Cruelty In A Thousand Splendid Suns

Women are beaten, and it is culturally acceptable. Like routine, women are beaten in Afghanistan almost every day. When a person purposely inflicts sufferings on others with no feelings of concern, like the women of Afghanistan, he is cruel. Cruelty can manifest from anger, irritation, or defeat and is driven by self-interest. An idea that is explored in many works of literature, cruelty also appears in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns in the relationship between a husband and wife. In their case, the husband uses cruelties in the form of aggression are to force his wife to submit. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini’s use of cruelty elucidates the values of both Rasheed and Mariam as well as essential ideas about the nature of

cruelty itself.
Rasheed’s cruelty towards Mariam exhibits his values of male superiority as well as his thirst for dominance and control. In Afghanistan society, men restrain women just as Rasheed controls Mariam. Men believe they have been given the divine right to dominate over women for “God made [men and women] different” and that women “cannot think” like men, so they need to be administered (365). As Rasheed puts it, a woman is a “husband’s burden” to be taken care of and controlled (223). Acts of violence and cruelty are used to enforce direction onto women as well as beating them into submission if they do not follow said direction. Furthermore, women who do not agree with the disparity between the gender ranks are silenced. Consequently, many beatings occur throughout the novel by Rasheed to keep Mariam under control. Mariam does not follow Rasheed’s wishes and his actions uphold his dominating stance. As a person who sees himself at the top, he expects everyone else to follow him especially his wives. For example, while Mariam is pregnant, Rasheed assures himself the baby will be a boy, as he wants the child to be: “I think it’s a boy. Yes. A boy (56).” He will accept the shame and embarrassment of having a daughter and desperately wants to replace his deceased son. Yet, when Mariam has a miscarriage, Rasheed believes Mariam is purposely choosing to disappoint him. Believing as if Mariam is at fault for not having a son, Rasheed acts cruelly towards her in abhorrence. A “change” comes over him, and their relationship becomes more mentally abusive; he rejects Mariam almost entirely (94). Rasheed acts with more agitation towards her and his cruel words show his disappointment: “snorting” when she asks questions and answering her with a harsh“You know nothing, do you? You’re like a child. Your brain is empty. There is no information in it” (98). Inhumanely, she is manipulated by Rasheed to feel guilty over the miscarriage that she could not control. Mariam blames herself and becomes “ransacked with guilt” while she “pray[s] for forgiveness” (93). Illustrating Raheed’s abusive dominance further, he beats Mariam when he believes that she is teaching Laila how to “deny” him (241). He believes his absolute power in the family is his right and he takes to blaming Mariam when he does not get it. Mariam is even made to eat rocks and is left “to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two molars” after she defied him (62). Rasheed’s harsh actions against his wife exposes his sexist nature as well as his values of having women submit to men. With the idea that men are superior in Afghanistan society ingrained in his mind, Rasheed acts corruptly to maintain his desired control over Mariam and to get what he wants.
On the receiving end of Rasheed’s cruel dominance, Mariam fights back and displays her willingness to make sacrifices.

Originally, Mairma would acquiesce to Rasheed’s demands: if he said “shut up,” she would (98). If she was beaten, she would take it. She felt no hope of freedom from his brutish acts so she endured through them. Wallowing in despair would only make her marital-situation worse. Later, out of routine, Rasheed’s abuse is prevented because of Laila. She pleads “please Rasheed, no beating!” over and over until he forfeits his attack against Mariam; feeling loved, it is a kindness that Mariam cannot forget (241). In Mariam’s final resistance to the churlish man, she shows her love for others. Aiming to kill, Rasheed acts violently upon Laila, and Mariam fights back. As he once beat her, she beat him back. The scene juxtaposes how she once accepted the abuse, and now she fights back because she does not want to lose the one who makes her feels that she “had been loved back”: Laila (224). After being controlled by Rasheed for the majority of Mariam’s marriage, she takes control of her own life for once by making he decision to kill him in order to protect Laila. Mariam’s fight back shows her willingness to sacrifice to prevent Rasheed’s cruelties further. Risking worse abuse, Mariam chooses to save Laila’s life in exchange for her own. Laila brought Mariam an unmistakable happiness: “[Mariam] was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. ... It was not so bad ... that she should die this way ... This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings” (224). Mariam gives Laila the opportunity to live a life sans of Rasheed’s barbarities to plague them after learning herself how inhumane he was. Moreover, the cruelties Mariam faced against Rasheed revealed her endurance as a woman. Mariam remained strong throughout her marriage and fought back against her husband, an act

that other women saw as remarkable even so that they called her a “celebrity” (219). As Nana said, “women ... suffer,” but they must “endure” (91). Through the cruelties inflicted on her because of a man’s dominance and sexism, Mariam grows strong and shows her value for family with sacrifices certifying her willingness to fight for others.
In Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, cruelty reveals both Mariam’s endurance and Rasheed’s self-supremacy. Rasheed’s cruelty inflicted on Mariam reflects his belief in the male-run Afghanistan society as he struggles to maintain control and remain on top. For Mariam, Rasheed’s abuse reveals her willingness to sacrifice for what she loves. From Mariam’s endurance, to Rasheed’s abuse, to her ultimate sacrifice, she becomes a strong woman in juxtaposition to her impassiveness to how he treated her once before. By adding cruelty to the novel, Hosseini adds depth and complexity to the characters by revealing their values. In another way, Hosseini also reveals how cruelty in itself is driven by self interest: Rasheed acts cruel because of his thirst for dominance. A person is not born as a cruel person, he learns to be cruel, just as Rasheed learns to be from the Afghanistan culture. Much of the mind-set involved in cruelty comes as an effect of the surrounding environment or society; the society set in the novel focuses on men in power and women underneath them, encouraging Rasheed’s abuse. By the same token, cruelty is the product of human emotion, and in A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini use of graphic content unfortunately shows how natural it is for the “bad” to exist in the world.