The Book,”The Kite Runner”

Afghani American author,Khaled Hosseini in his recent novel, “The Kite Runner”, published in 2003, focuses generally on the complexities of racial and family identity, discrimination, friendship, masculinity, the struggle between father and son, and gender. However, a very strong focus is placed on the issue of guilt, and the life long consequences of the narrator, Amir’s irresponsible actions when he was a boy. In this book the Afghan people’s concept of hierarchal living and social structure are all explored, but the pivotal point of the story is Amir’s cruel treatment of his servant Hassan.

 

This novel begins with the focus on two boys, Amir and Hassan – one the son of a rich man, who is also the employer of a father and son – Ali the father, and Hassan, the son who is also the servant of Amir. Both families live together. Amir is the boy from a wealthy, well-known, highly educated and respected background. He is a Pashtun Sunni Muslim, and when the story opens, he is twelve years of age. Hassan is a Hazara, a Shi’a Muslim – from the lowest level of Afghan society. The author constructs a sort of friendship based on loyalty, devotion and humiliation from Hassan, contrasted against the self absorbed character of Amir. On page, 10 Amir says,” we spoke our first words. Mine was ‘Baba’. Hassan’s first word was ‘Amir’.

 

From a psychological point of view, Amir takes everything that Hassan can give him, giving nothing in return, except a small amount of attention when there is no one else around. Friendship is a very one-sided arrangement to Amir. It is an unequal relationship in terms of power.  Hassan sacrifices himself over and over again to make Amir happy. Before the kite tournament he told Amir that his dream was to make him feel confident. He encouraged Amir, and tried his hardest to put Amir’s fears aside. As Hassan says on page 52, “Remember, Amir agha. There is no monster, just a beautiful day”.  Hassan became a sacrifice to Amir’s friendship when a local boy, Assef asked him for the winning kite. Hassan refused, and as a result, was raped by Assef. Although Amir was there and witnessed the rape scene, he did nothing to help Hassan, and said nothing to the rapist, Assef, and his friends. This crucial point in the story leads to Amir’s lifetime of guilt, which is only partly relieved by his redemption at the end of the book, when he makes some effort to atone for his appalling behaviour. Amir was also jealous of Amir’s ability. Although Hassan did everything for Amir, Amir never called him friend, he used him as a toy, played with him when he was bored, alone and he had no other friends around. Hassan encouraged Amir to write short stories, told him that he had the ability to become famous writer. Hassan was always trying really hard to make Amir more confident, and treated him and his family with nothing but reverence. Even though he was illiterate, he could understand Amir perfectly. Amir never called Hassan a friend, and was always jealous of him. The story points out some of the complexities of racial and family identity in relation to Afghan society, and this was another issue which caused Amir deep feelings of guilt in his later life. 

 

The author constructs a world of ethnicity, social identity and discrimination – some of the major problems, which cause differentiation and destruction within ethnic groups. This discrimination too causes Amir to feel a great deal of guilt as he grows up in his new life in America. In his childhood, being from the Hazara ethnic group is represented as being close to a crime in “The Kite Runner”. Ali, Hassan’s father and confidante of Baba, Amir’s father, and Hassan, faced many difficulties as long as they lived in Baba’s house as servants. Their names are Ali and Hassan, but Amir’s friends and most people just called them ‘Hazara’. For example, on page 68, Assef wants the kite, and Hassan refuses, Assef says, ’Last chance Hazara.’  And later he says, ‘ a loyal Hazara. Loyal as a dog.’ 

 

However, issues other than ethnic ones caused Ali, and especially Hassan, problems. A strong issue causing Ali and Hassan to accept discrimination was their sense of social identity. Amir and his father, Baba, are from a wealthy, educated, respected, upper class family, and were therefore entitled to treat their servants however they wished. 

