• Ferdinand Fernando A

Literature, art and culture are interrelated. They form the basis of independent, original thought and both reflect and manifest the problems and aspirations of a society. Women’s rights and liberties have suffered an unstable evolution in Middle East countries for centuries. Through the eyes of two women, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns explores almost forty years of the history of Afghanistan and delves into the loss of women’s privileges. The history of Afghanistan is marked by political instability, particularly during the last 30 years of prolonged war, infrastructure collapse, and restrictive political regimes. The situation of women in Afghanistan has been dismal during this period. Their status was undermined during the Soviet occupation and under subsequent regimes; in fact, the violation of Afghan women’s human rights is considered to have been at its worst in the early 1990s. Hosseini’s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns is taken for the present study to delineate the factors that marginalize the Afghan women through the social, political and religious restrictions unwillingly forced upon them in reality. We need to understand two main qualities that mark this shift: ‘the quest for identity’ and ‘Expressionism’. Making personal psychological experience visible to the reader is another major element of contemporary literature, a trend known in literary circles as Expressionism. The idea here is to bring internal feelings and experiences to the surface, and a character's inner life is just as important, if not more important, than the external events taking place. Expressionism is the attempt to show the character's inner struggles, and writers in the contemporary period will illustrate the character's state of mind as often as possible.

Expressionism, Harami, Nikka, Patriarchy, abandon

"(Re)Defining Women as Modern Archetypes from Oppression to Freedom in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 9, page no.115-118, September-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRFC06026.pdf

"(Re)Defining Women as Modern Archetypes from Oppression to Freedom in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 9, page no. pp115-118, September-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRFC06026.pdf