The concept of resilience is a deep and well-administered trait in many literary works, among the protagonists; someone who should be valued and admired by those around them. Resilience is a trait often attributed to a character who experiences a merciless amount of discrimination and terror throughout their life. In A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Mariam, one of the protagonists, despite the treacherous cultural stigma and ongoing tragedy that permeates most of her life, is ultimately satisfied with the life she has led for herself. Mariam demonstrates the aforementioned resilience often found in protagonist characters, as she is, in many ways, faced with trials of aggression and depreciation throughout the novel. Once Mariam witnesses the shocking remains of Nana's suicide, her mind is opened to the purpose behind Nana's treatment of Mariam; this changes Mariam's mentality forever. Mariam suffered seven miscarriages before reaching the age of nineteen. These devastating recurrences cause Rasheed, her husband, to begin to continually abuse her, ultimately destroying all of Mariam's hopes and desires for a loving family and a sense of belonging. Mariam saves herself, Laila and the children by conquering the most threatening being in their lives; Rachid. This controversial heroic act highlights her maternal instinct to protect her beloved children and positively, emotionally transforms her from a constant life of fear to one without fear. Nothing stopped her - and many forces opposed her along the way - from achieving the happiness she sought in starting her own family, ever since she was a young and naive child living in the small kolba between Herat and Kabul. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn the novel, Nana, Mariam's mother, is one of the few people with whom Mariam was able to form a relationship, their connection being extremely weak. The relationship dynamic between Nana and Mariam is the opposite of the stereotypical mother-daughter relationship that one might consider normal; Nana treats Mariam with little respect and expects a large sum in return because she lost everything because of Mariam's conception. From a young age, “Mariam is harshly oppressed throughout the novel.” (Shapiro 32), and feels that she is a burden to her mother; Nana insults Mariam by calling her a harami and giving her the impression that apart from the kolba, she will be worth nothing. “A gust of wind blew and parted the drooping branches of the weeping willow like a curtain and Mariam saw what was under the tree: the straight-backed chair, overturned. The rope falling from a high branch. Nana hangs on the end.” By observing the traumatic event of her mother's suicide, Mariam is subjected to the impending concept of death; a distant, distant thought for most fifteen-year-olds – but one that Mariam quickly gets to know. Given that just before this catastrophic event in her life, Mariam becomes aware of a passive, weak and despicable side of Jalil, her father, causing her to fill with guilt and sympathy for her mother as if she owes her an apology. childish naivety. Throughout her childhood, Mariam believed that her father was a perfect man – despite Nana's constant rejection of this philosophy. Mariam firmly believed that her father could do nothing wrong until, after securing his presence to meet her at the cinema, he stood her up, and once again, was refused entry in his house in Herat, after looking for him and waiting in front of hiswears overnight. Mariam is deeply affected by the shocking events following her mother's death because all she has really known is her Nana, the kolba and Jalil. Soon enough, Mariam is torn from life even though she knows it and must adapt and endure the mental and emotional trauma of losing her mother. When Mariam loses her mother, she loses everything familiar in her life and is left with Jalil and his multiple families, where Mariam is seen as inferior. and he is given the feeling of not belonging to his family. When her mother commits suicide, Mariam feels stigmatized again: she cannot aspire to be accepted by her father's family, nor to have a place in their society. Her only choice is to marry as quickly as possible and be forgotten. Mariam is confined to the cottage and is exposed to minimal social interaction. After Nana's death, Mariam arrives at Jalil's residence - which is ironic to a reader because she longed so much to live among Jalil's family, and finally, this wish is granted to her, but it took the suicide of her mother so that Jalil finally accepts her into his home. It is not long before Jalil's wives dispose of Mariam, arranging to marry her off to Rasheed; a financially strong shoemaker, an older man. “She was being fired because she was the living, breathing embodiment of their shame. » (Hosseini 48). The fact that Mariam, Jalil's harami, lives among Jalil's family has created a lot of tension between him and his wives. Hosseini implies that Mariam is seen as the manifestation of Jalil's carefree and frivolous behavior, which is why the wives arranged for her to marry Rasheed - they did not want themselves or their children to be subjected to the walking reminder of relationships their husband's illegal activities with Nana. Experiencing the loss of her mother, Mariam comes to a life-changing