 

This novel reveals the consequences of irresponsible action and the resulting effects of life lived under a weight of guilt. Amir treated Hassan very cruelly on many occasions, becoming an insomniac. Hassan always tried his best to make Amir happy. The racially motivated sexual assault of Hassan, perpetrated by a gang of neighbourhood bullies, made Amir feel deep guilt and shame, which in turn, was another reason for him to shut Hassan out of his life.

Anything he tried to do to provoke himself out of his guilt causes him to feel more guilt. On page 97, Amir put his watch and money under Hassan’s bed, knowing he would be branded as a thief,  yet wanting his own duplicity to be revealed. Uncharacteristically, Hassan lies, unwilling to get Amir into trouble. This made Amir feel betrayed and angry. As a result, Ali and Hassan were forced to leave their home of many years. As Amir grows up he realized that he had betrayed the one person who would have done anything for him, and he realizes more and more the full extent of his betrayal. He thinks about the good life Hassan could have had in America but due to his selfish actions he did not. Amir decides to go back to Kabul, to try to find Hassan and apologize for his actions. He decides to adopt Hassan’s orphan son, Sohrab in an attempt to redeem himself.

 

Another strand in “The Kite Runner” deals with the struggle between fathers and sons. The relationship between Amir and his father, Baba is cold, difficult, problematic, complex and complicated.  Baba was inattentive to Amir, and childhood concerns were not part of his life. Amir was desperate for his father’s love and all through his childhood tried to get his father’s attention. Amir felt neglected by Baba. He thought that he needed to win the kite tournament to make his father love him. Amir thought that winning the kite tournament was key to his father’s heart, and freedom from the guilt he felt.  Amir was not a sporty person, but he joined the tournament simply for this reason. All he could think of was victory and winning, to show Baba that his son was worthy of him. Winning for Amir meant that his father would forgive him for his mother’s death during his birth. This added yet another layer to Amir’s guilt as he matured.  He did win the kite competition, and he thought he got what he wanted, but he was wrong. On page 62, Amir says, “But this was my one chance to become someone who was looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard.”

But Baba never showed Amir that he loved him – Baba loved the competition, the challenge, and winning. Amir had a constant stomach ache and was morally weak because he knew that Baba liked masculinity and strength, not someone weak like he was. Baba seemed to be very fond of Hassan and gave him anything he needed, including gifts on his birthday, which always made Amir jealous – another guilt provoking issue for Amir. Amir and Hassan were both his sons – Amir knew Baba was his father, but this was a secret from Hassan for all of his life. Amir went to school and had an education, but Hassan grew up and spent his life being treated as an illiterate servant. Baba never told Hassan that he was his son and he never told Amir that Hassan was his brother. The reason for this was because Hassan was a Hazara and therefore was of a lower class.

 

“The Kite Runner “demonstrated different standards for male and female expectations. Females in this book are represented in an irreverent manner. Sanaubar, Ali’s dead wife and Hassan’s mother, is portrayed as a notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonorable reputation. In Afghani culture, death is better than escaping with someone of the opposite sex. Even Soraya, the girl Amir married, had a dubious past; she had at one time run off with an Afghan man and had lived with him for a month. Amir is in no position to condemn her for this, considering his dreadful, thoughtless actions in his youth.

 

The novel, “The Kite Runner”, tells of the consequences of irresponsible, thoughtless behavior, which causes the narrator to feel overwhelming guilt as he matures and realizes how much damage to other people his selfishness has caused. Although the setting in Afghanistan adds a great deal of interest to the story, the feelings that cause Amir’s spiteful behavior to Hassan are common to people everywhere. Kahled Hosseini in The Kite Runner depicts a world of cruelty and despair, loyalty and love, malice and redemption. A world where a person tormented by guilt goes to extreme lengths to redeem himself. In this novel, hope is still alive and the hero discovers a way to live a good life.

Youth Presentation in Various Texts

Thesis of the argument is that different authors in various media texts represent teenagers in different ways.

