THE MAJOR CHARACTERS’ RESPONSE TOWARDS
REPRESSIVE AND IDEOLOGICAL STRUCTURES THAT
SANCTION VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
DIBSON WILLIANSYAH 044214034
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
i
THE MAJOR CHARACTERS’ RESPONSE TOWARDS
REPRESSIVE AND IDEOLOGICAL STRUCTURES THAT
SANCTION VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
DIBSON WILLIANSYAH 044214034
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
ii
iv
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN
AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Dibson Williansyah
Nomor Mahasiswa : 044214034
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
THE MAJOR CHARACTERS’ RESPONSE TOWARDS REPRESSIVE AND IDEOLOGICAL STRUCTURES THAT SANCTION VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S A THOUSAND SPLENDID
SUNS
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal: 31 Juli 2010
Yang menyatakan
v
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
I honestly declare that the thesis, which I wrote, does not contain the works or parts of the works of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, 31st July, 2010 The writer
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The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms
of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure
in heart. ~Iris Murdoch,
The Red and the Green
When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun,
blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps
me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the
mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by
the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away
from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart. ~Diane
Ackerman
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.
~John F. Kennedy
After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of
motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they
seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles
that change and grow.
~H.G. Wells,
The Wheels of Chance
All creatures who have ever walked have wished that they might fly.
With high wheelers a flesh and blood man can hitch wings to his feet.
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I dedicate this thesis to my parents, big family,
friends, teachers, and my aunty
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my highest gratitude to my lord, my Guidance, Teacher, Brother, and lover: ALLOH S.W.T, who always accompanies and gives me strength and blessing so that I can finish this thesis. “My Lord! You are the one’.
My sincere gratitude goes to Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum., my advisor, for her guidance, patience, kindness, advice and assistance in completing this thesis. My sincere gratitude also goes to J. Harris Hermansyah Setiajid, S.S., M.Hum., my co advisor, for giving me some advices to make my thesis better.
The best and my greatest gratitude, the best gift given by God, my beloved family: my mom, Sri Dwiarti, for her love and patience. “Thanks mum for raising me from I was still a baby alone”. For my father, Sungkono Mukiman. “Rest in peace dad”. My greatest gratitude also goes to my aunty, CH. Sri Supartini, B.A., thanks for the support, and taking care of me and all of my family. To my big sister, Dora Wildayanti A.Ma., my brother, Doni Wilman Saputra, my sister-in law, Santi, and my nephew, Bimo and Abimanyu, thanks for their love and support.
ix
“Garang”, Nanang “Tuyul’, Riski “Highwind”, Bobi “The Walker”, Budi “Mesum”, Itonk “Simbah”, Ronny Nababan, Jati, Soni “juragan”,Siswanto, Corry ‘Panda”, Eka “Genius”, Dita “ndut”,Dita “Kacamata”, Amel “Cici”, Tini “Red Death”, Sisca, Rani, Luthfi,Adisti, Nelly, my biking friends; Ignas, Sarput, Helmi, Bli, and many others that I could not mention one by one down here, for their support, assistance and true-friendship, ”thanks guys, I’m not the last man standing anymore”. Also for my relatives in Tanjung Pinang, Jakarta and others city, thanks for the guidance and support from the beginning to the end of my study.
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CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ... 5
A. Review of Related Studies ... 5
B. Review of Related Theories ... 8
1. Character and Characterization ... 8
2. Violence Against Women ... 10
3. Ideological and Repressive Structures ... 12
4. Factors That Perpetuate Violence Against Women ... 15
C. Theoretical Framework ... 16
A. The Violence Experienced by the Major Characters ... 21
1. Mariam ... 21
2. Laila ... 25
3. Rasheed ... 28
4. Hakim ... 30
B. The Structures that Sanction Violence against Women ... 33
1. Repressive Structures ... 34
a. Government ... 34
b. Law court ... 39
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2. Ideological Structures ... 45
a. Religion ... 46
b. Family ... 50
C. The Characters’ Response to the Structures that Sanction Violence against Women ... 55
1. Mariam’s Response ... 56
2. Laila’s Response ... 64
3. Rasheed’s Response ... 72
4. Hakim’s Response ... 79
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ... 83
xii
ABSTRACT
DIBSON WILLIANSYAH (2010). The Major Characters’ Response Toward Repressive and Ideological Structures That Sanction Violence Against Women in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This study analyzes the novel by Khaled Hossesini entitled A Thousand Splendid Suns. This novel was chosen because it describes a unique society that has not often been discussed in English Literature, namely Afghanistan. The topic was chosen because it relates violence, an important issue, with both men and women. The writer was interested in examining the relation between violence, men and women in Afghan society.
Three problems are formulated to discuss in this study, namely how violence against women is experienced by the major characters in the novel, what are the structures that sanction violence against women, and how the major characters respond to the structures that sanction violence against women.
This study uses Abrams, Murphy, and Little’s theories of character and characterization, Hawke’s theory of violence against women, Althusser’s theory of the repressive and ideological structures, and Heise’s theory of factors that perpetuate violence against women. This study applies library research as the method and Gender Studies as the approach. Gender Studies is chosen because this study analyzes both male and female characters’ experience in their society.
xiii
ABSTRAK
DIBSON WILLIANSYAH (2010).The Major Characters’ Response Toward Repressive and Ideological Structures That Sanction Violence Against Women in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Studi ini menganalisis novel karya Khaled Hosseini yang berjudul A Thousand Splendid Suns. Novel ini dipilih karena menggambarkan suatu masyarakat yang unik, yang belum banyak diangkat dalam bidang sastra Inggris. Topik ini dipilih karena berhubungan dengan kekerasan, sebuah isu penting, dengan pria maupun wanita. Penulis tertarik untuk meneliti hubungan antara kekerasan, pria dan wanita dalam masyarakat Afghanistan.
Tiga permasalahan dibahas dalam studi ini, yaitu bagaimana kekerasan terhadap wanita dialami oleh tokoh-tokoh utama novel ini, struktur-struktur apa saja yang memungkinkan adanya kekerasan terhadap wanita, serta bagaimana respon tokoh-tokoh utama terhadap tersebut.
