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Thousand Splendid Suns became a number one New YorkTimes bestseller for fifteen weeks following its release and meanwhile enjoyed favorable reviewand high reputation.The public’s solicitude for Afghan women may contribute a lot to the success of this novel. Justafter the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Afghan women suddenlytook the notice of the whole world. Soon the U.S. attacked Afghanistan and overthrew the TalibanRegime which allowed the miserable figure of the burqa-clad woman to fully surface especially in the western countries. In the perspective of two wretched women, A Thousand Splendid Suns helpsreaders to concretely understand the misfortune of Afghan women in a vivid manner rather thansimply arousing sympathy like what the news reports do.Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-born American novelist and thus all of his three novels are set inAfghanistan and feature Afghan natives as the protagonist. “By revealing the unknown life ofAfghan people, his works have captured the worldwide attention to the Middle East country,evoking the world’s apprehension and sympathy to its suffering people” (Liu,2012:9)Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. When he was 11 years old, his father took thewhole family away from hometown, where Hosseini has never been back until 36 years old. Hissurvivor’s guilt for having been able to leave the country before the Soviet invasion and subsequentwars is decisive to his unique subject matter and angle of view. Before the publishment of his firstnovel, Hosseini was once a physician. The success of The Kite Runner renders his retirement frommedicine to write full-time. In 2006, Hosseini was named a Goodwill Envoy to the United NationsRefugee
Agency and later established The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a non-profit organizationproviding humanitarian assistance to people of Afghanistan. Engaged in charity, Hosseini is notonly in the service of his readers but also of the vulnerable group in Afghanistan.As Michael D. Langan crystallized, “Dr. Hosseini's literary abilities are such that he is able to dowhat all great artists do: take inpidual stories and, through the alchemy of insight, compassion andexpression, universalize them -- thereby turning them into art. What Conrad did for Africa, Hosseininow does for Afghanistan. He has the capacious heart and soul of an optimist, but the eye of arealist. ”(2007:1)The thesis starts off with the status of women in Afghanistan. Caught in the crossfire of variousruling forces, women lived in twists and turns; Forced out of job and into burkas, women lost theirrights and even souls; Isolated and helpless, women had to endure everything life offered. With theuse of feminist theories and reference materials about the history of Afghanistan, the livingconditions of Afghan women will be illustrated in detail. Yet gritty women who are powerless butinvincible never succumb to inequity. “Women are forced into a situation they did not build, prefer or initiate. 源Y自Z优尔W.论~文'网·www.youerw.com
They fight till the end but they never give up. ”-- cited from Gender Bias Cross waysBorders: With Reference to Khaled Hosseini’ s a Thousand Splendid Suns (Sruthi, 2014:49-51). Howwomen confront the miseries of lives sturdily is also included in the first part.Then the focus switches to the two main characters of this novel. By means of literature critiquetools, the theme could be unambiguous if the symbols are well-analyzed. As what is shown in thisnovel, Hosseini doesn’t state directly that love is the savior, so interpreting the symbolic meaning ofcharacters is helpful to reveal the theme of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Representing the Afghanwomen, Mariam and Laila lived two entirely different lives indeed before they met. Variousmiseries the two women suffered will be discussed respectively. When their lives intersected, whatthey went through commonly kept testing the limit of their strength and courage. With a thoroughdepiction of the days they struggled together, the emphasis of this part will be the development ofMariam and Laila’s friendship and how they finally revolted successfully. The action of thesecharacters symbolizes their strength to endure things as they join together in feminist retaliationagainst the man who has taken away their rights to live according to their own choice.Beyond all doubt, the unfairness of fate is worth analysing, yet what could rescue people frommisfortune is of much more importance. Since A Thousand Splendid Suns is still a story with happyending, hope, love and redemption are indispensable elements pervaded in the novel. As oneresearcher remarks “It is love that draws characters out of their isolation, that gives them thestrength to transcend their own limitations, to expose their vulnerabilities, and to performdevastating acts of self-sacrifice.”(Singh, 2013:88-92) The friendship of Mariam and Laila isbeyond life and death, the love of Laila and Tariq allows them back to each other desperately andthe precious hope derives from the birth of Aziza and Zalmai enlightens the miserable family.Without the atmosphere of oppression, which differs from the first two parts, this part will expoundthe theme of A Thousand Splendid Suns -- “One could not count the moons that shimmer on herroofs and the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.” (Hosseini, 2007:418) Love couldbe found everywhere and able to heal any wound caused by life.