Laila's Empowerment In A Thousand Splendid Suns

The women in A Thousand Splendid Suns have different educational experiences. Laila, has a father who emphasizes the importance of her education. “The educated individual is the adapted person, because she or he is better ‘fit’ for the world” (Freire 76). Laila was Rasheed’s second wife and before that occurred she was well educated by her father. Hakim worked with Laila on her homework and provided her with extra work in order to expand her education. He emphasizes that Laila's education is as important as that of any boy. After the streets of Kabul become too dangerous because of the war beginning again, he insists on tutoring Laila himself, before being killed in the explosion. Laila understood the events that were occurring around her and …show more content…
At many points throughout the novel, the characters express their individual hopes. For example, when Mariam asks Mullah Faizullah if she may attend school, her journey of hope begins. For Laila, hope lies in being in a relationship with Tariq and an attempted escape from Rasheed. Most characters walk into such events with high levels of hope for the future, but once true reality sets in, the character's hope is crushed. Despite Mariam not wanting the marriage with Rasheed (Hosseini 45), Jalil and his other wives force her to take Rasheed’s hand. This cycle and other situations appears to reverberate the cycles of hope and dashed dreams that Afghan women suffer, from time and time again. The personal stories of hope, moreover, are mirrored in the political hope of the Afghan citizens. With every new ruler, people express their convictions that finally Afghanistan will be free. Yet, similar to the personal hope of individuals, Afghanistan’s hope often turns to despair after the realities of each new regimen that leave the nation unprotected. For the rebels who turn Afghanistan into a warzone again are “treated as individual cases, as marginal persons who deviate from the general configuration of a ‘good, organized, and just’ society” (Freire 74). If the rebels did not start another war, the negligence that Laila received from Rasheed would have never …show more content…
They both simply follow what they have to get done in order to survive. Rasheed is like the “bank-clerk teacher who does not realize he is serving only to dehumanize” his wives (Freire 75). The only way for Mariam and Laila to survive was to kill the oppressive husband. They did not know what to expect from Mariam killing Rasheed. When faced in trial, the young Talib states, “I wonder, God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proven this” (Hosseini 324). This says something to what Freire is presenting in his findings. For if the teacher was to not stimulate the minds of the students, how are they supposed to be free from the oppression of the way they are taught. The minds of women and men are supposed to be free from the concepts of one knowing one ideal and another knowing another standard. Furthermore, if this had been carried out as an equal standard between men and women, the Talib wouldn’t have made a statement like that, rather he would have been protecting Mariam and Laila in front of court for killing the abusive husband, but instead Laila is set free while Mariam is sent to her execution. The love shown from Aziza and Laila allows Mariam to become whole again, for before she dies in front of all the spectators at Ghazi Stadium she experiences