Studi ini menggunakan teori karakter Abrams, Murphy, dan Little, teori kekerasan terhadap wanita oleh Hawke, teori struktur represif dan ideologis Althusser, serta teori faktor yang meneruskan kekerasan terhadap wanita oleh Heise. Studi ini menggunakan metode studi pustaka dan pendekatan Studi Gender. Pendekatan ini dipilih karena studi ini meneliti baik pengalaman pria maupun wanita dalam masyarakat mereka.
1
A. Background of the Study
Literature always reflects human life. Wellek and Warren in Theory of Literature even regard literature as representing human life.
Literature is the reflection of human feeling toward his life. It is closely related to human experience through which we can learn the image of human beings that is expressed in the written way. It can also be defined as the work of arts which represents human life (1956: 94).
As shown in the quotation above, literature is very close to human life, so human beings can learn a lot from literature. Some chief aspects that can be learned from literature is about human beings and the society. According to Langland in Society in the Novel, the society in a literary work is “not only a concept and a construct in fiction, but also in life” (1984: 6). The society is revealed through human relationships, the characters’ patterned interactions, and their common expectations of one another (Langland, 1984: 6).
A lot of studies have been dedicated to discuss women’s subordination to men or women as the victim of patriarchy, with the focus on feminism. Men are often generalized as the oppressors, while women are the victims. However, real life is comprised of both men and women living and working together. Therefore, it will be better to pay equal attention to the men’s and the women’s side. After closer examination, not all men participate in violence against women, as depicted in the novel. Some men even oppose violence against women. The fact that violence against women still strongly happens although some men do not participate in it becomes an interesting point to study.
In this study, the writer will discuss Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns by analyzing both male and female characters in the novel. The writer seeks to analyze the structures that sanction violence against women and their influence on the characters in the novel, in order to discover how violence against women is maintained. By examining this literary work and this topic, it is hoped that the readers will understand more about the society and human life.
B. Problem Formulation
In order to guide and limit the subjects under discussion, the research questions are formulated as follows:
1. How is violence against women experienced by major characters in Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns?
3. How do the major characters respond to the structures that sanction violence against women?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study aims to answer the questions in the problem formulation. The first objective of the study is to discover how violence against women is experienced or done by the major characters in the novel. The second objective is to identify the structures that sanction violence against women in the novel. Lastly, the third objective is to discover how the major characters respond to the structures that sanction violence against women.
D. Definition of Terms 1. Violence against Women
According to the Innocenti Digest issued by UNICEF in June 2000, The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (in Hawke, 2000: 3).
2. Repressive Structures
external force, such as the law courts, prisons, the police force, and the army (Barry, 2002: 164).
3. Ideological Structures
5
A. Review of Related Studies
This section discusses two studies which discuss Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. The first study is a review of the book by Natasha Walter, which was published in British newspaper The Guardian on May 19, 2007, and the second study is an article by Michiko Kakutani, which was published in The New York Times on May 29, 2007.
In her review entitled “Behind the Veil”, Walter describes A Thousand Splendid Suns as the “female counterpart” of Hosseini’s first novel, The Kite Runner (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/19/featuresreviews. guardianreview21). While The Kite Runner tells about two Afghan boys’ struggle for decent lives in the middle of wars in Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns tells about the lives of two women, Mariam and Laila, in Afghan society.
wife for survival. Laila and Mariam eventually become close friends as fellow victims of Rasheed’s violence.
The women's only hope of affection or solidarity is with one another, and they survive not just physically but also emotionally by putting their faith in each other and in their love for Laila's children (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/19/featuresreviews.guardianr eview21).
Walter praises Hosseini for his carefulness in describing the political and domestic worlds, equating the book to a history lesson as much as a fiction. Besides describing the political background of the story, from Soviet occupation to the Mujahideen that turns from heroes to oppressors with many internal conflicts, Hosseini also describes a society where women are valued only for reproduction. Through the story, he wants to show “how behind every silent burqa in Afghanistan is an individual with a hidden history” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview2 1). Walter concludes that Hosseini does not challenge the usual western view of Afghanistan, but enriches it by adding greater knowledge and understanding to it, and makes the Afghans come alive as loving, feeling individuals.
Meanwhile, in her article entitled “A Woman’s Lot in Kabul, Lower Than a House Cat’s”, Kakutani describes Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns as a novel dealing with the plight of women in Afghanistan, especially the “poor, uneducated women who have to endure the hardships of life, the slights of men, the disdain of society” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/books/29kaku.html).
black-and-white characters” with the simplicity of fairy tale or fable characters, such as “a very villainous villain” and “an almost saintly best friend” who makes big sacrifice for the protagonist (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/books/ 29kaku.html). However, the characters can successfully conjure readers’ sympathy from the circumstances they face, such as unhappy families, abusive marriages, oppressive governments and repressive cultural condition.
Similarly, Kakutani also criticizes some parts of the plot, describing them as “soap-opera-ish events” and “embarrassingly hokey scenes that feel as if they were lifted from a B movie”, such as the quick succession of misfortunes experienced by Mariam and Laila’s tragic turn of fate, but there are also “genuinely heart-wrenching scenes that help redeem the overall story” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/books/29kaku.html).
The study conducted by the writer in this thesis has some similarities and some differences from the previous studies. As the first similarity, this study as well as Natasha Walter and Michiko Kakutani’s articles examine the major characters closely, especially related to the abuse or violence experienced by the characters. As the second similarity, this study as well as the articles above also discusses the setting or the background of the novel, for example related to the oppressive government. On the other hand, this study also differs from the previous studies in some ways. Firstly, Walter and Kakutani’s articles mostly focus on the female major characters, but this study focuses on both the female and the male major characters. Secondly, Walter and Kakutani’s articles are relatively short and only discuss the intrinsic elements such as characters, plot, and setting briefly without any specific theoretical foundation, but this study discusses the characters and setting in detail, based on Althusser’s theory on repressive and ideological structures. Therefore, this study not only discusses what happens in the novel, but also offers a possible explanation about why or how those things happen in the novel.
B. Review of Related Theories 1. Character and Characterization
process in which authors describe the characters in their work, with the aim to “convey to the reader what sort of people [the characters] are” and “make the reader get to know and understand them” (1972: 161).
Still related to the process of characterization, in Approach to Literature, Little gives an explanation on how to study a character. According to Little, a character can be studied from three main factors, namely his or her basic characteristics, his or her appearance from various points of view, and his or her place in the literary work (1981: 93).
