Pursuing Hope In Desperate Life

Khaled Hosseini(1965-) is an American writer of Afghan ancestry and a prominent contemporary novelist. He sprang into fame because of the publication of The Kite Runner. A Thousand Splendid Suns(2007) is Khaled Hosseini’s second most popular fiction. The story tells the miserable life experience of Mariam and Laila in war-torn Afghanistan and patriarchal society. Ever since its release, it has received extensive attention and gained critical acclaim from the scholars at home and abroad. It has been interpreted from diverse perspectives, such as feminism, new historicism, eco-criticism, etc. But few critics have studied A Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective of initiation story theme.Initiation story is a type of fiction to describe how the young and inexperienced protagonist undergoes ordeals and puzzlement, and then comes to epiphany and eventually becomes mature. Therefore, this thesis employs the composition features of initiation story, such as the plot patterns and the initiation guides to interpret A Thousand Splendid Suns and explores the different stages of the growing process of Mariam and Laila in war-torn Afghanistan, and illustrates Mariam and Laila, after experiencing the ordeals and sufferings in the war and unfortunate marriage, come to epiphany, obtain maturity and continue to explore the infinite hope in life.This thesis is composed of six chapters.Chapter one mainly introduces Khaled Hosseini’s life and his work A Thousand Splendid Suns. After that it introduces the significance and creativity of the thesis.Chapter two reviews the latest researches on this work at home and abroad. It aims to grasp the frontier achievements and provide a different perspective to interpret the novel.Chapter three is theoretical foundation. It mainly looks back on the origin and development of the initiation story, describes the definition and common features of the initiation story, and states the rationality of A Thousand Splendid Suns as an initiation story.Chapter four explores the growing process of the two protagonists and their pursuit of hope in desperate life: Mariam’s growing stages include the naive childhood, leaving home to seek father, marrying Rasheed to a faraway place, being puzzled at her desperate marriage, epiphany and brave resistance, achieving self-awakening; Laila’s process of growth include the carefree childhood, homelessness after wars, being forced to marry Rasheed, being saved from her desperate marriage, reconstruction of hometown and getting maturity.Chapter five analyzes that the initiation guides play an important role in the growing process of the protagonists: the positive guides of initiation provide moral, intellectual and spiritual guide for the protagonists; the negative guides of initiation tempt the protagonists and deprive their innocence; the initiation companion accompanies the protagonists in different periods of their growing process.Chapter six summarizes the thesis. Through analyzing the growing process of Mariam and Laila, it illustrates A Thousand Splendid Suns embodies the features of the initiation story in the aspects of plot patterns and initiation guides, thus it is a typical initiation story. And then, it points out the theme: only be aware of the difficult situation and through constant fight for the living environment and spiritual world can Afghan women pursue hope in desperate life and harvest independence and initiation on their own. Through A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini requests a close attention to the fate and living state of women and appeals for the construction of a harmonious society for male and female.