Reclaiming Agency Amid Chaos: A Feminist and Postcolonial Reading of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns

Abstract

This study examines Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns through feminist and postcolonial critical theories, focusing on Afghan women's agency in the context of socio-political turbulence. Examining the two prominent protagonists Mariam and Laila, this study explores the performances of gender oppression, survival, and resistance within a war-torn patriarchal society. The novel testifies to the confluence of colonial pasts, cultural domination, and institutional misogyny and thus the larger women's battles in postcolonial fields. Employing feminist theoretical frameworks, the study examines the structural limitations imposed on women and their coping strategies of resistance against patriarchal hegemony. The study employs postcolonial analysis to assess the impact of colonial legacies and local socio-political concerns on Afghan women's lived experiences. The study demonstrates the manner in which women's solidarity and acts of resistance deconstruct the structures of domination, thus reclaiming autonomy in a male-dominated world. In this study, we undertake a close reading of the text so as to support the contention that A Thousand Splendid Suns imagines the concepts of survival and empowerment within the confines of repressive settings. The study advances feminist and postcolonial literary scholarship by asserting literature as a form of mobilizing repressed voices and overcoming socio-political regimes.