A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns Essay

Shelter is something beneath, behind, or within which a person is, or feels protected from harm. It's a place where you feel safe, where you feel you have a hedge of protection surrounding you. A shelter can be a harbor, a retreat, a person or a home. In general, people refer to their home as a place of refuge where there is a sense of peace and comfort. For the majority of the population, home is where the heart lies, but for others, nothing can be further from the truth. Home for the women in A Thousand Splendid Suns, for example, is not a safe haven. In fact, home is the most dangerous place of all.

In Afghanistan there are laws which restrict women rights. Women are considered the weaker and fragile sex and therefore, second class citizens. They don't choose who they marry, or have a say in any decisions for that matter. Regardless of the importance, it is the male in the household that makes all the choices for Afghani women. Afghan women are nothing more than prisoners in their own home. They are told how to dress, what to eat and are not even allowed to go outside without a male accompaniment. Fathers are proud to give their girl child away to any man, because in that society, having a girl is considered a curse. At the tender age of 14, young girls are offered to 40 year old men to marry and bear children in the hopes of obtaining a male heir. To make matters worse, in this typical scenario of an innocent 14 year old girl marrying, the child will not only become a wife but rather she will be one of many wives to be used and abused at the whim of a man.

Once the child is given away, she moves to new husband his house. Home for her is a place of sadness full of duties to be performed. It is also a place of fear and confinement. In a sense, her home is her prison; a place where she must do as she is ordered or face unimaginable consequences. For women in Afghanistan, there is no place to run or hide or for that matter even scream. If she does, no one will listen. From the moment they are born, Afghan women are condemned to a life of unhappiness, confinement and exploitation.

This situation was clearly illustrated in A Thousand Splendid Suns. After her parents died, Laila, a 14 year old girl, was forced to marry a 40 year old man named Rasheed. Afghani law prohibited Laila from working, or even leaving the house without a man. Her only option for survival was to marry Rasheed, a disgusting man she wasn't in love with or even attracted to. Laila found herself living with an old grotesque man who had many other wives. Her life became unbearable. Laila was in love with a boy named Tariq. She longed to be with him and dreamed of sharing her life with him. Instead, her parents had an arrange marriage with Rasheed was forced to marry him. Laila, like any other unfortunate girls in Afghanistan, became the victim of abuse.