Different authors in various media texts represent teenagers differently. Readers are invited to interpret these representations according to their values, beliefs and attitudes. Whilst some authors represent teenagers in a positive, balanced way, others have a more negative attitude towards young people. Generally, it can be argued that authors of adolescent fiction, such as James Maloney (House On River Terrace) represent teens more realistically than popular media texts such as films like Bend It Like Beckham, magazines and newspapers.

In the House on River Terrace, the hero Ben is constructed compassionately. The author represents Ben as being determined, honest and maturing positively. The invited reader would regard Ben as compassionate, as he cares for a homeless girl, Jess, and is very persistent in his pursuit of his family history. This history gives Ben and the reader insight into Brisbane’s early settlers and the life of indigenous people.  Obviously the author’s values include a sense of history and his attitude to young people is sympathetic and positive. Ben’s determination is obvious when he stands up to his domineering father, who has evicted the squatters from the old family home. Ben says “You shouldn’t have done that ….” Throughout this text, as Ben’s friendship with Jess develops, he matures into a caring, compassionate and determined young adult.

On the other hand, the character of Jess is represented as a teen in trouble and so scarred by her childhood experiences, that she has no hope of escaping the drug addicted life she leads, except by ending it. The discourse in regards to Jess is also one of compassion, and the invited reader feels sympathy for her. Despite her negative behaviour she also has positive qualities – she is adventurous, free spirited and artistic. However she is represented as having very low self esteem and says of herself, “It is my fault. I am useless. Nothing all I do is cause trouble.” She then jumps off the cliff and kills herself. Even though this is a dramatic event, it is still realistic and believable. However not all texts are as realistic as this novel.

Another perspective of teenagers is given in the article “To make coffee you get dregs.” This article appears in the Courier Mail in 2004, and the author is extremely sarcastic about the ability of young people to write a proper job application. Every example the author gives shows that the application is badly written. One says “Not only have I been a cashier, but I have done the drive- through.” The author responds sarcastically and is not very compassionate towards young people. In this text, teens are represented as having poor literacy, being lazy and not interested in getting a job – which indicates the author’s patronizing attitude.

A more sympathetic impression of teenagers is represented in the film Bend It Like Beckham, where a teenage girl is trying to break out of the restrictions of her Indian family. The film is set in London, and the characters are depicted positively as being light hearted and funny. However on a deeper level, the message could be interpreted more seriously. The director, Gurinder Chadha imposes her own attitude to the difficulties teenagers face as they try to integrate into western society and make their own dreams come true, in opposition to their parents.

Jason Dowling, the journalist who wrote “Plans to seize hoons’ car” in The Age newspaper, wrote that some teens are careless, driving recklessly and they are disobedient to the law. The journalist states that teenagers drive dangerously to represent themselves as ‘cool’. They are trying to impress other teenagers. He thinks that teenagers need to evaluate the consequences of their actions. However, the journalist has generalized that all teenagers are careless and dangerous drivers, although most teenagers respect the law.  This author’s attitude to teenagers is that they are irresponsible, and his beliefs reflect those of mainstream society.

Teenagers are from Mars written by Jacqueline Smith, appeared in the Sunday-Mail, a contemporary newspaper which generally represents teenagers realistically. In this article, teenagers are constructed as being difficult and strange as they go through puberty. This author believes that teens are argumentative, changing from nice normal kids into hormonally rampant, moody people, totally different from their parents, and from what they were before puberty.  This author’s attitude to teenagers is obvious from her advice ‘perhaps the most important advice for parents of teenagers is to keep a good sense of humour’.

In conclusion, it is obvious from these varied texts that different authors in various media texts represent teenagers in different ways. It has been demonstrated that some of the authors are compassionate and sympathetic, some humorous without being patronizing, whilst some are obviously fed up with the attention that teenagers receive and have no sympathy for them at all. It is not easy being a teenager on the threshold of adulthood, as is made obvious by the various authors of the texts.

