PAKISTAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS (PJL) Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019)

A THOUSAND IMPRESSIVE SUNS

Malik Saman Azam

ABSTRACT

The purpose of study is to examine the shades of feminism in Hosseini‟s novel „‟ (2007). The novel boldly portrays the brutal and a bad phase of Afghan women‟s life. It mostly focuses on women and is a feminist novel. My total research work refers to feminism and its different perspective. That how within the year feminism has changed ad is only a purpose of one‟s own benefit. Definitely the real and past feminists would strongly disagree to today‟s feminists and their point of view. The conclusion summarizes the failure of feminism and how today the anti- feminist percentage has increased.

INTRODUCTION

FEMINISM:

„The advocacy of woman‟s right on the Ground of the equality of sexes.‟

Feminism is known for the equality of rights for all genders; specially „women.‟

But feminism just not means to provide equal rights to women, it is basically „Women Empowerment‟; making women strong in every situation, either to protect them, to save them from harshness of society or to admit, to accept their own flaws and mistakes.

Throughout the history, women confined only to the domestic sphere, while the public life was reserved for the men only. In the most of the world, women were denied the right to own property, to participate in public life or to study. The situation of women in the world was so miserable that at the end of the 19th century in parts of Germany a husband still had the right to sell his wife. In the early 20th century, women could neither vote nor hold elective offices in many parts of the world. Women were not allowed from conducting business without a male representative, it could be her father, brother, a legal agent, or even son. Married women had no exercise control over their own children without the permission of their husband. Moreover women had very little or absolutely no access to education and were prohibited from the most of the professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women are still being continued today.

These are the real issues women were and still are facing in the world. These issues led to the creation of term „FEMINISM‟. But unfortunately today‟s society just has messed up feminism for their own means and publicity. Women nowadays are exploiting feminism instead of working in favor of it.

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PAKISTAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS (PJL) Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019)

Eastern Feminism Perspective:

As far as Eastern feminism movement is concerned, now days it is just helping the elite class women for their publicity.

THE NEW MOVEMENTS LIKE:

● Me Too Movement

● Khanna Khud Garram Karlo

● 8th March „Women‟s Day‟

● Aurat March

This is vulgarity in the name of these movements. These have to be stopped. You got all the rights after „SURAH NISSAH‟ was revealed. Please don‟t humiliate yourself and other women in the name of this so called feminism.

Let feminism stay real and serve the needy women to come out these issues toward peace and happiness.

WESTERN FEMINISM PERSPECTIVE:

Western Feminism is Huge and Bold which cannot be promoted in Muslims world. Western women now ask freedom, equality just not on social, political or economic platforms but they have also adopted a new phase,

Smoking, drinking, going out in public with less or no clothes have become a new trend in West but their society must learnt that

„Women Empowerment does not short clothes.‟

All the societies either West or East needs to learn that the false moves on the name feminism will create anti- feminists percentage in society.

SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

This novel gives us a review of violence happening against women in afghan society, women are suffering harshness, all this brutality and roughness from generation to generation.

PART 1:

In the first part of the novel the story of Mariam‟s life is told. Mariam from being an illegitimate child of Nana and Jalil to become wife of Rasheed was always suppressed and degraded.

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Mariam was very young when she learned the meaning of word Harami. Her own father never accepted her or loved her the way he did to his other nine children. He visited Mariam only once a week.

Nana always told Mariam that Jalil would never be a good father but Mariam thought all pure and the best about her father. One day when Mariam went to meet Jalil at his place and Jalil being present at the house lied to her and refused to meet her. Spending whole night at Jalil‟s door, when she was about to return back with the driver, she had a glimpse of Jalil looking down at her from the window. Where she realized that her mother was right Jalil was not a good father.

As she came back home, she saw her mother (Nana) dead and feels regretful for not trusting her mother. Her hatred for Jalil even turns more as he marries her to Rasheed, who is thirty years older than her. Rasheed is a strict husband, he forces Mariam to wear Burqa, carry veil and mostly she stayed at home. Things got more worst for Mariam when she had multiple miscarriages. He started physical torture on her Day by day the things got much worse and Mariam started living a miserable life. Mariam also find out the double standards of Rasheed that how he forced Mariam to always wear burqa and stay at home but at the same time he kept the pictures and magazines of nude women but she never spoke to Rasheed about these things because of his anger.

