The novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, by Khaled Hosseini, shows the cultural aspects of religion in many different ways. The novel starts in the 1960’s, outside of Herat, in Afghanistan, where a young girl named Mariam lives. She is one of the main characters of the story along with a girl named Laila. Mariam and Laila are both a generation apart who have formed a strong bond, which brought them together by war, loss and by fate. When Mariam’s mother commits suicide, her father Jalil took her in, temporarily. Jalil’s three wives wanted nothing to do with her, so they marry Mariam to a man named Rasheed, who is an abusive shoemaker from Kabul. Years later, Laila shows up, she comes from a loving and intelligent family. When Tariq, Laila’s childhood
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Mariam found a flyer with a message written on it in the back yard. The message was very strict and read “Our watan is now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey:” (Hosseini 294). In the flyer the first rule was like “All citizens must pray five times a day. If it is prayer time and you are caught doing something other, you will be beaten.” Etc.… (Hosseini 295). This shows how everyone must be very religious. Women have to stay at home all times and when walking the streets they have to be accompanied by a male relative and that they must all be complexly covered even their faces. If they do not follow the rules they will be either beaten, prisoned, tortured or executed. When Laila was pregnant with her second child her, Mariam and Rasheed had a hard time finding a hospital where women would get treated. When they finally found one, one of the female doctors took out her burqa to start operating on Laila. The doctor told Mariam “they want us to operate in burqa” (Hosseini 310). As one of the nurses keep watch for the Talban. This shows that not everyone women will obey one of those laws. Another example would be when Rasheed would bring home a television for his son, Zalmai. As television was now forbidden in any house Laila, Mariam and her two children would watch in secret and then burry it in the backyard from the Talban who would randomly come and knock on people’s doors and check their houses for anything that does not
Mariam found a flyer with a message written on it in the back yard. The message was very strict and read “Our watan is now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey:” (Hosseini 294). In the flyer the first rule was like “All citizens must pray five times a day. If it is prayer time and you are caught doing something other, you will be beaten.” Etc.… (Hosseini 295). This shows how everyone must be very religious. Women have to stay at home all times and when walking the streets they have to be accompanied by a male relative and that they must all be complexly covered even their faces. If they do not follow the rules they will be either beaten, prisoned, tortured or executed. When Laila was pregnant with her second child her, Mariam and Rasheed had a hard time finding a hospital where women would get treated. When they finally found one, one of the female doctors took out her burqa to start operating on Laila. The doctor told Mariam “they want us to operate in burqa” (Hosseini 310). As one of the nurses keep watch for the Talban. This shows that not everyone women will obey one of those laws. Another example would be when Rasheed would bring home a television for his son, Zalmai. As television was now forbidden in any house Laila, Mariam and her two children would watch in secret and then burry it in the backyard from the Talban who would randomly come and knock on people’s doors and check their houses for anything that does not