The novel opens with the introduction of Mariam, an Afghan girl growing up in a small village on the outskirts of Herat. She lives with her mother, Nana, a bitter woman who is resentful towards her daughter whom she bore out of wedlock. Miriam visits with her wealthy father, Jalil. Mariam weekly and has heard of her father's other wives and children, who live with him at his lavish home in Herat, but has never visited them due to the stigma of her being an illegitimate child.
On her fifteenth birthday in Mariam wants her father to take her to see Pinocchio at the theatre that he owns. When Jalil fails to show up, Mariam travels to Herat for the first time ever and go to her father's house in person. Jalil refuses to see her, and she ends up sleeping outdoors on the porch. In the morning, Mariam returns home to find that her mother has hanged herself out of fear that her daughter has deserted her. Mariam is taken to live in her father's house, where she feels isolated and spends most of her time alone in her room. Jalil and his wives quickly arrange for her to be married to an older widower named Rasheed, who is a middle-class shoemaker in Kabul.
Mariam begins adjusting to her life as the wife of a man she barely knows and soon becomes pregnant. Rasheed, having lost his own son in an accident years earlier, hopes for a boy. When Mariam suffers a miscarriage, her marriage takes a turn for the worse; Rasheed begins to verbally and physically abuse her. Down the street lives Laila, a high school teacher and a mother who mourns the loss of her two sons, who were fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Laila has a romance with Tariq, a boy from the neighborhood. War comes to Afghanistan, and Kabul is bombarded by rocket attacks. Tariq's family decides to leave the city and the farewell between Laila and Tariq culminates in a tryst on the living room sofa. Laila’s family is fleeing the city when a rocket destroys the house and kills her parents. She discovers that she is pregnant with Tariq’s child and arranges to also marry Rasheed to try to pass the child off as his.
After an initially cold relationship, Mariam and Laila eventually become confidantes. They run away from Rasheed who finds them and beats the two women and deprives them of water for several days, almost killing Aziza. The women survive this and many other hardships in their lives that for one ends in tragedy and the other peace and hope.
1. The phrase “a thousand splendid suns,” from the poem by Saib-e-Tabrizi, is quoted twice in the novel – once as Laila’s family prepares to leave Kabul. Discuss the significance of this phrase.
2. Mariam’s mother tells her: “Women like us. We endure. It’s all we have.” Discuss how this sentiment informs Mariam’s life and how it relates to the larger themes of the novel.
3. By the time Laila is rescued from the rubble of her home by Rasheed and Mariam, Mariam’s marriage has become a miserable existence of neglect and abuse. Yet when she realizes that Rasheed intends to marry Laila, she reacts with outrage. Given that Laila’s presence actually tempers Rasheed’s abuse, why is Mariam so hostile toward her?
4. Laila’s friendship with Mariam begins when she defends Mariam from a beating by Rasheed. Why does Laila take this action, despite the contempt Mariam has consistently shown her?
5. At several points in the story, Mariam and Laila pass themselves off as mother and daughter. What is the symbolic importance of this subterfuge? In what ways is Mariam’s and Laila’s relationship with each other informed by their relationships with their own mothers?
6. One of the Taliban judges at Mariam’s trial tells her, “God has made us different, 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.” What is the irony in this statement? How is irony employed throughout the novel?
7. Laila’s father tells her, “You’re a very, very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything that you want.” Discuss Laila’s relationship with her father. What aspects of his character does she inherit? In what ways is she different?
8. While the first three parts of the novel are written in the past tense, the final part is written in present tense. What do you think was the author’s intent in making this shift? How does it change the effect of this final section?
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