A Thousand Splendid Suns – Blog 4

“If she could articulate it, she might have said to Nana that she was tired of being an instrument, of being lied to, used. That she was sick of Nana twisting the truths of their life and making her, Mariam, another of her grievances against the world” (26).

Since Mariam was a little girl growing up in the kolba, she needed the love and approval of a man. She goes to her father’s house hoping to live with him, his three wives and all of their children. Being the illegitimate child that she is, she is not wanted there so they marry her off to Rasheed after her mother kills herself. She begs her father to let her stay with them – begs for his love and acceptance – but her request falls on deaf ears and she is married off the next day. She tells her father that she never wants to speak to him again and when he tries to contact her almost ten years later, she refuses to speak to him. She stares out of the window at him, waiting and hoping for her to speak to him (just like he did to her the first night she came to ask to live there) and closes the curtain. He leaves a letter which she tears up without reading. The act of pride comes back to hurt her later when she gains hope in thinking she can get money from her father to help her family’s dire situation. Her hopes are crushed when she finds out that her father passed away many years ago. Had she read the letter he left her then she would have known that an inheritance awaited her.

After her initial apprehension to her marriage with Rasheed, she comes to seek his approval just as she did from her father. She goes from being disgusted by him to looking forward to making his meals. She accepts and even shows gratitude for her new life in this arranged marriage but it quickly goes sour after they both realize she is unable to have children. Mariam still seeks the approval she lost even after the physical and mental abuse from Rasheed. Then Laila shows up and Rasheed realizes that she can be the chance for having another son and they quickly marry to Mariam’s dismay. Laila ends up having a girl and Rasheed loses his admiration for her and she starts to get the same mistreatment as Mariam. The two women’s dislike toward each other turns to a close bond from this common unfortunate situation of abuse and unhappiness that they share. The other thing they have in common is their love for Laila’s little girl, Aziza. Laila does and up having a son who is doted upon by Rasheed unlike Aziza who he knew by the looks of her that she wasn’t his daughter. Aziza is the daughter of Tariq who was thought to be dead until he showed up at the door. The son tells Rasheed that he was there and Rasheed almost kills Laila by strangling her. Mariam grabs a shovel and kills him. She tells Laila to run away with the children and Tariq. She takes the blame and is sentenced to murder.

In Living to Tell About It, James Phelan said,

“Our judgments and emotions focus not on characters’ choices and what they mean for what does and does not hap­pen to them but rather on the progressive revelation of characters and their static situations” (8).

The static situation throughout Miriam’s life is her need for the love and approval of a man. In her early life that man is her father. She loves him and adores everything about him. He is her light. When he refuses her and marries her off she is crushed and refuses to speak to him ever again. She gains strength by making that bold decision and that gives her the strength to decide to accept her situation and look for happiness and gratitude in her marriage to Rasheed. This continues Mariam’s progressive revelation. She makes a bold decision to swing that shovel to save Laila and it gives her strength. Immediately after killing him, when wondering what they are going to do without a man, Miriam says, “There is a way and I just have to find it” (315). She makes the tough decision to tell Laila to leave with the children and says, “For me, it ends here. There’s nothing more I want. Everything I’d ever wished for as a little girl you’ve already given me. You and your children have made me so very happy” (319). It’s ironic that she killed Rasheed for the love of a woman and that it wasn’t a man who gave her what she needed in the end. She took a man’s life and gave her own so that Laila and her children could have the freedom from men that she would never have. Her progression ends with her being told to kneel down for her beheading and the narrator says, “One last time, Mariam did as she was told.”

This story as I described it above is the character narrator addressing the narratee. I was pulled in emotionally and connected with these two women, Laila and Mariam. I watched the dramatic events unfold in their lives and I wanted so badly for them to overcome all of the strife and adversity. I was hoping they could do it together, but, as in all wars, some must die. The author also reaches out to the authorial audience in this cultural narrative. The issues of the war in Afghanistan and the everyday life of these people is something I was never able to relate to on such a deep emotional level. I lived the experience through the lives in this narrative. Although this is a fiction story, there is fact to it. Warlords, terrorists and communists did reign over this area and many people fled for their lives or lived in war torn areas with bombs falling all day and night. The ones that fled were stuck in refugee camps where dysentery, filth and death were the norm. The author brought the authorial audience and the narrative audience together by showing what can happen to normal families stuck in war zones and weaving in facts from the actual war. This weaving opened my tear filled eyes to how it might feel to actually live in a situation such as these characters did, as these real people do.