Mosaic 1 Essay
Xiaozhou Yu
Professor Giammarco
IH 0851
December 11, 2014
Essay question: One of the Taliban judges at Mariam’s trial tells her, “God has made us different, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proven this.” What is the irony in this statement? How is irony employed throughout the novel?
A Thousand Miriams
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book for the women of Afghanistan, as the author Khalid Hosseini indicates at the beginning of the book. It is a story about two Afghan women who suffered from war, poverty and violence. It is all about their sorrow, pain and their fate of oppression. Through the stories of its female protagonists, Laila and Mariam, Hosseini exposes the suffering of women in Afghanistan under fundamentalist Islamic governments. Many other characters in the novel such as Laila’s teacher Khala and her father characters also raise the comments on the equivalent status of men and women. The rights and roles of women from lower social status in Afghanistan is a key theme throughout the novel. There are a thousand splendid suns behind the wall of Kabul, there are also a thousand Miriams in Afghanistan who are oppressed.
Refer to the protagonists in this novel. Miriam was born with oppression as a “harami”. Her marriage, her husband and her relationship with Laila at the beginning are all the things make her oppresses. She cannot deny when she was married to Rasheed, she has to obey Rasheed even she was abused, she can only accept when Rasheed decided to marry Laila. Her character is a typical woman in Afghanistan who suffered from the unfairness. Laila, a girl used to be independent and free still cannot escape the fate of oppression. “It’s a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan […] women taught at the university, ran schools, and held office in the government” (135). Her father told her all the time about women’s rights and freedom and made her believe in
Professor Giammarco
IH 0851
December 11, 2014
Essay question: One of the Taliban judges at Mariam’s trial tells her, “God has made us different, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proven this.” What is the irony in this statement? How is irony employed throughout the novel?
A Thousand Miriams
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book for the women of Afghanistan, as the author Khalid Hosseini indicates at the beginning of the book. It is a story about two Afghan women who suffered from war, poverty and violence. It is all about their sorrow, pain and their fate of oppression. Through the stories of its female protagonists, Laila and Mariam, Hosseini exposes the suffering of women in Afghanistan under fundamentalist Islamic governments. Many other characters in the novel such as Laila’s teacher Khala and her father characters also raise the comments on the equivalent status of men and women. The rights and roles of women from lower social status in Afghanistan is a key theme throughout the novel. There are a thousand splendid suns behind the wall of Kabul, there are also a thousand Miriams in Afghanistan who are oppressed.
Refer to the protagonists in this novel. Miriam was born with oppression as a “harami”. Her marriage, her husband and her relationship with Laila at the beginning are all the things make her oppresses. She cannot deny when she was married to Rasheed, she has to obey Rasheed even she was abused, she can only accept when Rasheed decided to marry Laila. Her character is a typical woman in Afghanistan who suffered from the unfairness. Laila, a girl used to be independent and free still cannot escape the fate of oppression. “It’s a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan […] women taught at the university, ran schools, and held office in the government” (135). Her father told her all the time about women’s rights and freedom and made her believe in