A Thousand Splendid Suns tells a story about the strength and resilience of two women who endure physical and psychological abuse in an anti-feminist society. It also reveals how The Taliban uses fear and violence to control the people of Afghanistan, particularly females. Throughout this story the novel exposes the way customs and laws that endorse Rasheed’s violent misogyny on the lives of the two women who endure a marriage to this ruthless and brutal man, whose behaviour forces them to kill him. In this essay we will critically discuss the statement “A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the social and cultural - and, ultimately political -structures that support the devaluation, degradation, and violence endured by Mariam and Laila.”
When Nana, Mariam’s mother commits suicide. Her father Jalil has no choice but to take her in to live with his legitimate family made up of his three wives: Afsoon. Khadija and Nargis. With Mariam being an illegitimate child born out of wedlock, Social pressures to conform to cultural and religious expectations force the women to find a socially acceptable way to rid themselves of Mariam, who, having no social status of her own and without the help of her father, is forced to accept their terms. (Harcourt, 2008). They leave give her no choice but to marry Rasheed who is around forty to forty five years old and…show more content… To protect their names in order to meet their own ideas of social expectations, they neglect and even abuse their children and wives. Fertility also plays a big role in a woman’s value. A woman's value in Afghan society is often measured by her ability to bear children, especially boys. Mariam is abused by Rasheed throughout their marriage because she was unable to give him a child. Later on Laila was also abused by Rasheed because she gave him a baby girl as her first child – both Mariam and Laila were devalued by their husband Rasheed as a result, (Singh,