Part 2:

The second part tells us the story of a young girl “Laila”. Who also lives in with her parents? Her mother Mammy is depressed because she lost both her sons Ahmed and Noor in fight against soviets. Laila lived a peaceful life, had many friends, but created a close and special friendship with Tariq. Which later on turned into a physical relationship? Day by day the environment and atmosphere of the city became unfavorable. The situation worsens for Laila when both her parent died, when a rocket hit their house. Laila was injured severely.

Part 3:

In the 3rd part of the story we see that how Rasheed helps Laila and saves her life by getting her out from the broken and detached fragments of her house. Rasheed being good and helpful to Laila was nothing but his groundwork to marry her. Mariam tried her best to save Laila from Rasheed‟s bad desires but she failed and Laila herself agreed to marry him. Laila was young and helpless, had no home, no family. So marrying Rasheed was the last option to save her from the Talibans. Another main reason to marry Rasheed was that Laila was expecting Tariq‟s child and this was the only way she could save the baby too.

Rasheed gave all peace and comfort to Laila knowing that she is expecting. This freedom and peace in Laila‟s life was until she gave birth to a baby girl named Aziza. Things started getting warm between Laila and Rasheed while Mariam and Laila build a good relationship with each other. One day both of them decided to escape from Rasheed and thought to move to Pakistan.

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PAKISTAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS (PJL) Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019)

All things went accordingly they reached the boarder and were all close to succeed but still failed and were sent back to Rasheed. He did not forgive them for this mistake and both were beaten badly by him.

In all this tough situation of their house and country Laila gave birth to a baby boy (Zalmai). Rasheed payed his full attention to Zalmai and ignored Aziza. His ignorance towards Aziza can be realized as he sent Aziza to an orphanage because he was unable to earn enough to feed all of them. Aziza was sent to the orphanage as she was told that it is a special kind of school she‟ll be studying in. Laila often suffered abuse and was beaten by Taliban as she went out on streets alone to meet Aziza and this was not allowed at for a women at that time to come out alone on the streets without a male member. The end of this part moves toward the entry of Tariq and death of Rasheed. Laila met Tariq outside of her house and Zalmai saw all this and told his father about the whole incident. He was very angry and started beating Laila while Mariam was watching all this. She came forward in favour of Laila and hit on Rasheed‟s head with something hard which caused his death. Later Mariam accepted her mistake and was sent to jail for her husband‟s murder. She took this step so one of her and Laila could live a happy life. She just wanted Laila along with Tariq and her kids can live a peaceful life.

Part 4:

The last part moves towards the beginning of a peaceful life for Laila and Tariq. The family now has migrated to Pakistan. Living a comfortable life here Laila was still a little disturbed mentally, she often use to thought about the sacrifice of Mariam that she didn‟t gave her whole life so that they all could live as servants in someone others land. So she decided to return back to . On her way back to Kabul, she visited “”. The place of Mariam were she was brought up, where she lived her childhood. There she met “Mullah Faizullah‟s” son who gave her a box left for Mariam from Jalil. He left her some property but it was then handed over to Laila. He also asked Mariam to forgive him but it was too late now. After her visit to Herat Laila and her family went back to Kabul.

1.5 Research Questions:

1 What are the new feminist movements?

2. Discuss the global feminism in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007)?

3. Discuss the general feminism in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini?

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1.6 Aims and Objectives of My Research:

The aims and objectives of my research are to highlight the feminism issues running across the world. Either it is really the real feminism the world needs or just left for the personal favor. The analysis is about Khaled Hosseini‟s novel which gives us a bold picture of Afghan women‟s life. That what miserable life a women goes through just for shelter or food. Including Mohja Kahf‟s view on the Arab women and Islam.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

A concept of feminism by :

Laura Bush addresses state of afghan women.

She addressed to the weekly Saturday Radio in June. Where she presented her views on “the brutal oppression of women” in Afghanistan. According to her one of the main terrorist central goal was to suppress women. Women are not allowed to work outside or leave their homes without permission. They don‟t even have access to doctors on their own.

