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