Discussion Topic A

In the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini illustrates how in different cultures the women are treated as objects and less than human beings which lead to a psychological and physical break down.  With the use of imagery and diction Hosseini is able to tell the path of two hopeless women being torn apart mentally and physically due to their culture.  Since Mariam was young she was already trapped in a world where her opportunities were cut and her ambitions were destroyed before she could ever make any.  Mariam’s mother would constantly remind her of this trapped world she lived in when she stated “Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have.”(pg. 19), which shows how Mariam is psychologically beaten because she is never given a chance to pursue anything on her own free will.  Everything is already set for her with obligations as if she were just an instrument to be used.  The use of imagery in “and the fragments of two broken molars” (pg. 104) shows the cruel punishment the women have to take. In this culture the men are superior to the women and have absolutely full control over their lives.  The women’s voice are not heard which is why Laila was vulnerable to being physically abused.  Any wrong deed she may or may not have committed it was up to the man to choose the proper punishment suitable for him. In Laila’s case for speaking to another man was her biggest mistake and Rasheed would take action.  When the author states “Without saying a word, he swung the belt at Laila”(pg. 345), reveals the physical abuse that the women in this culture have to endure because they are seemed as objects with and the diction of the word “without” shows how he had no second thoughts about the what it would do to Laila.  Hosseini explores how women in this culture are abused physically and mentally do to the restrictions and obligations that are embedded on them since birth.  In A Thousand Splendid Suns it shows that free will should not be taken for granted because of its limitations around the world.