First, a character’s basic characteristics can be seen from the physical condition and age of the character; the social relationship, which means the personal relationship with other characters or wider social relationship such as class or occupation; and the mental qualities such as the typical ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Second, a character’s appearance from various points of view includes how the character sees himself or herself, how the other characters see him or her, and how he or she develops, or fails to develop, during the course of the story. Lastly, a character’s place in the work includes the treatment of the author, which can be flat or round, static or dynamic, sympathetic or unsympathetic; his or her position in the story, and his or her relation to the theme, for example whether the character embodies something important that the author wants to say (Little, 1981: 93).
the characters. The characters can only be portrayed deeply in long works, and only one or two characters can be portrayed that way. In short works, characters can only be sketched, and therefore are more static (Little, 1981: 91).
2. Violence against Women
According to the Innocenti Digest issued by UNICEF in June 2000, The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which was declared in 1993, defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (in Hawke, 2000: 3).
According to The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, violence against women includes at least three areas: violence occurring in the family, within the general community, and violence perpetrated or condoned by the State (2000: 3). Violence against women are manifested in four ways: physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse (2000: 3-4).
Sexual abuse includes coerced sex through threats, intimidation or physical force, forcing unwanted sexual acts or forcing sex with others. Psychological abuse includes behaviour that is intended to intimidate and persecute, and takes the form of threats of abandonment or abuse, confinement to the home, surveillance, threats to take away custody of the children, destruction of objects, isolation, verbal aggression and constant humiliation (Hawke, 2000: 3-4).
Economic abuse includes acts such as the denial of funds, refusal to contribute financially, denial of food and basic needs, and controlling access to health care, employment, and so on (Hawke, 2000: 4).
Violence against women occurs in various phases throughout women’s life, from pre-birth, infancy, girlhood, adolescence and adulthood, to elderly. Each phase consists of different types of violence (Hawke, 2000: 3). In the pre-birth phase, the types of violence are sex-selective abortion and the effects of battering during pregnancy on birth outcomes. In infancy phase, the types of violence are female infanticide; physical, sexual and psychological abuse. In girlhood, the types of violence are child marriage; female genital mutilation; physical, sexual and psychological abuse; incest; child prostitution and pornography.
abuse of women with disabilities; and forced pregnancy. Lastly, in the elderly phase, the types of violence are forced “suicide” or homicide of widows for economic reasons; sexual, physical and psychological abuse (Hawke, 2000: 3).
Despite many efforts to end it, violence against women still prevails in every country, regardless of culture, class, education, income, ethnicity and age. One of the reasons is because violence against women is often sanctioned by other institutions in the society, such as cultural or religious institutions. People often misinterpret or even use cultural or religious regulations to justify their violence acts against women.
the reality is that violations against women’s human rights are often sanctioned under the garb of cultural practices and norms, or through misinterpretation of religious tenets. Moreover, when the violation takes place within the home, as is very often the case, the abuse is effectively condoned by the tacit silence and the passivity displayed by the state and the law-enforcing machinery (Hawke, 2000: 2).
Furthermore, as shown in the quote above, the condition is worsened by the state’s lack of concern to end violence against women.
3. Ideological and Repressive Structures
Vincent Leitch in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism describes Louis Althusser as “one of the most influential and distinctive Marxist thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century” (2001: 1476). In 1971, Althusser wrote an essay entitled “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, which is regarded as “one of the most important contributions to ideological theory” (Webster, 1996: 59). This essay relates ideology to “how a society reproduces its basic social relations, thereby ensuring its continuing existence”; therefore, ideology is not voluntary but the result of structural factors in society (Leitch, 2001: 1477).
If a society or state wants to ensure its continuing existence, it must maintain its power and control the citizens. The society or state achieves it through two mechanisms, namely Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) or ideological structures, and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA) or repressive structures (Leitch, 2001: 1477). The terms Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses are used in Webster and Leitch’s books, while the term ideological structures and repressive structures are used in Barry’s book. This study will use the term ideological structures and repressive structures.
Ideological structures are “civil institutions that have legal standing, including churches, schools, the family, courts, political parties, unions, the media, sports, and the arts” (Leitch, 2001: 1477). While Barry describes ideological structures as
As discussed by Webster, ideological structures are “not directly or externally imposed forms of ideological coercion, but arise from within society” (1996: 59). They work by seeming to secure the internal consent of its citizens. The form of ideological structures are complex, numerous, and different in every society. As shown in Leitch and Barry’s definition above, the ideological structures include “areas such as religion, education and culture, the media or communications, the various conventions of family life” (Webster, 1996: 59).
Meanwhile, repressive structures are the opposite of ideological structures. They are the institutions which maintain state power and operate by external force, such as the law courts, prisons, the police force, and the army (Barry, 2002: 164). Webster defines repressive structures as
ways in which the state controls people directly through established and institutionalized means such as the police, the armed forces, the government administration, the penal system, and so on (1996: 59).
However, despite operating by force, these structures are viewed as less powerful than the ideological structures. Althusser says that “dominant social order would not survive if it relied only on force” (Leitch, 2001: 1477).
by means of explicit coercion or force but through implicit consent realized in accepted ‘practices’” (2001: 1477).
Secondly, the ideological structures are “far more effective” than coercion in the repressive structures, because “people willingly participate in their own subordination and the maintenance of the status quo” (Webster, 1996: 59-60). Thirdly, unlike the repressive structures, the ideological structures are not unified. Lastly, the ideological structures operate primarily in the private sphere, while repressive structures operate in the public sphere (Leitch, 2001: 1477).
4. Factors that Perpetuate Violence against Women
According to L. L. Heise in Violence against Women. The Hidden Health Burden, there are many factors that perpetuate domestic violence. They can be classified into four main categories, namely cultural, economic, legal, and political factors (Heise, 1994: 46).
Some examples of cultural factors are gender-specific socialization, cultural definitions of appropriate sex roles, expectations of roles within relationships, belief in the inherent superiority of males, values that give men proprietary rights over women and girls, notion of the family as the private sphere and under male control, customs of marriage for example bride price or dowry, and acceptability of violence as a means to resolve conflict (Heise, 1994: 46).
divorce or widowhood, limited access to employment in formal and informal sectors, limited access to education and training for women (Heise, 1994: 46).