realization – one that tears her apart but gives her strength; Mariam understands that her mother's resentment and cruel words towards her were preparing her; it was Nana who was teaching her the lesson of endurance; something that would ultimately lead Mariam to achieve her happiness and fulfillment in life. At the age of just fifteen, Mariam was reluctantly married to Rasheed at the hands of her father. This union between husband and wife is an adjustment for the innocent Mariam, however, Rasheed is no stranger to the customs of such a union, being a widow and having lost a son. Rasheed doesn't waste much time before consummating the marriage with Mariam, paying no attention to the fact that she is not yet willing. Rasheed is looking for a son and sees Mariam as a means to acquire what he desires, which is someone who lives up to his name. Mariam, despite her best efforts, Mariam is not able to carry a pregnancy to term - which infuriates Rasheed to no end. There was always something, some minor thing that made him furious, because no matter what she did to please him, no matter how much she submitted to his desires and demands, it wasn't enough. She couldn't give him back his son. In the most essential way, she had failed him - seven times she had failed him - and now she was nothing more than a burden to him. Mariam's miscarriages become a trigger for Rasheed's bad mood and soon after, he begins his atrocious mistreatment and abuse towards him. Mariam. Rasheed constantly oppresses Mariam and after she fails to give birth to the son he so desperately desires, she is treated like the useless harami she was conditioned to be growing up. The dynamics of civil relations between husband and wife, which she initially became accustomed to since she marriedRasheed, quickly takes a turn for the worse. This loss of pleasant interaction with Rasheed only helps build Mariam's endurance, through constant verbal and physical abuse from her husband, and shape her into the strong woman she becomes. By not giving Rasheed a son, Mariam – in his eyes – has failed as a woman and he harbors resentment towards her for this. Rasheed manages to degrade Mariam more than anyone else, by exerting all the pressures that culture produces regarding fertility on her alone. Rasheed's outrageous mistreatment of Mariam was due to the precedent set for families wishing to produce male offspring. Rasheed is very obvious about his preference for a boy. He insists that the unborn baby in Mariam's womb is a boy so that he will be truly happy about the pregnancy. He is only willing to name the unborn baby if it is a boy... This son preference continues to devalue women and prohibit the vision of women as equals throughout the world. Company. Mariam must walk on ice around Rasheed and ensure that she maintains her role as the perfect wife as best she can on all fronts other than reproduction, to try to avoid being physically or verbally harassed by Rasheed. It sometimes seems that avoiding harassment makes no difference when it has violent intentions. The heartbreaking loss of Mariam's unborn children, coupled with the unrealistic expectations that Rasheed places on Mariam on a daily basis, is, ultimately, what further unites Laila and Mariam in the novel. Mariam considers Laila as a daughter in her life and Laila's children as her grandchildren, which is what she has always wanted. Therefore, these events combine to positively affect Mariam, providing her with her long-held dream of experiencing a sense of belonging and family. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam, although she has never physically borne a child, has a maternal instinct and impulse to protect Laila. and the children of Rasheed's wrath. When Laila's life is threatened, Mariam is overcome by this impulse, giving her the strength to kill Rasheed, for the safety of those she loves, with a shovel to his head. Unfortunately, Afghan courts generally do not tend to rule in favor of the female gender in the event of a trial: “I admit what I did, my brother, but if I had not done it, he would would have killed. He was strangling her. (Hosseini 324). No consideration is given to the fact that Mariam's crime was an act of self-defense, nor to the fact that there is a witness, because that witness is a woman, Laila. Mariam is aware that she has done an immoral thing, but she knows that there was a probable reason for it, which allows her to confidently reveal her fierceness and fervor to the judge. With this, Mariam shows her final transformation to become an honest, confident and rightly free woman. After Rasheed's brutal death, she manages to find a positive outcome, peace. It is strange to the reader, the feeling of peace and calm after the storm (Rasheed's murder), where the most abundant source of happiness in Mariam's life, Laila has to live the life that Mariam fought for for her. Mariam is a wonderful Afghan woman. , a representative of the rare and influential strength that comes from women who stand up only for what they believe is right. She fights the battles proposed to her with great difficulty, but successfully. “Most women decide to follow the rule of patriarchy, regardless of the treatment they accept. Cleverly, alongside the sad picture of women accepting the way the patriarchy treats them, Hosseini depicts strength.”