Part Three: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Part Three:
Chapters 27-47
Chapters 27-47
Reader Response Journal
While reading the novel, you will write a four-part journal about the key ideas, themes, characters, and plot from the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. I encourage you to use the following questions to engage in thinking about the characters, the plot, and what it means to us as readers--you are not expected to answer them, but they are useful for directing your thinking about the key ideas from the story, and for use in your reader response. Reader response prompts are open-ended, asking you to articulate your reactions to a scene or development in the plot. Discussion questions generally build on your literal recall of the plot to build up inferences about what these events mean and what they tell the reader about the overall meaning of the narrative. You may go back to the text to identify and analyze key passages as you build meaning and understanding of the story. Use the quotes or choose your own quotes as you read, explaining the meaning of the quote and its significance in your reading journals.
Reader Response Questions Chapters 27-47
1. Rasheed digs Laila out of the rubble of the explosion that kills her mother and father and takes her into his home. Does his behavior seem unusual? What are his motives for taking care of Laila?
2. How has U.S. foreign policy led to the continuing chaos in Afghanistan?
3. Why does Laila agree to marry Rasheed, a sixty-year-old man, even when she considered the act dishonorable?
4. Why does Rasheed demand total submission from the two women.
5. Why does Mariam blame Laila for marrying Rasheed? Why does she see Laila as a competitor for Rasheed?
6. How has the death of his son affected Rasheed?
7. Why does Rasheed continue to taunt Mariam when he has absolute control over her?
8. What is the effect of wearing a burqa on Laila?
9. What are Mariam’s changing feelings as Rasheed becomes more upset with Laila?
10. What is the significance of Mariam and Laila having tea together?
11. How is the violence in the streets of Kabul parallel to the violence in Rasheed’s home?
12. Mariam and Laila ask a young man for help when they are trying to leave Kabul. Why does he betray them to the soldiers?
13. Why has Rasheed become so cruel to Mariam and Laila? How has the breakdown of society, as a result of the war, allowed this to happen?
14. How does the presence of the Taliban in Kabul affect Rasheed differently from Laila?
15. Why does Laila not go through with aborting Rasheed’s baby?
16. What does Mariam come to understand about motherhood?
17. How is Laila's son being educated in the male-dominated culture of the Taliban? How does Zalmai show that he is following his father's example in how he responds to Laila and Mariam? How is Laila's daughter taught to conform to the role laid out for women?
18. What is it about the movie Titanic, that is so interesting to the people of Kabul?
19. Why does Laila confront Rasheed with his inability to keep a job when she risks being beaten by him?
20. How does Mariam feel when she finds out that her father tried to visit her when he was dying and she refused to see him?
21. What does the suffering that Laila endures to visit her daughter in the orphanage say about the Taliban’s effect on society?
22. How is Aziza changing in the orphanage?
23. Is Mariam justified in killing Rasheed? How is the act of murder a kind of fulfillment for Mariam?
24. After the murder of Rasheed, how has the relationship between Laila and Mariam changed?
25. How will Laila’s lying to her son affect him when he realizes the truth?
26. What enables Mariam to have the courage to bring about Laila’s escape from Rasheed’s home?
27. Why does Mariam request no visitors when she is put in prison?
28. What is ironic in what the judge says to Mariam about carrying out God’s laws?
29. How does Mariam show that she has grown into a woman of strong character before her death?
30. How does Mariam find peace before she dies?
2. How has U.S. foreign policy led to the continuing chaos in Afghanistan?
3. Why does Laila agree to marry Rasheed, a sixty-year-old man, even when she considered the act dishonorable?
4. Why does Rasheed demand total submission from the two women.
5. Why does Mariam blame Laila for marrying Rasheed? Why does she see Laila as a competitor for Rasheed?
6. How has the death of his son affected Rasheed?
7. Why does Rasheed continue to taunt Mariam when he has absolute control over her?
8. What is the effect of wearing a burqa on Laila?
9. What are Mariam’s changing feelings as Rasheed becomes more upset with Laila?
10. What is the significance of Mariam and Laila having tea together?
11. How is the violence in the streets of Kabul parallel to the violence in Rasheed’s home?
12. Mariam and Laila ask a young man for help when they are trying to leave Kabul. Why does he betray them to the soldiers?