Some examples of legal factors are lesser legal status of women either by written law and/or by practice, laws regarding divorce, child custody, maintenance and inheritance, legal definitions of rape and domestic abuse, low levels of legal literacy among women, insensitive treatment of women and girls by police and judiciary (Heise, 1994: 46).
Some examples of political factors are under-representation of women in power, politics, the media and in the legal and medical professions, domestic violence that are not taken seriously, notions of family being private and beyond control of the state, risk of challenge to status quo/religious laws, limited organization of women as a political force, and limited participation of women in organized political system (Heise, 1994: 46).
C. Theoretical Framework
Secondly, Althusser’s theory of the repressive and ideological structures and Hawke’s theory of violence against women are used to answer the second problem about the structures that sanction violence against women in the novel. Althusser’s theory is used to identify the structures that sanction violence against women, while Hawke’s theory is used to identify the forms of violence.
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A. Object of the Study
The object of this study is a novel entitled A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, which was first released on May, 22 2007. It is Hosseini’s second novel, following his debut novel entitled The Kite Runner in 2003. The edition used in this study was published by Riverhead Books in 2007. It consists of 443 pages, which are divided into four parts. The first part focuses on one of the main characters Mariam, the second and fourth parts focus on the other main character, Laila, and the third part focuses on both Mariam and Laila.
This novel is set in two cities in Afghanistan, namely Kabul and Heart, in the period of three decades since the Soviet invasion era in the 1970s, the Taliban era, to the post-Taliban reconstruction era in the 2000s. The novel is about two women from different backgrounds, Mariam and Laila. Mariam is an illegitimate child who lives in poverty with her mother in a small village outside Herat. After her mother dies, her father marries her off to a shoemaker named Rasheed in Kabul. Rasheed forces Mariam to obey him and often does violence to her. Laila is a daughter of a modern, intellectual family in Kabul. Her father is a teacher who encourages her to get the highest education. Laila also has a boyfriend named Tariq. Neither her father nor her boyfriend ever does violence to her.
child. Laila is forced to receive Rasheed’s proposal as his second wife just to survive. First Laila and Mariam are hostile to each other, but they later become very close. As victims of Rasheed’s violence, they support each other and share their love to Laila’s children. Finally, Mariam kills Rasheed to save her and Laila’s life. She takes the blame and is executed by the Taliban, giving Laila the chance to escape and continues her life with Tariq and her children. They rebuild Afghanistan after the end of Taliban regime by rebuilding the orphanage and teaching the orphans there.
Since the time it was released, the novel has been very popular. It reached the third position in Time Magazine’s Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, where it was praised as a “dense, rich, pressure-packed guide to enduring the unendurable” (http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_168624 4_1691855,00.html). It was also praised in various reviews in the media, such as The Guardian and New York Times. Michiko Kakutani in New York Times review describes the novel as “stirring” with its portrayal of daily life in Afghanistan (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/books/29kaku.html). While Natasha Walter in The Guardian review states that everyone who admires Hosseini’s debut novel “should be more than satisfied with this follow-up” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/ books/2007/may/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview21).
B. Approach of the Study
to class, race, ethnicity and place (Healey, 2003: 7). While gender is the social and cultural meanings attached to the biological differences between men and women (Butler in Leitch, 2001: 2485-2491).
The field of gender studies emerged from many different areas of study, such as sociology, psychology, and feminism. As the scope of gender studies, according to Goodman in her book Approaching Literature: Literature and Gender, gender studies is concerned with the representation, rights, and status of women and men (1996: xi).
This approach is chosen because this study analyzes both male and female characters’ experience based on the social and cultural construction in their society. Thus, their biological sex helps define their experience and their roles in society, either as a man or as a woman.
C. Method of the Study
structures by Louis Althusser, and theories of factors that perpetuate violence against women by L.L. Heise.
Several steps are taken to conduct this study. The first step is to read the work discussed in this study, namely Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. The second step is to find the problems and formulate them in the problem formulation. The problem formulation contains three questions, namely questions about the depiction of the major characters in the novel, the structures that sanction violence against women in the novel, and how the major characters respond to violence against women. The third step is to find the related studies
21
A. The Depiction of Major Characters
This part discusses how the major characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns experience or do violence against women. There are four major characters in this novel. The female characters are Mariam and Laila, while the male characters are Rasheed and Hakim. This part discusses whether the female characters experience any violence against women and whether the male characters practice any violence against women. Mariam experiences a lot of violence against women all her life. She has been suffering and has been indoctrinated about women’s inferior position since her birth. Laila experiences violence against women in part of her adolescence and adulthood. She has a happy childhood in a modern family, but she suffers violence from her husband after her marriage. Rasheed does a lot of violence against women all his life. He regards women as inferior and thus he feels he deserves to treat them violently. Hakim never does any violence against women. He regards women as equal to men, so he always respects women’s basic rights. The detailed discussion is presented below.
1. Mariam
people. She never got any formal education, except religion education from Mullah Faizullah, the village’s elderly Koran tutor.
Mariam’s physical appearance is mediocre. Her facial features, such as “archless, unshapely eyebrows”, “flat hair”, and eyes which are “set so closely together”, are not very good-looking, as described below.
Her skin was coarse and had a dull, spotty appearance. She thought her brow too wide, the chin too narrow, the lips too thin. The overall impression was of a long face, a triangular face, a bit houndlike (2007: 57).
Despite those unattractive features, overall Mariam describes her face as “not pretty, but somehow, not unpleasant to look at either” (2007: 57).
Mariam experiences many instances of violence throughout her life, which corresponds to Hawke’s theory on various phases of violence in women’s life, from pre-birth, infancy, girlhood, adolescence and adulthood, to elderly (2000: 3). In the pre-birth phase, she was abandoned by her father. As a result, she and her mother must endure poverty and isolation, because unmarried women with a child are condemned by the society. They lived in a small, cockroach-infested shack, had very few clothes and very few material possessions.
negative things about their life. She said that they were just “a pokeroot” and “a mugwort” to Jalil and his wives (2007: 8). Nana also taught Mariam that it was their destiny as women to be victimized by men, like she had experienced.
This isolation, poverty, constant humiliation and verbal aggression make Mariam easily intimidated and easily feel guilty. For example, when Nana told Mariam, who was still very young, about her misery when giving birth to Mariam, Mariam only apologized repeatedly even though it was not really her fault. She did not think to protest against her mother for blaming her for her birth, which was something out of her control.