Whose World Is It?

Do you think about the ads you see on TV, or at the movies?  The constant bombardment of slick, glossy messages that parade before us every waking hour, wherever we are, or whatever we’re doing?

Have you ever thought about what advertising does to us? How it shapes our lives? 

Have you ever considered the fact that all advertising-supported media controls us by controlling the material that is being broadcast or printed?

The most desirable audience for advertisers is those affluent consumers between the ages of 18 and 49. Newspapers, magazines and broadcasters place much less emphasis on content of articles or programmes that they think will be relevant or interesting to less affluent or older people, and they do this in a subtle way that is not at all racist or prejudiced against any particular class or ethnic group.

Advertising is the major source of profit for all media and what I have found out is that advertisers at times have the power to censor editorials and to direct programming in their favour. On a daily basis, perhaps we don’t notice too much, but it is different when it comes to larger issues over a long period of time. The most dramatic example of a terrifyingly real situation was the deafening 60 year silence over cigarette advertising. For decades, the media was silent about the medical evidence against smoking, while thousands upon thousands of people died horrible deaths from smoking related diseases.

With film and television, the impact of advertising has been dramatic. My reading has shown that with few exceptions, programs are designed to maximise the effect of their commercials. Just one small example is that when cigarettes were advertised, villains were not permitted to smoke the advertised brand: all smoking had to be shown in a positive light.

For years now, people have campaigned against children’s programming on commercial television showing persistent violence, aggression, and other antisocial behaviour.  Merchandising for these programmes has promoted toys, clothing, fast food, and increased network profits.  Also, it is obvious that advertising is related to the dramatic increase in childhood obesity; with junk food being freely advertised during peak children’s programming times.

More recently, television programs have been especially designed to be light and superficial, in order to create a buying mood in the audience.  The occasional serious program in prime time has large audiences, but it is not the best place to display very expensive advertisements.  American educator and journalist, Ben Haig Bagdikian said, “programming is carefully non-controversial, light and non-political”,^[1] and I think that this is the way Australian programming is heading as well. In today’s media there is a decrease in hard news and an increase in entertainment that produces the most revenue. That’s why even very popular serious documentaries don’t make as much money, because, for example, in the midst of a documentary on a catastrophe, an ad for a toilet freshener with the underlying message of the user becoming a better, more loveable, happier person is stupid, but in the middle of Big Brother or Australian Idol, the ad is just absorbed by the viewer without criticism. In the same way, advertisers are increasingly pressuring publications to not put their adverts next to distressing or disturbing pictures or television footage, because this could affect the buying mood of the customers.  As Gideon Haigh said in his article “Consumption” in last weekend’s Australian magazine “When The Age’s front page coverage of the catastrophic situation in Burma this May was obscured by a Post-it ad for a credit card, a whole book could have been written on the symbolism”.

I ask the question – in their insatiable pursuit of profit and the narrowing of ideas, do  the operators of the most powerful communications system in history lack a regard for the richness of their society and for the realities of the world which can at times be frightening?

Companies have used the media as a way of informing large numbers of people about their products. However, in modern times, the sophistication of advertising has advanced enormously, enticing people, shaping their perceptions of themselves, and creating an ever increasing consumerist society.

The market is getting tougher and market competition is increasing rapidly. With this increase, companies need to make even greater returns on their investments, and they need to spend much more money on advertising in order to gain customers.  So in comparison to government funded television and radio stations, the commercial stations can afford to buy much more commercially desirable programmes, like the Olympic Games for example. So it’s pretty obvious to me, and should be to you as well, that if something is reported that the advertiser doesn’t like, the media company risks losing much needed revenue.

