A Thousand Splendid Suns In Feminism In A Postmodern Perspective

A Thousand Splendid Suns is Khaled Hosseini’s second novel. This novel tells a heartrending story against the backdrop of Afghanistan warfare. This thesis interprets A Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective of Postmodern Feminism. It aims to criticize the social system and social ideology of Afghanistan which are on behalf of male will.This thesis is divided into five parts: The introduction part briefly introduces Khaled Hosseini, the main content of A Thousand Splendid Suns and this novel’s current research status, basic theories of Postmodern Feminism and the structure of this thesis. Chapter one mainly describes Mariam’s initial state of silence. But after a long struggle with Male discourse hegemony, she finally gives out her voice. Based on those, her own discourse system is formed. At last, Mariam gets rid of Male discourse hegemony. As knowledge symbolizes power and Mariam is lack of knowledge, Mariam likes Jalil and Fassou Lage Maulana very much and doesn’t believe in unintelligent Nana. Chapter two mainly analyzes why Laila doesn’t succumb to Male discourse hegemony. Laila and Mariam construct an anti-discourse system between them. The temperaments of Characters constructed by Hosseini, such as Jalil and Jalil’s wives, tend to be diverted to femininity or masculinity because of the mastery of discourse power. Chapter three takes Nana, Mariam, Method Liba, Tariq and Hakeem for example, in order to show the otherness among women and overthrow the binary opposition between female image and male image. The binary opposition centers on male. The conclusion part points out that through the analyses of the deep cultural factors which affect the construction of images in A Thousand Splendid Suns, people can promote the development of feminism.