“Almost two days you made me lay on that cold, hard floor. I didn’t eat or sleep, all I did was push and pray that you would come out.”
“I’m sorry, Nana.”
“I cut the cord between us myself. That’s why I had a knife.” “I’m sorry” (2007: 11-12).
Still in the adolescence phase, when Mariam was fifteen years old, Nana committed suicide because Mariam went to visit Jalil’s house. After Nana’s death, Mariam was forced to marry by her father and his legitimate wives. She was married off against her wish to Rasheed, a forty-five-year-old man, and taken to Kabul, which was six hundreds and fifty kilometers away from her hometown.
Throughout the late adolescence, adulthood, and elderly phases, Mariam suffered many hardships as Rasheed’s wife. She was forced not to go alone or talk to their neighbors and she was forced to wear burqa, which endangered her physically when she walked, as shown in the quote below.
peripheral vision was unnerving, and she did not like the suffocating way the pleated cloth kept pressing against her mouth (2007: 77).
Because Rasheed wanted a son, he often forced her to have sex with him. He also forced her to accept his taking Laila as his second wife against her wish. Despite Mariam’s efforts to please him, she was punched, beaten, slapped, kicked, and forced to chew pebbles. Furthermore, she felt scared of Rasheed’s volatile mood and threats of violence.
But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid. And Mariam was afraid. She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies and sometimes not (2007: 105).
She also encountered verbal aggression from Rasheed. He often mocked her as stupid in front of Laila, his second wife. For instance, when she asked him about communism, he replied by saying “You know nothing, do you? You’re like a child. Your brain is empty. There is no information in it” (2007: 104). She was deprived of her basic needs and food. In the economy crisis, Rasheed gave very little food to her, because he prioritized his son. Also, after he caught her and Laila trying to run away, he locked Mariam in a shed and starved her.
the police, and then sent home. In the elderly phase, Mariam killed Rasheed in self defense. If she did not kill him, he would kill her and Laila.
If she let him walk now, how long before he fetched the key from his pocket and went for that gun of his upstairs in the room where he'd locked Zalmai? Had Mariam been certain that he would be satisfied with shooting only her, that there was a chance he would spare Laila, she might have dropped the shovel. But in Rasheed's eyes she saw murder for them both. And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raised it as high as she could (2007: 374).
She admitted her act to the Taliban government and was sentenced to death by the Taliban government without any fair trial process.
2. Laila
Laila is also the protagonist in this novel. She was born in Kabul from an ethnic Tajik family. Her father, Hakim, was a university graduate and a former high school teacher. Her mother, Fariba, was a housewife. Her two elder brothers went to war when she was very young and got killed in the war.
Laila had attractive physical appearance. At the age of sixteen, she was described as having “large green eyes, smooth brow, high cheekbones and the appealing, thick eyebrows” (2007: 237-238). She had shoulder-length, blonde curly hair and attractive facial features, as described by her mother below.
Mammy always told Laila that she had inherited her hair color—as well as her thick-lashed, turquoise green eyes, her dimpled cheeks, her high cheekbones, and the pout of her lower lip, which Mammy shared—from her great-grandmother, Mammy’s grandmother (2007: 117).
Laila had a happy childhood and early adolescence with her family. Her family had a modern view and all the family members were treated equally. There was no violence in her family, as shown in Laila’s words to Mariam, “I wasn’t raised in a household where people did things like that” (2007: 265). Since her birth, she had been given love and attention by her family, as described below.
They smiled at each other when they heard her voice for the first time, a cry that started like the mewl of a cat and exploded in to a healthy, full-throated yowl. Noor said her eyes were like gemstones. Ahmad, who was the most religious member of the family, sang the azan in his baby sister’s ear and blew in her face three times (2007: 109).
Laila was given the best education. Her parents sent her to school, and her father helped her to study and do homework everyday. Her father always prioritized her education above everything. Since Laila was very young, he had always said that education was very important not only for men but also for women. As a result, Laila grew up as a confident and determined person. For example, she always did her best and got the best achievement at school.
But Laila didn’t tell Hasina that Babi had said these things, or how glad she was to have a father like him, or how proud she was of his regard for her, or how determined she was to pursue her education just as he had his. For the last two years, Laila had received the awal numra certificate, given yearly to the top-ranked student in each grade (2007: 123).
and Tariq started a relationship. They had equal position and there was no violence in their relationship.
In her adolescence, Laila suffered from hardships because of the civil war between ethnic groups under the Mujahideen government. The dangerous condition forced her to stay at home and not go to school, while all around her, houses are destroyed, people are shot, attacked, raped by the warlords, or killed in the rocket attacks. She was separated from Tariq, who fled with his own family. Her best friend and her parents were killed in the rocket attacks. She was also wounded in the attack that killed her parents.
In her late adolescence and adulthood, she suffered hardships as Rasheed’s wife. Rasheed took her as his second wife after she lost her parents and her house. Despite her reluctance, she had no other choice to preserve her life. Like Mariam, she was forbidden to go alone or talk to their neighbors. She was forced to have sex with him although she did not want to. After she tried to escape, she was taunted, punched, beaten, slapped, or kicked everyday. He locked her and Aziza, her daughter, in a room without food and toilet for days. He refused to provide basic necessities, including food. In the financial crisis, he put Aziza in the orphanage to cut down costs, and he refused to accompany Laila to visit Aziza.
must endure so much pain when giving birth because she was operated without anesthetics in a hospital in very bad condition. Whenever she got caught trying to visit her own daughter in the orphanage, she was beaten badly by the police.
In the end of the story, Laila was reunited with Tariq. She could escape from Rasheed with Mariam’s sacrifice. She saw the Taliban government’s defeat and witnessed the new democratic government regime. She even participated in Afghanistan’s recovery process by being a teacher in the orphanage school.
3. Rasheed
Rasheed is an antagonist in this story. He was an ethnic Pashtun from Kandahar, but he lived in Kabul. He worked as a shoemaker and he had his own shop. Presumably he had fairly good income, since he had a two-story house in Kabul. His house had a yard, an outhouse, a well, a toolshed, a hallway, a living room downstairs, a kitchen, and a living room, although they were all in unkempt and messy condition (2007: 62).
