In A Thousand Splendid Suns – Blog 3, Christina Ellis describes Khaled Hosseini’s use of code in A Thousand Splendid Suns writing, “This juxtaposition of the feelings Miriam has toward her mother and father are how the proairetic code comes into play. You can instantly feel the negative connotation surrounding her mother and the positive around her father.,” in reference to mother Nana’s harsh criticism of the protagonist Mariam’s father Jalil. Hosseini programs Mariam’s proairetic code further using the semic code of Nana’s negativity when Nana berates Mariam’s tutor Mullah Faizullah for suggesting that Mariam start going to school:
And you, akhund sahib, with all due respect, you should know better than to encourage these foolish ideas of hers. If you really care about her, then you make her see that she belongs here at home with her mother. There is nothing out there for her. Nothing but rejection and heartache. I know, akhund sahib. I know. (12)
Nana arguing that Mariam “belongs at home with her mother” because she is unfit for the outside world connotes the image of a witch or step-mother out of a fairytale such as “Rapunzel” or “Sleeping Beauty” who endeavors to keep a princess secluded from the world. Hosseini uses this intertextual code of an overprotective authority figure to enforce Mariam’s proairetic struggle to gain freedom, freedom from who she is.
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Your phrasing makes me question if Mariam is seeking freedom from who she is, as you say, or if she yearns for the freedom to be who she really is. The fairy-tale intertextual code is an awesome spot, well done. In those stories, the evil witch or stepmother character is the clear antagonist. Is Nana a clear antagonist in the story, or is it more complicated than that? Nana may not even be Nana in this instance but rather be a cultural code that’s the controlling value in Mariam’s world.
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