Funnily enough, it seems that some people don’t want to watch commercials, because in programmes that are recorded, research shows that 66 to 80 percent of ads are skipped. This has led to advertisers getting cunning, and placing brands in actual programming where it can be less obvious. In England, the regulator is considering allowing more product placement because the industry is losing money as people try to skip ads wherever they can. Markets are meant to adapt to changes in consumer behaviour although very often the market also tries very hard to create consumer behaviour.

Nowadays, companies are paying big money to filmmakers, authors, singers and pop bands, makers of computer games and videos, to have their products advertised within the story, the image or the video. Who do you think is in charge here then, the producer or the product brand manager?

The pressure is heavily on media companies to dumb down their programmes, and to shape their content based on the demographics of the audiences. Gradually, the content of media is becoming less important than the type of person being targeted by the ads, which shows that the notion of giving the audiences what they want is a bit misleading because it is more about targeting the audience who can afford the products that are advertised.

Visibly, it seems that newspaper and magazine editors now print what they consider will be most influential for the advertisers that support their publications, and more important and significant items are sidelined, as they do not lead the reader to a buying mood.  As time has gone on, magazines have begun to ask for articles to be submitted which will attract attention to products advertised within the magazine.   

Corporate advertisers have a huge responsibility for the departure from the scene of some, more serious stories, and for the upgrading of lighter, less weighty copy, and journalists are under “enormous pressures to replace civic values with commercial values”.

More and more today, the media companies are owned by the multi national corporations which are using them for their advertising. Saturation commercials have become the major vehicle for huge corporations to control the economy. The media sells these companies’ products, and in doing so, helps them maintain their influence, both politically and economically. With an increase in globalisation, advertising’s role becomes more important and more aggressive in all forms of media, and this causes an increase in consumerism. The multinationals are now in a good position to take advantage of the global market,  

In order for them to do this as quickly and easily (and cheaply) as possible, it is necessary for cultural and consumption habits to become similar and consistent throughout the world. Many media companies today seem to be very hard at work  fostering a cross country culture that sells their products more easily and crosses international boundaries at the same time. In the world today, there are more than 270 million teenagers aged between 15 and 18, and they all live in a single pop-culture world.  These teenagers listen to the same music and watch the same videos wherever they live, and they buy from the same pool of designer jeans and t-shirts, jogging shoes and electronic devices, whichever country they live in. This provides an enormous market of willing consumers for the corporations.

Now to the new market. A population of 2.8 billion,^[2] owning one third of the world’s television sets live in Asia, and this region’s culture is now being homogenised by the media images consuming national borders as the reach of the multi nationals spreads. Asian consumers are bombarded with advertisements telling them that they need things they had no idea they were missing out on. The messages in the commercials are telling them that Western clothing, food, culture is preferable to the one they have had for hundreds of years. Asian teenagers today are growing up with closer affinities to American culture than they have to their own.

A dangerous trend is emerging – that profits are paramount.  That making money overrides quality of information.  There is a much sought after audience in China – 1.2 billion^[2] people just waiting to be told what it is that they need the most, next.  Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation, has heavily invested in Chinese media, and has been know to control programming in China if it is seen to criticise the current regime.

As I see it, the seriously disturbing trend towards homogenizing culture is threatening the way people live today in many emerging countries, as advertising is about creating a desire for things that people don’t know they need. In the interests of profit making, advertising is aimed blatantly at children below the age of ten. Clever multi million dollar media campaigns are targeted towards children’s programming, where these programs are a means of introducing massive amounts of merchandising to a susceptible market.  Children are susceptible and uncritical, and don’t have the resources to resist this marketing, and their parents are overwhelmed by the desires of the children and the strength of the advertising campaigns.

I hope that the next time you see an advertisement you can look at it with a more informed opinion, and begin to realize that the ads are not there for you, they are there for someone to make money. Can we be like Albert Einstein, who famously said “I never think of the future.  It comes soon enough.”  Or should we be more conscious of who is doing what to who and why.

