Discussion Topic C

In the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini illustrates the path of two hopeless women and how their past intervenes with their present actions. The present actions of a person is strongly affected by the past events because it is what develops the person’s state of mind of who they are and what they believed is they are able to accomplish.  Mariam is not able to set any high standards for herself because since the beginning she is told that she is will not be anything but any object when it states “We endure. It’s all we have”(pg. 19).  With this statement placed into Mariam’s mind since she was young made her into the women that let herself be told what to do and agreed that she was nothing more than a human with no word to be heard.  The affected the rest of her life in which she was following what her mother told her since she was young.  The whole meaning of the novel is to provide an incite of how women are treated and the past shows one of the reasons these women tend not to rebel or why they already have the type of mentality that they are just objects and have to “endure” everything that is given to them.  One of Mariam’s most affective past aspect is when her mother killed herself and Mariam believes it was all her fault.  Mariam remembers her mother saying “I’ll die if you go. I’ll just die” (pg. 38) this hunts Mariam because she truly believes that everything is her fault and puts a huge burden on herself.  Because she believes her mother’s death was her fault she decides to follow her mother’s obligation to prove that she could listen and obey her.  This meant that she will live by the fact that her mother said she was nothing but an object to be used and that is how Mariam went on with her life and reflect the meaning of the whole work of why women are being mistreated.  Her past affected her present and future actions because of the fact that she felt guilty and obligated to follow a path that led her to a hopeless style of living. In A Thousand Splendid Suns it reveals how past events control the viewpoint of your life in every aspect when creating a foundation for your moral values.