Written by the author of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns was nothing like what I expected. It was both disturbing and hard in parts and compelling and even beautiful in others. A story full of pain and suffering, it outlines the lives of two Afghan women who live in Afghanistan’s capital as the height of the conflict is progressing in Afghanistan. They experience incredible abuse at the hands of their husband and the strict governments that take over their city. This can be startling and emotionally charged in many parts of the book. Many difficult and sometimes questionable decisions are made as the story progresses. I would like to outline three incredibly impactful choices that shape their lives.
An Easy Way Out
The story starts by describing a woman named Mariam’s childhood. Mariam was born out of wedlock, the daughter of a lowly maid and a rich man with three wives and almost a dozen legitimate children. Her father prepares her and her mother a place to stay outside of the village. He comes and sees her once a week and in that time she learns to worship him and every single thing that he does. Meanwhile, her mother grows and grows in her bitterness toward the man and the world in general. She swings between verbally abusing her daughter and then testifying that she is “all she has in this world.”
One day, Mariam decides to go to her father’s home and demand his attention. He missed coming to a promised birthday outing and she feels betrayed and left behind. Against her mother’s vicious will, she leaves her home and journeys to the village and her father’s household for the first time. When he refuses to see her, she waits a full day before giving up and traveling back to her home. She returns only to discover that in response to her leaving, her mother committed suicide.
As a direct result of her mother’s death, Mariam ends up being married off to a forty-year-old man at the ripe age of fifteen. He proves to be incredibly abusive and forces her into a hermit lifestyle completely alone. Was there truly no other option for her mother besides death? I think we can see that her daughter leaving to demand a birthday outing was not a life-ending event. It was a horrible, twisted choice that left her daughter completely alone and defenseless. This woman was so stuck on bitterness that she had left herself no other option. However, she was wrong and destroyed the one thing that was fully hers.
Protect First
The second woman highlighted in the story is a girl named Laila. She and another boy in the city grow up as very close friends together. This relationship shifts to romantic as she enters her fourteenth year of life. When she learns that he is being pulled out of the city by the war, she has an incredibly emotional goodbye that leads to an intimate moment with him. Days later her home is bombed and her parents are killed. Laila is taken in by Mariam and her husband, who offers to marry Laila as well. This marriage offer comes right as she discovers she is pregnant with her young friend’s child.
At that time, rules were incredibly strict for women. They had to be completely covered and could not walk around the streets without a male family member’s accompaniment. Laila knew that getting out of the city would be impossible and that, without a man’s acquaintance, she could end up in some very difficult situations. Moreover, adultery was considered a capital offense, and a young woman with a child and no husband would not fare well. And so, despite her knowing her new husband was abusive and that his first wife would be incredibly hurt by her choice, she accepts the offer of marriage.
This woman knows that there is risk in putting her and her child in the care of such a dangerous man. But she recognizes an impossible-to-overcome risk in not marrying him. She chooses to marry and pretend the child is his to protect her child. She makes a very hard, scary choice, especially for one so young, but it is necessary. It reveals the strength her intellect and character already possess. There is truly no other option.
Wrong for Right Reasons
At first, Mariam is extremely bitter towards Laila. Her unhappiness with having to share her husband is increased by Laila’s seeming immediate pregnancy. She had undergone seven pregnancies herself but none of them had made it to full term. This had proved an incredible disappointment to her husband. However, she slowly learns to love Laila and her two children who end up being born throughout Laila’s marriage to her husband. She especially grows a tight bond with the illegitimate child.
When Laila’s old friend, who had been presumed dead, unexpectedly shows up living and active, their husband is extremely unhappy. That evening he begins the greatest and most passionate abuse yet. He hurts both of the women in horrible and tragic ways. But when he begins choking Laila, Mariam realizes that he has the intent to kill. She makes the decision swiftly. Running and getting a shovel, she ends the man’s reign of terror in the same breadth that she ends his life.
Was it right for her to kill the man? He had at least one biological child who loved him. He was a man destroyed by years of hardship and violence. But he was trying to kill the one person she had learned to love. She recognized that now that Laila’s lover had come, she and her children would be able to leave the city. With that in mind, Mariam decided it was worth it. She recognizes that what she has done is wrong and is willing to turn herself in. She decides it is worth it and allows her life to be taken in payment for her crime.
Throughout the story, there are so many powerful places where women are put in a desperate situation where they must make a choice. While their situation is not always justified, there are some places where they are loaded with a burden of decision that no human should have to bear. There are some times when they truly do the only thing they can. This book will stop your breath and cause you to think carefully about your life. You will ask yourself what you would have done if you were placed in that impossible situation. And you may find yourself startled at your answer.