13. Why has Rasheed become so cruel to Mariam and Laila? How has the breakdown of society, as a result of the war, allowed this to happen?
14. How does the presence of the Taliban in Kabul affect Rasheed differently from Laila?
15. Why does Laila not go through with aborting Rasheed’s baby?
16. What does Mariam come to understand about motherhood?
17. How is Laila's son being educated in the male-dominated culture of the Taliban? How does Zalmai show that he is following his father's example in how he responds to Laila and Mariam? How is Laila's daughter taught to conform to the role laid out for women?
18. What is it about the movie Titanic, that is so interesting to the people of Kabul?
19. Why does Laila confront Rasheed with his inability to keep a job when she risks being beaten by him?
20. How does Mariam feel when she finds out that her father tried to visit her when he was dying and she refused to see him?
21. What does the suffering that Laila endures to visit her daughter in the orphanage say about the Taliban’s effect on society?
22. How is Aziza changing in the orphanage?
23. Is Mariam justified in killing Rasheed? How is the act of murder a kind of fulfillment for Mariam?
24. After the murder of Rasheed, how has the relationship between Laila and Mariam changed?
25. How will Laila’s lying to her son affect him when he realizes the truth?
26. What enables Mariam to have the courage to bring about Laila’s escape from Rasheed’s home?
27. Why does Mariam request no visitors when she is put in prison?
28. What is ironic in what the judge says to Mariam about carrying out God’s laws?
29. How does Mariam show that she has grown into a woman of strong character before her death?
30. How does Mariam find peace before she dies?
Reader Response Quotes
“I have friends who have two, three, four wives. … what I’m doing now most men I know would have done long ago.” (p. 215)
“She knew that what she was doing was dishonorable. Dishonorable, disingenuous, and shameful. And spectacularly unfair to Mariam ... Laila already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make, virtue was only the first" (p. 219).
“…I am your husband now, and it falls on me to guard not only your honor but ours …. That is the husband’s burden.” (p. 223)
“… for the first time, it was not an adversary’s face Laila saw but a face of grievances unspoken, burdens gone unprotested, a destiny submitted to and endured." (p. 249)
"“…she [Mariam] marveled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature [Aziza] the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections." (p. 252)
What a man does in his home is his business.” (p. 266)
“It seemed worthwhile, if absurdly so, to have endured all they’d endured for this one crowning moment, for this act of defiance that would end the suffering of all indignities.” (p. 300)
"He'd not been a good father, it was true, but how ordinary his faults seemed now, how forgivable, when compared to Rasheed's malice, or to the brutality and violence that she had seen men inflict on one another." (p. 109)
“She knew that what she was doing was dishonorable. Dishonorable, disingenuous, and shameful. And spectacularly unfair to Mariam ... Laila already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make, virtue was only the first" (p. 219).
“…I am your husband now, and it falls on me to guard not only your honor but ours …. That is the husband’s burden.” (p. 223)
“… for the first time, it was not an adversary’s face Laila saw but a face of grievances unspoken, burdens gone unprotested, a destiny submitted to and endured." (p. 249)
"“…she [Mariam] marveled at how, after all these years of rattling loose, she had found in this little creature [Aziza] the first true connection in her life of false, failed connections." (p. 252)
What a man does in his home is his business.” (p. 266)
“It seemed worthwhile, if absurdly so, to have endured all they’d endured for this one crowning moment, for this act of defiance that would end the suffering of all indignities.” (p. 300)
"He'd not been a good father, it was true, but how ordinary his faults seemed now, how forgivable, when compared to Rasheed's malice, or to the brutality and violence that she had seen men inflict on one another." (p. 109)
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