Whilst reading this book it has made me aware with what I have, and not taking the simplest of things for granted. ” Looking from a 16 year olds perspective from the 21st century, it has made me realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by the people I love, with encouraging parents and friends. And so the turmoil in Afghanistan and the country’s tortured recent past slowly became more than mere backdrop. The intimate and personal was intertwined inextricably with the broad and historical. Hosseni quoted “I realized that telling the story of these two women without telling, in part, the story of Afghanistan from the 1970s to the post-9/11 era simply was not possible. Hosseni deliberately created two strong central characters to allow the audience to empathise and make personal responses. Despite the times she had been betrayed by her father yet she still loves Laila even though they aren’t related, which shows how Mariam drew strength from her friendship with Laila. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS 3 RIVERHEAD BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc. The story title “a thousand splendid suns” is symbolic of Mariam, which captures her morals of looking out for her family.

Throughout Mariam life she’s constantly betrayed by the men in her society, however when Laila joins the family she forms a close friendship which leads to Mariam sacrificing herself to save Laila “Mariam is in Laila’s own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand splendid suns”. Hosseni’s intended purpose was to show “a story that transports, characters who engage, and a sense of illumination, of having been transformed somehow by the experiences of the characters and to walk away with a sense of empathy for Afghans”. ” The audience is reading from a third person’s perspective which is shown through the repetition “they” which creates distance with the audience and empathises with Laila. This is illustrated through the truncated sentences when mammy grieves over her son Noor “it was something to see, And Noor. Laila’s mother is all consumed with love for her sons, but cannot give the same attention to her daughter.

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