“They must be stopped” she said- The fight against terrorism is also fight for the

Rights of dignity of women. (James and Lisa Getter -November 18, 2001)

Feminist perspective in Ice Candy Man:

Ice Candy Man by Bapsi Sidhwa (1991) mostly known from the perspective of partition of India Sub-Continent. Partition has always been a concerning topic for the writers but most of the work in it is male dominated. All including bravery, chivalry and heroism Etc. while the females are represented as subdued dependent on others. But Ice Candy Man is different from others as it focuses on female protagonist than on the male. The partition story is represented through the eyes of a lame child “Lenny”. The reason for choosing a disable protagonist is to show that how difficult it is for a female writer to give her point of views. Lenny is a young eight year old protagonist of the novel. She is innocent and unaware of the harsh realities of partition. All the partition fights, violence, burning flames and rape incidents use to bother Lenny a lot in the beginning but gradually Lenny got used to it as it became the routine task of everyday. The novel grows around the female characters: Lenny, Shanta Devi (Lenny‟s Ayah), Lenny‟s God Mother and Mother. In most of the novels, sexuality is an act with the desire of the male while at the same time women is represented someone who is weak and helpless in front of the lust of males. This shows the belief of Sidhwa in terms of equality for all genders. Sidhwa very easily have shown that the self-interest of female is more important that of male. It is novel which focuses on women liberation and is a feminist novel. The novel gives a unique insight of women psyche and experiences. Ice Candy Man shows special concern about women‟s issues, specially their

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PAKISTAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS (PJL) Vol. 1 No. 1 (2019) victimization and subduing within the patriarchal society and how this suppression takes a brutal form. The novel highlights and criticizes the discrimination between the genders. (Ishfaq Hussain Bhat-University of Kashmir).

CHAPTER 3

CONCLUSION

My report refers to feminism and the changes that are occurred in it. Feminism is a wide topic that deals with the fight for the rights of women. I have also listed some issues women are facing even in this advanced era. One part of the report belongs to the violence happening with women from the perspective of Khaled Hosseini‟s novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns”. The novel truly describes women and their hard times in the society. It specifies about the women of Afghanistan but it can be related to the other women of the world too. It exemplifies stress over a women in her family and the society both. And to some extent it is all true that a woman is always suppressed by the male either from the family or anywhere out of the house, males have always tried to be dominant and superior to the women. The other point in my report is about the misuse of feminism. The wrong concept of feminism that our society has built. I totally agree and also am in the favor of equity between the genders but women of today‟s time have become extremist to support feminism. From which one of the biggest drawback is that the real ones, the actual who are being suppressed those women are left somewhere behind and unseen from all this feminism happening in our society. The liberal community of Asia and similarly many from the West have caused THE FAILURE OF FEMINISM. Definitely feminism has changed now to something that feminists from the past would never agree to. This major change in feminism is the cause to increase the anti-feminist percentage.

Feminism is undoubtedly and important part of the society. As in many areas of the world women are still being suppressed and harassed for which feminists are needed. To raise their voices and help they get justice but the sad side of the story is feminism is just now left as a publicity stunt, to gain fame. A person itself is a feminist if he or she is supporting other women, understanding her, praising her for the efforts and achievements. A male is also a feminist if he allows his mother, sister, wife and daughter to come and share their ideas, is open to choose profession or can get education according to her desire. You don‟t need to pick up banners and come out on the streets to show the feminist in you. If you have that access to social media or to news channels use it for something real, help and provide justice for the women who are suffering.

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CHAPTER 4:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Bhatt, I. H. (n.d.). Ice Candy Man: A Feminist Perspective. Jammu And Kashmir: IJELLH (International Journal Of English Language, Literature In Humanities).

Feminism Theory by Kahf. (2008). Cambridge Propelled Student's word Reference.

Hosseini, K. (2007). A Thousand Splendid Suns. Great Britain: ATSS Publications LLC.

Islam and Women' s Right (chapter 25). (n.d.). In Quran.

Sidhwa, B. (1991). Ice Candy Man. : Milkweed Editions.

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