Synthesizing Conclusion

What does Hosseini's use of literary devices communicate about social issues and cultural values in Afghanistan?

In A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, one can see that Hosseini uses many literary devices to convey the social issues and cultural values of Afghanistan. Hosseini's use of imagery and metaphors made Afghan culture seem closer to the reader and more personal. In this passage Hosseini discusses Laila's issues and problems in life. He also discusses how she is trapped and has no where to go and is forced behave like a "typical women" in that society. Women in the Afghan society are not allowed to be expressive or have a voice that is their own. When things happen to the women, they have to just move on and are not allowed to live with attachment to the past. After Laila's parents died when a bomb hit her parents, Laila had to move on. She wasn't allowed to be independent. But more importantly she wasn't allowed to be pregnant without being married. Her babies father was lost and Laila was forced to marry Rasheed. Hosseini really conveys that sense of women dependence on men very well through imagery and metaphors. Laila, "felt lost then, casting about, like a shipwreck survivor, no shore in sight, only miles and miles of water" (231). Here Hosseini communicates Laila's sense of loneliness by comparing her to "a shipwreck survivor". Hosseini shows the reader here that women in Aghan society have no ground to hold them steady, no place to be secure. They are survivors waiting for a rescuer that will try to care for them. Hosseini really grasps the idea that in this culture women are nothing more than object of reproduction to men and that women have to act a certain way and behave a certain form or they'll be considered disobedient. This came up when Hosseini describes Laila's routine during the winter. "Laila passed that winter of 1992 sweeping the house, scrubbing the pumpkin colored walls of the bedroom she shared with Rasheed, washing clothes outside in a big copper lagoon" (231). This shows how in this society women are forced to do house work while the men have the opportunity to go to work and to get ahead in life. Hosseini doesn't directly state out what life is like for women in Aghan culture but he does do it by using different literary devices and by putting certain details in the text to show what women do and are treated. Sometimes he will blatantly state the treatment of women through Mariam and Laila but sometimes he will use little details like the citation above to show how the daily life of a women is in Afghan culture. Hosseini does a great job putting this mix together to convey Aghanistans social issues and cultural values and that is what makes this book so enriched with factual information that still manages to make this book fiction.