Characters
Mariam’s mother, bitter and resigned, often reminds her daughter she’s a harami (illegitimate).
Who is Nana?
The event that kills Laila’s parents.
What is a rocket strike?
Rasheed forces Mariam and Laila to wear this.
What is a burqa?
The bond between Mariam and Laila represents this theme.
What is female solidarity?
The novel is divided into this many parts.
Four.
This character becomes Mariam’s first real friend, defying Rasheed’s control.
Who is Laila?
The event that kills Laila’s parents.
What is a shovel?
This recurring object represents Rasheed’s cruelty and trade.
What are shoes?
Rasheed embodies this larger system.
What is the patriarchy?
The story is told from Mariam and Laila’s alternating views. What’s that called?
Dual narration / multiple perspectives.
Rasheed favors this child because it is his biological offspring.
Who is Zalmai?
How does Mariam’s public trial and execution symbolize the failures of justice in Afghan society?
It shows women bear ultimate punishment even when defending themselves; the legal system silences female agency.
How does the orphanage symbolize both oppression and resilience?
It reflects systemic neglect but also becomes a site of survival, where Aziza learns to endure and Laila reaffirms her maternal devotion.
Why is Mariam’s sacrifice both tragic and heroic?
She dies unjustly, but she saves Laila and the children.
Why does Hosseini include so much Afghan history alongside the characters’ lives?
To show how politics affects ordinary people, especially women.
How does Rasheed’s favoritism toward Zalmai reveal larger themes of patriarchy?
It shows how sons are valued more than daughters, reinforcing patriarchal control and female marginalization.
Hosseini structures Rasheed’s death as both climactic and inevitable. What narrative techniques heighten this sense of inevitability?
Foreshadowing of escalating violence, motifs of Mariam’s endurance, and the use of suspenseful pacing during the fight.
Explain how the imagery of Kabul as both “ruined” and “splendid” reflects the duality of Afghan identity.
Kabul mirrors women’s lives in the novel—devastated by war but full of endurance, beauty, and possibility.
How is Mariam a “different kind of hero” compared to the usual hero in stories?
She’s heroic through endurance and sacrifice, not battles or glory.
Why does Mariam face her execution calmly?
It shows she finds peace and dignity in choosing her fate.
Mariam and Laila are often described as foils. In what way does Hosseini use their differences to explore women’s survival under oppression?
Mariam (older, resigned, shaped by shame) and Laila (young, educated, hopeful) represent two paths, but their bond illustrates solidarity across differences, showing survival through unity.
How does the ending (Laila returning to Kabul as a teacher) function as both resolution and political statement?
How does the ending (Laila returning to Kabul as a teacher) function as both resolution and political statement?
Hosseini draws on motifs of silence, dust, and confinement. How do these motifs collectively symbolize women’s place in Afghan society?
They embody erasure and invisibility under patriarchy, where women’s voices are silenced, their bodies controlled, and their existence reduced to domestic confinement.
Give one example of how love works as resistance in the novel.
Laila risking beatings to visit Aziza at the orphanage, or Mariam protecting Laila.
The novel has been criticized for melodrama. How might melodrama actually serve Hosseini’s feminist and political aims?
By heightening emotion, Hosseini makes marginalized suffering visible, eliciting empathy and outrage from readers who might otherwise ignore Afghan women’s lives.