 

Cited from the following sites:

1. http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising
2. http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/sep1998/pov-s23.shtml

A Shattered Heart

The city was extremely dangerous. No one could go outside into the streets. Anyone who ventured out could easily be killed or taken away by the Taliban for reasons that no-one ever knew – to work, to be tortured or to be murdered. The Taliban were leading their lives in the name of Islam, but they turned the rules of Islam upside down. They were butchers. No, they were worse, they were wild animals- that eat whatever they can catch, whether or not their prey is sick or well, innocent or guilty. These wild humans were cutting arms, feet, toes, fingers, legs, off the innocent people of the city, and they carelessly threw body parts  onto trees, bushes, or left them lying in the streets. No-one knew why the Taliban were acting this way, turning every day and night upside down. Killing, kidnapping, tearing bodies apart and torturing were their daily business. They turned off all the lights for so many families, and made their days into nights.

In Needa’s house, suddenly there was a terrifying roar, and the roar of Kalashnikovs burst through the little mud brick house. The children’s hearts started thumping wildly. Needa and Sami, her baby brother, ran to their mother, who hugged them tightly, and tried not to shake. Sami’s mouth was bleeding – he had cut his tongue when he jumped with fight at the roar of the guns. His face was dead white, and blood dripped down his chin. Needa too was deathly pale and she shivered and tired to bury herself in her mother’s skirt.

Needa’s father Jamal disappeared that day, as suddenly as a thunderclap. Another beautiful life torn by the oppressors just a few days after the Taliban had killed her twenty seven year old uncle.

Needa and her baby brother Sami were woken up early one morning, on the day their father was taken. That day, he stopped being part of their family – to laugh, to play, to pray together. Two of the Taliban, with guns in their hands and smile on their faces, had forced Needa’s father out of the door, and had pushed him down the dusty street. He had tears in his eyes but forced a smile to his lips as he turned his face back to his children. As he smiled, the Taliban threw him to the ground and hit him with their guns. His smile and his final goodbye followed Needa like a shadow, throughout her life. This farewell smile made her tears flow like a river every time she thought of him. Her father was the moon in the night, the sun of her days. The Taliban stole this good man from his loving family, and filled their lives with black, black nights, nights with no moon and no end.

Suddenly, it was as if all their happiness had disappeared forever, and that terrorand menace had taken its place. Their father had disappeared and they had no idea if he was alive or dead. The Taliban had entered their lives with a lion’s dreadful roar.

Needa and her mother wandered aimlessly in the empty streets, like dust floating in the air, looking for Jamal. Their mother always said he would come back, so for a long time, they searched, and waited for him.

Hungry, wild animals had taken Sami and Needa’s father and there was no hope of him ever coming back. Needa knew that even though war had torn their family apart, she would always love her father, and would never forget him. The fear haunted Needa, and for hours at a time, she forgot her father’s face, even though she never wanted to forget him. She knew she would always hold him in her mind, and her soul.

At time when the Taliban were somewhere else, Needa walked the city searching for her father in desperation, knowing that her life would never be the same. Years may come and go but her father’s memory would never be erased. So many days she heard his voice and turned to see his face, yet when she turned, it seemed the sound had been erased. Needa and Sami’s hopes never rose again, even though every day they prayed to God to rise up the sun from the other side and give them back their father. But even He never listened to their frantic prayers. They thought that even He wanted them to be aimlessly drifting, like dust in the wind.

After a few weeks, their mother decided that they should leave the city, so they had a chance of staying alive.

Needa, Sami and their mother left their home and fled, to spend weeks hiding in a tiny cave in the hills outside the city. In the darkest days of their lives, each night they lay beneath the black roof of the cave that sheltered them, alone and often hungry. As each day dawned, they watched the glowing rays of the sun rising, and felt the dust of the cave on their skins. In the dark cave, the children dreamed of their father, and dreamed of the world that knew nothing but peace, a time that had no pain and where there was no despair. At this time Needa often dreamed being in a place, where there was no fear of bombardment or the stench of death. A place where love was constant and where people lived together in peace and harmony.

