The Analysis Of Females' "The Other" Predicament And The Way To Liberation In A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini,an Afghan-American writer became well-known to the world for his debut in The Kite Runner.Since it was published in 2007,his second novel A Thousand Splendid Suns has long occupied the status of the best-selling book in the United States and has aroused widespread concern and reviews from critics both at home and abroad.A Thousand Splendid Suns is based on the social reality of the turbulent wars in Afghanistan.The story spans three generations from the late 1950s to the early 21^th century.Relevant studies at home and abroad have done the study from the perspective of feminism,but these studies are basically conducted from the perspective of post-colonial feminism and eco-feminism.This thesis attempts to analyze the female protagonists'“the other”predicament,the femininity and the betrayal of femininity in the novel with Beauvoir's feminist theory.The ultimate goal of the thesis is to explore that under the influence of“the other”predicament and femininity,women only maintain their immanence and lose their transcendence,which impose impact on women's destiny.What's more,the thesis tries to explore how women get liberation with the help of transcendence.As a pioneer and representative figure of the feminist movement,Beauvoir makes it clear in her masterpiece The Second Sex that she explains the issue of women by perspective of existentialism.In The Second Sex,Beauvoir elaborates on women's“the other”predicament,and she explains that women as“the other”lose the reciprocity of establishing men as“the other”.Beauvoir believes that it is femininity imposed on women by society and customs that confines women to the position of“the other”.Ultimately,it leads to the disappearance of women's transcendence and the retainment of immanence.However,transcendence helps women get liberation,that is,having project towards future and getting independent.This thesis attempts to explore how women can get rid of“the other”predicament and achieve liberation with the help of transcendence and to analyze three female protagonists'“the other”predicament and femininity in A Thousand Splendid Suns.The three female protagonists'specific situations of“the other”in the novel are distinguishing,but the formation of femininity is similar.The internalization of femininity by women eventually leads to the disappearance of transcendence and the retainment of immanence.Nana and Mariam who only retain their immanence end with tragic destiny.Laila,the women,who had received good education and betrayed femininity eventually realized her liberation with the help of transcendence.In a word,only when women get rid of femininity,plan for the future,show their own transcendence and suppress immanence,can they be able to escape from the predicament of“the other”and achieve their own liberation.This thesis attempts to provide a new interpretation and an analysis of the female protagonists in A Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective of“the other”.At the same time,it also tries to provide a useful reference for the understanding of the female protagonists in the A Thousand Splendid Suns and the current predicament and liberation of women.