Out of the Ruins Out of the ruins of a crumbled city and a tortured life, we can still find unbelievable strength. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and the city of Kabul symbolically follow a similar path. Mariam is belittled by her mother, abandoned by her father and, beaten by her husband but opens her heart long enough to find love and acceptance from Laila and her children. All the while, Kabul, the beautiful and prosperous city positioned at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains is bombed and destroyed and then given new life. The book uses symbolism and metaphors to tell a story of the power of loyalty and devotion, the human capacity for evil, and the remarkable inner strength of women. Mariam starts life at a disadvantage. She is the bastard daughter, a harami, of a wealthy man and his maid. She spends her first fifteen years in a mud hut with her bitter mother and weekly visits from her father. Nana, her mother, lives in a constant state of depression and negativity and often places her pain on her daughter. Ironically, Nana’s belittling only encourages Mariam to idolize her father, Jalil. He was always positive and gave Mariam hope that life could be better than her mother tried to make her believe. Ultimately, Nana’s negative rants about Jalil turn out to be true. Mariam risked everything she knew, including the love of her mother, to be accepted by her father and his family. Her reward was being left to sleep in the street while her mother hangs herself. As Jalil and his wives inform Mariam that she will be married to a widower from Kabul, she stares at her reflection in the glass table and notices, “… that every time she breathed out, the surface fogged, and she disappeared from her father’s table” (50). It was becoming painfully obvious that this arranged marriage would make her disappear physically and emotionally from her father’s life. Nana once told her that to endure was the only skill she would ever need (18). Later, after her first miscarriage, while watching the snow falling, Mariam would recall her mother telling her, “…that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below” (91). The snowflakes are a metaphor for the suffering of women and a reminder of the only skill Nana told her she would ever need: to endure. With this memory, Mariam realizes that along with her mother’s negative portrayal of life, she taught her valuable lessons. These lessons illustrated Nana’s loyalty and devotion despite the dysfunction of their lives. As the story progresses, we see that Mariam holds on tightly to her mother’s advice and excels at perfecting the lesson of how to endure. Mariam spends the rest of her life married to a man who places little to no value on Mariam as a person, let alone, as his wife. Rasheed is a man who believes that he must maintain power and control over his wife. Her only purpose in life and all the she is capable of is serving him. This is initially depicted in the novel when he leaves Mariam “…to wait out the pain down below, to look at the frozen stars in the sky and a cloud that draped the face of the moon like a wedding veil” (77). The loss of the light of the moon is compared to the horrible way in which Rasheed uses his wife, beginning with the consummation of their marriage. Rasheed and his incomprehensible abuse and control are the perfect example of the human capacity for evil. Mariam’s marriage to Rasheed would prove to be a relationship of great pain, but would also lead her to Laila. Their relationship starts off poorly because Laila is the second wife of Rasheed. He constantly compares the two women in a way that leaves Mariam feeling inferior and insecure. Mariam soon realizes, though, that Laila has great strength and a kind heart. They quickly discover that they need each other to both give and find strength throughout the course of their lives. Mariam had grown to believe that, “love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout…Mariam uprooted them. But somehow, Laila and Aziza had become extensions of her, and now, without them, the life Mariam had tolerated for so long suddenly seemed tolerable” (256). The bond formed between Mariam and Laila would be the demise of Rasheed and would also transcend their separation. In the story, Laila reflects on Mariam’s life, “A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied but shaped by the turbulence that washes over her” (401). The strength and courage found within their relationship would lift and carry Laila throughout her life. While Mariam is living through her challenges; Kabul is trying to survive its struggles. During the summer of 2000, Kabul became known as “Titanic City.” Although the Taliban had forbidden television, the citizens of Kabul had become obsessed with the movie Titanic. Laila speculated that, “everybody wants Jack to come rescue them from disaster. But there is no Jack. Jack is not coming back. Jack is dead” (304). This statement metaphorically represents life under the Taliban. The people of Afghanistan desperately wanted the return of their beloved Kabul and the lives they lived there. Another example is the reference to the novel, The Old Man and the Sea. It tells the story of a fisherman who catches a huge marlin. As he tries to get it into shore, it is eaten by sharks (152). The theme of this story is a wonderful metaphor for the city of Kabul. For its entire existence, over 3000 years, Kabul has been the beautiful prize that is torn apart by those who seek to win it. It is a city that has been destroyed and rebuilt, repeatedly. Just as Kabul has been knocked down and gotten back up, so has Mariam. The book ends with Laila returning to Kabul after the Taliban have lost control of the city. Her inner strength has convinced her that she is needed in the rebuilding of her home town. Upon her return, she finds they are using rocket shells as flower planters (410). These “rocket flowers” represent hope for a new Afghanistan; something beautiful growing out of chaos and destruction. The connection that Mariam and Kabul share is a sad, yet inspiring dance of strength and endurance, death and rebirth. The title of this book comes from the poem, Kabul. The line, “a thousand splendid suns,” could be interpreted in numerous ways. I think the best way is found at the end of the story. “Mariam is never very far. Mostly, she is in Laila’s own heart, where she shines with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns” (414). In this way, Mariam and Kabul have the same power for the people who love them. This story is a testament to the endless depths of the human spirit and the power of hope and belief in humanity.

Works Cited
Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. Print.