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A Thousand Splendid Suns Analysis Essay Example

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A Thousand Splendid Suns Analysis Essay Example
The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, written by Khaled Hosseini, shows how war can change people, and how it brings out the worst in them. Characters in this novel have their personalities and their views of life changed by the war that tears through their country. As the war changes the characters, they come into conflict with each other, with themselves, and with society. The settling also plays a big part in the theme, as it sets the scene and allows all these changes to occur. The author of A Thousand Splendid Suns develops this theme through the use of characterization, conflict, and setting.

Characterization in the novel shows how the characters change throughout the book because of the war. One character that proves this point is Rasheed; he’s not a terrible guy at the beginning of the book, and when the war comes to Kabul, he slowly gets worse and worse. At the start of the novel, as the author writes, he’s shows that Rasheed isn’t perfect, but he tries to be a good husband. “Rasheed, who took up the window and middle seat, put his thick hand on hers,” (Hosseini 56) wrote the author about the bus ride Mariam was taking to her new home with her husband. This quote reveals that while Rasheed isn’t the greatest man, he still wants Mariam to be happy. But as the book starts nearing the middle, and the rulers of Afghanistan start to shift, Rasheed’s personality begins to take a turn of the worst. He gets more violent, irritable, and overall nasty. “His powerful hands clasped her jaw. He shoved two fingers into her mouth and pried it open, then forced the cold, hard pebbles into it. Mariam struggled against him, mumbling, but he kept pushing the pebbles in, his lips curled into a sneer. “Now chew,” he said,” (Hosseini 104) describes the author about Rasheed losing his temper with Mariam, and resorting to violence to teach her a lesson. Rasheed is beginning to get more and more irritable, and it gets to the point where he forces Mariam to chew rocks as

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