
Additionally, Hosseini references the mountains “looming over” the town that Mariam is familiar since she had grown up there. The simile comparing Rasheed’s “will” to “mountains” unmistakably demonstrates that Mariam feels it is futile to battle back. This man’s will felt to Mariam as imposing and immovable as the Safid-Koh mountains looming over Gul Daman.” Mariam’s inner thoughts emphasize the authority that men have over women in Afghanistan. To express the theme of gender roles throughout this passage, Hosseini paints “a sensation of shrinking.

The author also outlines the theme by using comparisons and the lexical field of oppression throughout this passage. Hosseini further builds up the theme surrounding gender roles and uses the motif of the burqa, a traditional outer garment for Islamic women, to symbolize the paradox of freedom in imprisonment.

This particular passage is set in Kabul, and the author explains Mariam’s new life as a married woman through various themes however, I believe the most prominent theme would be gender roles concerning male dominance. The excerpt in question is happens after Mariam marries Rasheed and she starts tackling her duties as a wife. The Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini wrote A Thousand Splendid Suns based on his knowledge. This novel is based around two young women, Mariam and Laila, who are dealing with the struggles of an underdeveloped culture that is discriminant towards women. A Thousand Splendid Suns is a fiction novel which is set in Afghanistan during the Operation Enduring Freedom in the 1960s to the early 2000s.