It was the time of winter when the little family sheltered in that cave, and the weather was the colour of Needa’s heart, damaged and polluted by the destruction of the Taliban. It was there in that cave that Needa decided that she would draw a picture of her father, so that she would never forget him.

Needa found a sheet of parchment, and a quill, and as she pulled her hair gently from its auburn twist, she began to draw. But where would she begin? She was a good artist, but always found beginning the most difficult. Once she started, she could draw for ours. Her eyes rested on the small photograph she had of her father. She thought about her life with her father, how safe and secure the family had once been, and she knew she would never forget the Time of the Taliban.

Early one morning, when the world outside the cave smelled fine and fresh, Needa finished her drawing. She carried this picture with her for the rest of her life. She tucked it inside her skirt, and carried it with her from the cave in the hills, throughout the long walk to Pakistan. Rolled carefully in a plastic sleeve, She kept it safe as the small family live for years in the refugee camp in Quetta two years later, she carried it as the family boarded the Red Cross refugee flight to Australia.

Even thought it is crinkled and smudged, today the drawing of Needa’s father hangs proudly on the wall in the family’s living room. She will never forget her father, or the dreadful life she and her fellow Afghani people lived under the harsh rule of the Taliban. But her new life has begun, and now she lives in peace and has hope in the future.

Oppression in Two Different Books

Discussing oppression by looking at two texts, a short story “The Test” by Anglica Gibbs and a novel – “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khalid Husseini.  These texts are very different, and they speak about oppression in different ways.  They are set in different eras, different countries and totally different circumstances. 

First let’s define and explain what oppression is;

According to Wikipedia, oppression is the systematic exploitation of one social group by another for its own benefit. It involves institutional control, ideological domination, and the imposition of the dominant group’s culture on the oppressed group. Another way of looking this is by considering the cultural, institutional, and individual set of beliefs and practices that privilege men, subordinate women, and denigrate values and practices. Oppression can also be caused by negative attitudes toward a person or group, formed without just grounds or sufficient knowledge. This attitude is unlikely to change in spite of any new evidence or contrary argument, and racism is one example of this.

“The Test” deals very explicitly with racism, and tells of how a black woman called Marian failed her driving test.  The author uses a challenging narrative to force the reader to think about what they would do if put in the same situation as the characters in the story.  The examiner pays no attention to Marian’s driving throughout the test. He causes her to fail after she shouts angrily at him after he puts her down in every word he says, calls her several wrong names and assumes that she is stupid.  In this short story, white people are in control completely, and black people find themselves derided and belittled.  Marian cannot get a suitable job, even though she has a degree, because of the colour of her skin, and she cannot pass her driving test because she is black. 

The second text is the novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” written by Khaled Hosseini and set in Afghanistan, which is still a country in turmoil.  Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan and migrated to USA in 1980. “A Thousand Splendid Suns” was published in 2007 and the title comes from a poem about the glories of Kabul:

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls (172, 347).

The book is about various types of oppression of great concern to us today. Oppression causes violence, fear and despair, most especially among the women in Afghanistan. In the opening pages, one female character says portentously ..

 “our lot in life, the lot of poor, uneducated women like us who have to tolerate the hardships of life, the slights of men, and the disregard of society”.

“The Test” illustrates the power of abuse, where actions originate from personal prejudice and ignorance. The characters represent three different social levels, and they are caught in a situation where there is a victim, a perpetrator, and a denying, yet guilty onlooker. Marian is oppressed and stereotyped as being an ignorant and uneducated black woman,  expected to be illiterate, married and to come from the South.

Khaled Hosseini considers war to be a significant cause of oppression.  A national invasion by the Taliban, an extreme fanatical religious/political group, impacts on hundreds of thousands of innocent people especially women and children.  During the war, murder, torture, hunger, anarchy, bullying and oppression caused millions of Afghan people to abandon their homes and flee to neighbouring countries.