His physical appearance is not very attractive. Mariam described him as “a tall man, thick-bellied and broad-shouldered” with “slow, heavy-footed movement” (2007: 55-56). She also described his facial features below.
the big, square, ruddy face; the hooked nose; the flushed cheeks that gave the impression of sly cheerfulness; the watery, bloodshot eyes; the crowded teeth, the front two pushed together like a gabled roof; the impossibly low hairline, barely two finger widths above the bushy eyebrows; the wall of thick, coarse, salt-and-pepper hair (2007: 57).
but he was unable to explain about it when Mariam asked him, showing that he did not really know about communism. He even used the word “Marxist” wrongly. Karl Marx was the name of the person, and Marxist was the term to describe people, government, or works using Marx’s principle. Thus, Rasheed should have said “believed in Karl Marx”.
“You don’t know what a communist is? Such a simple thing. Everyone knows. It’s common knowledge. You don’t… Bah. I don’t know why I’m surprised.” Then he crossed his ankles on the table and mumbled that it was someone who believed in Karl Marxist (2007: 104).
Rasheed was forty-five years old when he married fifteen-year-old Mariam. His first wife had died and their only son had died drowned in a lake near their house. It was implied that his son drowned because Rasheed was too drunk to watch his son or hear his son shout, as told by Laila’s neighbor.
“Did you know that he used to drink sharab back then, that he was crying drunk that day? It’s true. Crying drunk, is what I heard. And that was midmorning. By noon, he had passed out on a lounge chair. You could have fired the noon cannon next to his ear and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. ... You can imagine the rest. The boy went into the water unnoticed. They spotted him a while later, floating facedown” (2007: 241-242).
similar acts. He threatened to kill them if they disobeyed him or tried to escape. He often did basic needs such as food and clothes for his wives and daughter.
As another proof, he only wanted to have a son and he hated to have a daughter. When Mariam was pregnant for the first time, he searched for a name for his unborn baby, but he said he did not care whatever name Mariam would give if the baby was a girl. He built a crib and bought clothes for a boy although he did not yet know their baby’s sex. He would not buy Aziza, Laila’s daughter, anything, but he bought clothes, toys, and many other things for Zalmai, their son. When they had financial crisis, he was unwilling to feed Aziza and gave the food to Zalmai instead. Eventually, he forced Laila to put Aziza in the orphanage and refused to accompany her to visit Aziza there.
His bigotry was also shown in his discrepancy of principles for himself as a man and for women. He forced his wives to wear burqa and forbade them to talk to men with the reason of maintaining their honor. He also condemned men who allowed their wives to show their feet to him as “spoiling their own nang and namoos, their honor and pride” (2007: 75), even if the reason was to fit the measurement for shoes. However, he consumed pornographic magazines showing naked women for his pleasure. He forbade his wives from working, but he did not support them well enough financially.
4. Hakim
children, Ahmad, Noor, and Laila. His sons Ahmad and Noor went to war against Soviet and were killed there, so he only had his youngest daughter, Laila.
Physically, Hakim was described by Laila as “a small man, with narrow shoulders and slim, delicate hands, almost like a woman’s” and she described his smile as a “close-lipped, companionable smile” (2007: 117). On the other hand, Rasheed said that Hakim “look like a mouse” (2007: 86).
Hakim was an intelligent man. He had a university education in Kabul University and had worked as a high school teacher in their area. As a teacher, he was highly competent and respected because he did not beat his students like other teachers. Instead, he approached his students with respect, as described by his wife: “His students loved him. And not only because he wouldn’t beat them with rulers, like other teachers did. They respected him, you see, because he respected them” (2007: 128). Not only was he skilled in his job, but he also had a lot of knowledge about various subjects, such as literature, science, history, and astronomy, as described by Laila below.
Babi knew most of Rumi’s and Hafez’s ghazals by heart. He could speak at length about the struggle between Britain and czarist Russia over Afghanistan. He knew the difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite, and could tell you that the distance between the earth and the sun was the same as going from Kabul to Ghazni one and a half million times (2007: 117).
I know you’re still young, but I want you to understand and learn this now, he said. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You’re a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You can be anything you want, Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated, Laila. No chance (2007: 123).
Hakim supported Laila’s education by taking her to school every morning on his bike before going to work and helping her with her homework everyday in order to “keep Laila a step or two ahead of her class” (2007: 144). When the war between factions under Mujahideen government grew more dangerous and Laila could no longer go to school, Hakim tutored Laila himself everyday.
He took over the teaching duties himself. Laila went into his study every day after sundown, and, as Hekmatyar launched his rockets at Massoud from the southern outskirts of the city, Babi and she discussed the ghazals of Hafez and the works of the beloved Afghan poet Ustald Khalilullah Khalili. Babi taught her to derive the quadratic equation, showed her how to factor polynomials and plot parametric curves (2007: 189).
In his family and society, Hakim was an egalitarian man, who did not discriminate people based on their ethnicity or gender. Hakim was from the Tajik minority ethnic, but he lived peacefully among people from Pashtun majority ethnic. To him, the important thing was that they were all Afghanistan people.
To me, it’s nonsense—and dangerous nonsense at that—all this talk of I’m Tajik and you’re Pashtun and he’s Hazara and she’s Uzbek. We’re all Afghans, and that’s all that should matter (2007: 139).
“Your mother, she used to be adventurous then, and…so alive. She was just about the liveliest, happiest person I’d ever met.” He smiled at the memory. “She had this laugh. I swear it’s why I married her, Laila, for that laugh. It bulldozed you. You stood no chance against it” (2007: 158). At home, household chores are shared equally between himself, his wife and daughter. He was willing to do tasks such as taking Laila to school, helping her with homework, cooking and mending broken things. After their sons died in the war and his wife suffered from depression, he even did many of the household chores together with Laila. He did not regard the chores as a woman’s task and forced Laila to do it. He never restricted Laila’s freedom to do childhood activities such as playing on the street, going with her friends, and watching movies at the cinema. He listened to Laila’s opinions and never forced her to do anything she did not want to. For example, when he talked about fleeing abroad and opening an Afghan restaurant to earn a living, he would not force her to help in the restaurant. “And you, you would continue going to school, of course. You know how I feel about that. That would be our absolute top priority, to get you a good education, high school then college. But in your free time, if you wanted to, you could help out, take orders, fill water pitchers, that sort of thing” (2007: 160).
