Like a hundred years later the tapes she made of her story are played back the reader sees the beginnings of oppressive patriarchy rearing its head again. The epilogue completely shatters that view. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Fight Club The Departed Nymphomaniac: Part 1 Dunkirk The Ballad of Buster Scruggs The Pianist Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind The Social Network Beasts of No Nation Monty Python's Life of Brian Monty Python and the Holy Grail Bram Stoker's Dracula Erin Brockovich Mudbound Sense and. When she concludes her story with the protagonist escaping the chauvinistic and sexist society she lives in (a futuristic look at where hardline feminism will end up- in a world dominated by men), so the reader thinks “Yay! It is all over!” Nope. (Believe me I had to keep going to find a good happy bit to finish reading on for the night otherwise I would have a nightmare!!) Atwood never intends for The Handmaid’s Tale to be happy or optimistic. For all the brutality, evil and death there is that underlying buoyancy that makes the reader feel that something has to go right. There is no conclusion in sight in the real Afghanistan, unlike in his book where he actually paints the reader a picture of how he would like Afghanistan to be. I suppose that Hosseini had the added benefit that the war in Afghanistan is still raging. What Hosseini has got right about this book with I think Atwood failed in was making it seem real. He makes them burqas to hide their identities (it is one of the most soul destroying parts of the books when Laila mirrors Mariam’s words when they both admit to feeling safe behind the burqas. The brutality and torment Rasheed puts the women through is horrific. After a series of striking but brutal plot forming events (including the death of Laila’s parents) Laila ends up marrying Rasheed and living with Mariam. Although her mother is a depressive and idolises her sons too much, Laila enjoys a great relationship with her dad, has a great friend Tariq (who becomes a constant reminder of the child casualties of war- he lost his leg as a young child to a mine) and is highly intelligent with a good education. In contrast to Mariam, Laila has a fairly happy upbringing to begin with. After she miscarries a child, Rasheed becomes abusive towards Mariam. Mariam, as an illegitimate child, had a fairly unhappy childhood and when her mother hangs herself her father and his wives marry her off at the age of 15 to Rasheed, a much older shoemaker from Kabul. It is through these two women we get an insight of the female world of Afghanistan. The book has two main characters- Mariam and Laila. A Thousand Splendid Suns is written by Afghan author Khaled Hosseini (followed his debut The Kite Runner which I haven’t read- but I have ordered from Amazon based on how magnificent this book is!)
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