being trapped within the women who lived within the books pages. The blunt beatings of Mariam and Laila by their husband Rasheed is created by the dominating fear that he instills in them. Hosseini writes with the ability of a man with power to trap and intimidate those he has control of by describing, with detail, the instances of abuse. "He snatched her hand, opened it, and dropped a handful of pebbles into it... Put these in your mouth... Now chew." The pain to chew rocks, breaking molars, and swallowing blood. The reader can never fathom eating rocks, or chewing un-chewable objects, but yet Khaled allows the reader to experience the pain of what it would be to chew upon jaw breaking rocks as if it was slush/meant to be chewed. Inversely to contradict this topics main focus, the true irony within this topic of domestic/un-domestic abuse of women in Afghan, is the womens ability to endure these unpredictable lashings, "Laila came to believe that of all the hardships a person has to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.". So even with the beatings and verbal abuse, the only pain they ever experienced was waiting for the day to come when they would rise above this predicament and show their strength as women living in the dogmatic rule of the Taliban's hand oppressing Afghanistan

Discussion Topic C

In a roller-coaster of emotions, the novel "A thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini illustrates a story of a harami, bastard, unwanted child named Mariam. From the stories exposition Mariam is introduced as the unwanted child by a rich man named Jalil. Mariam's beginning was immediately painted as a shameful conception, but her ending provides the path for the progression of her fellow wife-mate to help Kabul be rebuilt after years of wars and hardships. "Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings." Dying as a potential martyr, Mariam allows Laila to exceed her death and spread her healing hands over Kabul, too where her small works would make a big difference in people's daily lives. Mariam's execution was not her death but her new beginning of living in the live's of the younger generations that she allowed Laila to help. Not knowing the true meaning to why Mariam allowed herself to be caught, it isn't until the end of the book that Laila concludes that Mariam didn't die but spread the "thousand splendid suns" all over kabul. "In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble frantically to commit it all to memory,what happened next. Like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could-a look, a whisper, a moan-to salvage from perishing to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires,and she couldn't, in the end, save it all." Unable to fully conceive, and absorb Mariam's life and save every moment spent with her..her memory spreads the thought of Mariam into the worlds like "the most unforgiving of fires".