Even after his wife suffered from depression, he endured her rudeness, reproaches, and bad treatment patiently. He never treated his wife or Laila badly. As a proof, Laila said as an adult, “I wasn’t raised in a household where people did things like that” (2007: 265), referring to Rasheed’s act of hitting Mariam.
B. The Structures that Sanction Violence against Women
discusses the structures in the novel that sanction violence against women. To sanction means to support, facilitate, or enable violence against women to occur, including making it easier for the male characters to do violence against women and making it more difficult for the female characters to avoid violence against them. The structures that sanction violence against women are divided into two groups, repressive structures and ideological structures. Repressive structures depicted in this novel include the government, the police, and law court, while ideological structures depicted in this novel include religion and family. The detailed discussion about each structure is presented below.
1. Repressive Structures
Repressive structures, or repressive state apparatus, are the institutions which maintain state power and operate by external force (Barry, 2002: 164), or “ways in which the state controls people directly through established and institutionalized means” (Webster, 1996: 59). Some repressive structures depicted in A Thousand Splendid Suns are the government, the police, and law court.
a. Government
Government is defined in Encyclopaedia Britannica as "the political system by which a country or community is administered and regulated" (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/240105/government). As stated by Althusser, government is one of the repressive structures, namely the institutions which operate by external force to maintain power and control citizens.
against women sanctioned by the government is included in the area of “violence perpetrated or condoned by the State” (Hawke, 2000: 3), and the violence against women sanctioned by the government in this novel is manifested in three ways, namely physical, psychological, and economic violence.
First, the government sanctions physical violence by forbidding women to travel without male relative, forbidding women to leave her abusive family, and failing to punish physical violence against women.
The government forbids women to travel without male relative although the country is under emergency condition due to civil war. Houses are bombarded with gunshots and rocket attacks. The warlords are "breaking in and shooting entire families", abducting civilians, raping girls, and “killing indiscriminately” (2007: 188). Many women lose their husbands, sons, and male relatives, while their living male relatives are busy saving their own lives. Under such condition, forcing women to stay home makes them potential victims of assault, murder, and rape. The regulation is described below.
The Supreme Court under Rabbani was filled now with hard-liner mullahs who did away with the communist-era decrees that empowered women and instead passed rulings based on Shari'a, strict Islamic laws that ordered women to cover, forbade their travel without a male relative, punished adultery with stoning (2007: 277).
starvation, they try to run away. They are arrested and warned that the government considers it a crime for a woman to run away. By forcing Mariam and Laila to stay at home, the government thus forces them to endure the abuse.
"You do realize, hamshira, that it is a crime for a woman to run away. We see a lot of it. Women traveling alone, claiming their husbands have died. Sometimes they're telling the truth, most times not. You can be imprisoned for running away, I assume you understand that, nay?" (2007: 283)
The government fails to punish violence against women, despite the government’s responsibility to guarantee its citizens’ basic human rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, and freedom from pain. Mariam and Laila experience so much violence which endangers their lives. Rasheed once locks them for days without food or water. He knocks out Mariam’s front teeth “when she'd accidentally dropped Zalmai” (2007: 314). He also delivers "a kick to the flank that would have Laila pissing blood for days" (2007: 290) and shoves the barrel of his gun into Laila’s mouth (2007: 319). Also, in the conflict between ethnic groups, the warlords fight against each other by attacking civilians, including raping women from other ethnic groups. It is described in the quote below.
"They found three bodies in a house in Karteh-Seh last week," he said. "Did you hear? Sisters. All three raped. Their throats slashed. Someone had bitten the rings off their fingers. You could tell, they had teeth marks-" (2007: 186)
In both cases, there are enough proofs of violence for the government to take action and stop it. Yet the government stays passive, thus encouraging Rasheed and the warlords to continue their acts freely without any fear of punishment.
her family for any reason, failing to punish violence against women, and treating women as taboo object.
Beside physical violence, forbidding women to travel without male relative and forbidding women to leave her family for any reason also sanction psychological violence, because these regulations entail intimidation, confinement to the home, and isolation of women, which Hawke describes as behaviors that comprise psychological violence (Hawke, 2000: 3-4). This prohibition forces Laila to stop going to school. She also feels stressed because people are killed all around her, but she cannot know what actually happens outside her house.
It wasn't so much the whistling itself, Laila thought later, but the seconds between the start of it and impact. The brief and interminable time of feeling suspended. The not knowing. The waiting. Like a defendant about to hear the verdict (2007: 184).
The government’s failure to punish violence against women also sanctions psychological violence, because it entails intimidation, threats of abuse, isolation and confinement to the home, which Hawke describes as behaviors that comprise psychological violence (2000: 3-4). As the government allows violence against women to continue, Mariam lives in perpetual fear, isolation, and humiliation. She and Laila cannot run away, not only because of the government’s prohibition, but also because of Rasheed’s threat to kill them if they try to run away.
And Mariam was afraid. She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies and sometimes not (2007: 105).
You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten.
Cosmetics are forbidden. Jewelry is forbidden.
You will not wear charming clothes. You will not speak unless spoken to. You will not make eye contact with men.
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten (2007: 297). When Laila loses her parents in an explosion and when Mariam loses her mother and is forced into marriage, they cannot ask for help. Later, when they experience violence at home, they cannot ask for help. These regulations make them isolated, helpless and threatened because of their vulnerable position and their lack of power to defend themselves.
Third, the government sanctions economic violence by banning women from health care, education, and work. Under Taliban regime, the Afghanistan government does not provide any health facility for women. All hospitals in the country are changed into men's hospitals, except one women’s hospital with only one doctor and without any clean water, oxygen, medications, and electricity. Other hospitals refuse to treat female patients even in emergency situation.
"What are we supposed to do?" "Go to Rabia Balkhi," the guard said.
A young woman pushed forward, said she had already been there. They had no clean water, she said, no oxygen, no medications, no electricity. "There is nothing there."
"That's where you go," the guard said (2007: 305).
beings. Without adequate health care, a person will suffer and become powerless. Based on Hawke’s theory, controlling access to health care is included in economic violence (2000: 4).
