Theme Of Pop Culture In A Thousand Splendid Suns

The use of pop-culture references in literature shows the skill of an author. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini uses references to Titanic and Pinocchio to create his novel. This story of Afghan women during the time of the gulf war explains the absurd practices certain male figures go to, to sustain dominance. Hosseini uses pop culture references to develop the subjects of enduring and power in his novel. Hosseini references pop culture movies like Pinocchio to express the subjects of power and enduring in A thousand splendid suns. Throughout the novel, the male figures (ie. Rasheed and Jalil) are controlling and dominant to Miriam and Laila. The character Miriam feels as if she is not in control of her life. In her culture, …show more content…
Women are constantly forced to endure the reality they live in; constant abuse from male figures like Rasheed and Jalil require all women to be resilient. A major source of this entertainment for women comes in the form of the original Titanic. The movie stands as a bitter reminder however that in spite of their own actions they must endure because of the actions of others. Mariam and Laila struggle to survive just as the victims of the sinking Titanic. This requires women to subject themselves to the mercy of their families to decide their fate, much in the way that fate was determined for the passengers of Titanic based on the socioeconomic class of their families. The lifeboats were filled with first class passengers (women and children) the lower second and third class women and children were left to their own accord. Laila spoke of Jack( the main hero of the Titanic movie) “Everybody wants Jack to rescue them from disaster,” They realized that “There is no Jack, Jack is dead” (304). Jack represents a savior come to rescue Mariam, her children, and Laila from the constant battery of Rasheed. However, this savior is devoid of existence, causing Miriam to take matters into her own hands and securing her own fate. Mariam ends the life of Rasheed to free herself from his constant abuse. She also frees Laila from his control and allows her children to be free. This causes a sudden shift in power, similar to that of the change in control in Titanic when the Titanic collided with the iceberg. The constant struggle for survival is parallel throughout the novel as well as in Titanic. Mariam and Laila constantly endure the abuses of Rasheed and fail to gain control over their lives until the very end, this is similar to the struggle of the passengers on the Titanic as the ship plummets into the vast depths of the