In this book, we see oppression through the eyes of two women, Mariam and Laiala, who become Rasheed’s suffering wives.   Mariam, is a 14 year old girl who is forced to marry Rasheed, a man thirty years older than herself.  She is an illegitimate child who is deprived of all educational opportunities, except religious tutorship in the Koran. Mariam always wanted to go to school, but her mother said,

“What is the sense of schooling a girl like you? It is like shining a spittoon. And you’ll learn nothing of value in those schools. There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and I needs in life, and they don’t teach it in school. Look at me.”  And continues, “Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure”. 

On the other hand, in “The Test”, Marian proves the examiner’s racist assumptions to be wrong.  She shows that she is an individual who is educated, understands and is fully aware of the prejudice that ignorant white Americans have about her, and the unfair way they treat her, due to her sex, race, and the colour of her skin.

The novel’s heroine, Mariam, is completely alone after her mother commits suicide. She has no choice when she is forced into marriage.  If she had refused, she would have ended up living on the streets and begging, which to her, would have been a fate worse than death.  In our society, we consider that to be married under these circumstances is truly terrible, and for Mariam, it turns out that it was.  But to her perception, living in the society she did, and with no education, no family, and no money, she had no options. 

Mariam endures several violent, oppressive years of marriage to Rasheed.  Her failure to produce a child  results in her husband manipulating Laila into becoming his second wife.  Leila’s tragic loss of her family in the bombing of Kabul forces her to marry Rasheed when she is also just fourteen, and pregnant to her childhood sweetheart.

Under Taliban rule when the time comes for Laila to have her child, she is not admitted to the main hospitals that are for men only. She is forced to go to a hospital for women, where she is told they “had no clean water…no oxygen, no medications, no electricity (Page 255).”

Similarly, in “The Test”, Marian’s knowledge of her position in American society was revealed when she rebuked her employer’s suggestion that she should bribe the examiner …. “slip them a little something” by saying, “No, that would only make it worse, Mrs. Ericson. I know (page 44).” Aware that she is a victim of prejudice, Marion builds a protective barrier around herself, ignoring the cruel jibes, comments and actions of others.

Towards the end of the “Splendid Suns”, Mariam kills Rasheed, and her trial in a religious court lasts less than fifteen minutes. “There was no legal council, no public hearing, no cross-examining of evidence, and no appeals (Page 323).” One of her Taliban judges comments, “God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. This is why we require only one male witness but two female ones.” (Page 324)

The novel also highlights the enormous obstacles placed against the education of women in Afghan society. Under communist rule, women were freer and had more rights than they’d ever had before. “The main reason Afghans were fighting against the Soviets was precisely to take away freedom from women. In tribal areas, women were rarely seen on the streets and only then in burqa and accompanied by men. The men lived by ancient tribal laws and were horrified by the communist ending of forced marriage, the challenge to rise the marriageable age to sixteen for girls, to require girls to attend school and have the freedom to work alongside men”. 

The lives of the female characters in these texts are extremely limited. Even if they manage to have an education, people who are born into different circumstances where social status, skin colour or wealth determine their fate often have no choice in how they live their lives, and this is a terrible form of oppression.

As a young Muslim woman it seems to me that certain types of oppression could be a matter of perception. For example, if a woman feels comfortable wearing a hejab in a country like Australia, then she is perhaps not oppressed, because she is exercising her own free will, deciding that this is how she wants to dress and how she feels comfortable.  We can relate this issue to Mariam as well. At the beginning of the novel, Mariam did not feel comfortable wearing a burqa but after she left her home city and was married, she felt that she could hide behind her veil and no one would know of her past, and her inadequacies.  Marian, in “The Test”, had no such veil to hide behind, and the colour of her skin made her and her race the target of racial oppression and hatred.

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