The government bans women from education and work, as shown in this quote: "Girls are forbidden from attending school. All schools for girls will be closed immediately. Women are forbidden from working" (2007: 297). This regulation makes it impossible for women to get employment in any sectors, thus forcing them to be dependent on men for their living. It also makes women unable to survive if anything happens to their husband or male relative. They would not have the skill or income to stay alive. Furthermore, if women are not educated, they are easily intimidated and deprived of their rights.
b. Law court
The law court is defined as "a person or body of persons having judicial authority to hear and resolve disputes in civil, criminal, ecclesiastical, or military cases" (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/140637/court). The law court is a repressive structure. While the government creates regulations and laws, the law court is as the authorized body to resolve disputes based on those regulations and laws, whether among citizens or between the citizens and the government.
by the law court in this novel is manifested in three ways, namely physical, sexual, and psychological violence.
First, the law court sanctions physical violence by giving heavy punishment and violating presumption of innocence for women suspects.
The law court gives heavy punishment for women crime offenders, which is not proportional to their crime. Adultery is punished with stoning, which is described in this quote: “If you are found guilty of adultery, you will be stoned to death” (2007: 297). It is very easy for men to accuse their wife of committing adultery with little or fabricated proof. When it happens, the woman will be stoned, which is included as physical violence. When Laila goes to visit her daughter at the orphanage, she frequently gets caught by the Taliban. Despite her minor offense, she is given heavy punishments, “a tongue-lashing or a single kick to the rear, a shove in the back”, and beaten with "assortments of wooden clubs, fresh tree branches, short whips, slaps, often fists” (2007: 343).
extent and reason of her crime. As another example, Mariam kills Rasheed to defend herself, Laila, and Laila's small children, Aziza and Zalmai.
If she let him walk now, how long before he fetched the key from his pocket and went for that gun of his upstairs in the room where he'd locked Zalmai? Had Mariam been certain that he would be satisfied with shooting only her, that there was a chance he would spare Laila, she might have dropped the shovel. But in Rasheed's eyes she saw murder for them both. And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raised it as high as she could, arching it so it touched the small of her back (2007: 374).
Mariam's act is not premeditated and done in self defense. However, the law court does not provide any attorney or take evidences such as autopsy result or testimonies from forensic experts. In her trial, "there was no legal council, no public hearing, no cross-examining of evidence, no appeals" (2007: 389). The law court directly convicts Mariam of murder and sentences her with death punishment in "less than fifteen minutes" (2007: 390). Mariam tries to explain the reason of her act, but the law court ignores her.
"I admit to what I did, brother," Mariam said. "But, if I hadn't, he would have killed her. He was strangling her."
"So you say. But, then, women swear to all sorts of things all the time" (2007: 390).
When they were caught and sent back, the mullah's son was flogged before he repented and said that Naghma had seduced him with her feminine charms. She'd cast a spell on him, he said. He promised he would rededicate himself to the study of the Koran. The mullah's son was freed. Naghma was sentenced to five years (2007: 388).
Thirdly, the law court also sanctions psychological violence by applying double standard between men and women. The law court believes in testimonies from men but disregards testimonies from women without conducting the proper procedures. For example, Rasheed threatens Laila in the following quote.
"If the fancy should strike me--and I'm not saying it will, but it could, it could--I would be within my rights to give Aziza away. How would you like that? Or I could go to the Taliban one day, just walk in and say that I have my suspicions about you. That's all it would take. Whose word do you think they would believe? What do you think they'd do to you?" (2007: 302)
Rasheed threatens to take away the custody of their daughter, Aziza. He can easily go to the law court and give Aziza away. The law court will believe his word rather than Laila's word as Aziza's biological mother. Rasheed also threatens to report Laila to the Taliban with the accusation of adultery. As reflected in his rhetorical question “Whose word do you think they would believe?”, he is confident that when the case is judged in the law court, the law court will believe his testimony rather than Laila's testimony. Despite the lack of evidence, the law court will still believe him. Laila will be punished cruelly as an adulterer, as reflected in Rasheed's other rhetorical question "What do you think they'd do to you?" (2007: 302). He also threatens to kill both of his wives, Mariam and Laila.
Murder is clearly a violation of the law. However, Rasheed is so confident that if he murdered his wives, he would not be held accountable for his crime. The law court would believe his word that Mariam and Laila deserve to be murdered. Those kinds of threat bring intimidation and threatened feeling to Mariam and Laila, which are included as psychological violence (Hawke, 2000: 3).
c. Police
The police is defined as "body of officers representing the civil authority of government" which “are responsible for maintaining public order and safety, enforcing the law, and preventing, detecting, and investigating criminal activities” (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/467289/police). The police's task is to enforce laws and regulations made by the government in civilian life and to punish civilians who do not obey those laws and governments. The police is also a repressive structure.
In A Thousand Splendid Suns, the police is also depicted as a structure that sanctions violence against women. Based on Hawke’s theory, the violence against women sanctioned by the police is also included in the area of violence perpetrated or condoned by the State, and the violence against women sanctioned by the police in this novel is manifested in two ways, namely physical and psychological violence.
The police inflicts physical punishment on women suspects or criminals, although the police officers are clearly stronger, better armed, and have more authority than women such as Laila and Mariam. Whenever the police officers catch Laila on the way to visit her daughter in the orphanage, they always bully her and kick, whip, or beat her using heavy objects as described below.
Crossing the street, she was spotted by the Taliban and riddled with questions--What is your name? Where are you going? Why are you alone? Where is your mahram? --before she was sent home. If she was lucky, she was given a tongue-lashing or a single kick to the rear, a shove in the back. Other times, she met with assortments of wooden clubs, fresh tree branches, short whips, slaps, often fists (2007: 343).
A police officer threatens her, "I see you again, I'll beat you until your mother's milk leaks out of your bones" (2007: 343). It is not the police's right but the law court's right to punish the criminal, except in emergency to maintain order and other citizens' safety. In Laila's case, she clearly does not endanger anyone, so the police’s violent behavior is without valid ground.
Secondly, the police sanctions psychological violence by applying double standard between men and women. When women do a crime, the police are very strict in upholding the law, but when men do a crime, the police are lenient, especially when the victims are women or children. Laila and Mariam are caught and brought to police station at Torabaz Khan Intersection after they try to ride a bus without a male relative. The policeman insists on sending them to Rasheed despite Laila's plea, with the reason that law and order must be maintained.
"Let us go, Officer…" She read the name on his lapel tag. "Officer Rahman. Honor the meaning of your name and show compassion. What does it matter to you to let a mere two women go? What's the harm in releasing us? We are not criminals."
