Blog Topic C:

c. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present actions, attitudes or values of a character. Select a character from A Thousand Splendid Suns who must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Analyze how the character’s relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not summarize the plot or action of the work you choose.

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Proclaimed author Khaled Hosseini writes in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns the tragic story of a woman named Mariam. Her story is told in a chronological series of events, from birth to death. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present actions, attitudes or values of a character. Mariam must contend with her past in a struggle to endure the hardships that her miserable life presents her. The author develops a dynamic relationship to the days of the past with the paced upcoming days and events of Mariam's present and future. In the beginning of the novel the reader can note the very event that will pave Mariam's life to a very desolate, misfortune life that she will live. “She [Mariam] was being sent away because she was the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame.” (p. 48) Hosseini's character exposition of Mariam is very blunt as to how the situation is with her and the community, her family. This perspective of the people becomes Mariam's shadow, following her every day, behind her, as a reminder of what she is and what will become of her. The story develops in the sense that this idea in the back of her head ends up shaping what the rest of her life is and is the sole explanation to why her life is becoming what it is. Mariam learning to endure suffering not only suggests how bleak Mariam's future will be, but also the type of lessons that Mariam must have learned as a child. Ultimately, throughout the rest of the novel, Mariam's capacity for endurance is what allows her to survive horrible conditions and depressing personal losses. Additionally, as Mariam grows up, she becomes steady and solid enough to endure her surroundings but rarely proactive enough to change her situation; a pattern of behavior which most likely reflects her upbringing. In a sense her ovarlapping past, the days of yesterday, filled with misery and abuse, allow Mariam to shape her future, the day of tomorrow. In the end it all pays off, “It seemed worthwhile, if absurdly so, to have endured all [she'd] endured for this one crowning moment, for this act of defiance that would end the suffering of all indignities.” (300). Finally Mariam can lift of all burden in her life, dependent on the events of the past, each piling on top of one another to the point where she becomes strong and able to endure it, use it to bend her reality into what Hosseini claims as a radiance that gives the strength to those that she loves. She is now able to shine “with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns.” (p. 414).