A Thousand Splendid Suns: Week 2, Post A

VOCAB:

Stark: (195). Having few or no ornaments, bare.

Mulberries: (205) Any of a genus (Morus of the family Moraceae, the mulberry family) of trees with an edible usually purple multiple fruit that is an aggregate of juicy one-seeded drupes.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

"You, on the other hand, would be a Benz. A brand-new, first-class, shiny Benz" (199). This is a metaphor, because they talk about someone as if they are an animal. She compares the girl to a car without using like or as.

"Laila's given birth to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar" (213). This is a irony because Hekmatyar was a warlord who killed many, many people, and the baby isn't even a year old and does nothing wrong. Rasheed just gets mad when anything loud happens.

"He threw Mariam one last, murderous stare, and gave the girl a shove in the back on the way back" (216). This is personification because the stare cannot be murderous, it makes it sound more cruel, and harsher for Mariam.

QUOTE

"The girl set the cup on the floor and put her hands out for the shirts, palms up. 'I'm sorry about all this,' she croaked. 'You should be,' Mariam said. 'You should be sorry." (203).

This quote to me....was very tough. We have seen Mariam since she was just a little girl, growing up and being shoved into someone else's life. She should know how hard it is for "the girl" or Laila, to deal with this. For me, this was the toughest part to take in the whole book. I just wanted to yell at Mariam. She had just given a HUGE lecture to Laila about how she's not her slave, even though Laila just tries to help out. I thought this would be a turning point for Mariam. But apparently not. Not yet.

A theme is think before you act, since people (especially Rasheed and Mariam) are making irrational choices based on their moods, and ought to think first.