TEAR #2

     The compelling novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, uses oppresion to emphasize the issue of domestic abuse.
     The excerpt "Mariam lay on the couch...She remembered Nana saying once 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. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us." is used as a metaphor to give the audience an feel of how a woman in an abusive relationship can endure pain without so much as a cry for help.
    "That love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion..." shows how some abused women, like Mariam herself, slowly start to realize that they are placed in an unsafe partnership but because they have grown accustomed to the abuse, they believe it has become their destiny yet they, unfortunately, still have hope for a better day to mask their sorrow.
    The first sign of domestic abuse seen in Mariam's relationship with Rasheed was when he made her chew on a handul of pebbles until she cracked her teeth to show her how her "rice tastes like" and how she has given him "Bad food and nothing else". This shows what can be considered as a low level of domestic physical abuse. Although it is graphic enough, other women are placed in worse situations.
     Domestic abuse, yet common, is not portrayed in most literary works. However Hosseini uses this book to exhibit the hardships these women have to go through. It gives an insight to their daily lives and how every day is like waiting for rain in a drought...pointless and a waste of time.