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"On the way back, Aziza's high-spirited facade waned the closer the got to the orphanage. The hands stopped flying up. Her face turned heavy. It happened every time"(326).
The orphanage, in a sense, represents the kolba, and Aziza is Mariam, once again separated from her family. The orphanage is a place that she has lied to get into, having claimed that her father is deceased. This place has deprived Aziza from her happiness, causing tremors in her speech, the speech itself becoming vague and erudite. This place has shaped Aziza into a little girl of dire hope, embarrassed by her appearance and where she lived, in front of her own family. Aziza has more than not, turned into Mariam.

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"Two days before--when Mariam could think of nothing in the world she wanted more than to walk in this garden with Jalil, felt like another lifetime. How could her life have turned upside down so quickly, Mariam asked herself"(39).
Jalil's home was a place that Mariam basically saw as a utopia. Once she arrived, she would never feel alone again, never feel like a harami. She would be able to have a family. But sadly, everything has become her enemy, even the house. After waiting on the doorstep and actually finding Jalil there, the house now felt like a castle, and she was the intruder. Mariam was still the one that didn't belong, the ugly duckling. This house has killed her hopes of becoming a part of her dad's family.

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"Mariam could hardly believe that she was here. Her heart was battering with excitement. She wished Mullah Faizullah could see her now. How daring he would find her. How brave! She gave herself over to the new life that awaited her in this city, a life with a father, with sisters and brothers, a life in which she would love and be loved back, without reservation of agenda, without shame"(31).
Mariam has heard all about the city of Herat from her mother. However, it was not as hostile and disparaging. She has waited her whole life to come to the city, a place that has kept her dreams and hopes alive when Nana viciously tried to shoot them down. The business, the crowds of people, made her feel like a new person. She now believed that she too, could be surrounded by numerous people and fit in, fit in with her family.

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"In the clearing, Jalil and two of his sons, Farhad and Muhsin, built the small kolba where Mariam would live the first fifteen years of her life"(10).
Mariam has lived at this kolba only with her mother, along with some visits from her father. She has never been far from the kolba, and being supposedly made by Jalil, she has come to love the little shack. The kolba shapes Mariam's life into a secluded presence, and makes her just as gullible and eager to go explore the city, and not listen to Nana.

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"Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she would die this way. Not so bad"(370).

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"Mariam saw now the sacrifices a mother made. Decency was but one"(287).
With her life withering away, Mariam is fighting for the only people she has left in life. Like a mother, like her mother. During this moment she realizes that Nana actually did care for her. Mariam finally realizes the sacrifices that a woman, even a mother makes to keep her family, like Nana. After giving up so much of her life to take care of Mariam, her love became hardened, but love nonetheless. Mariam finally fathoms why her mom treated her such a way, but once again it is too late.

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""That's no good," Khadija said. "He's old and so..." She searched for the right word, and Marium knew then that what she really wanted to say was He's so close. She understood what they meant to do. You may not get another opportunity this good. And neither would they. They had been disgraced by her birth, and this was their chance to erase, once and for all, the last trace of their husband's scandalous mistake. She was being sent away because she was the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame"(48).
Mariam has always been a burden, whether it be her mother or now, a family she has never met. Constantly called "harami," Mariam lives her life as an accident. Mariam lives her life as a humiliation. The theme of shame reigns throughout the novel, a reminder of the various disgraces, like Mariam.

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"He fixed Marium with a hard glare. "But I'm a different breed of man, Marium. Where I come from, one wrong look, a woman's face is her husband's business only. I want you to remember that. Do you understand?""(70).
This quote from Marium's future fear factor, Rasheed, shows his dominating nature. With his demand for Marium to sheild her face from literally everyone but him, foreshadows how controlling he is, and how he is unmerciful to disobedience. He is a wicked, authoritative, and malicious person.

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"Women like us. We endure"(19).
The majority of women in Afghanistan live by this motto. This one phrase can easily explain the hardships of being a woman in a male-dominated country. There are little to no womens' rights, and Nana blatantly makes this point to her daughter Mariam. The theme of  women and their rights underlies these sentences. The theme of women and their rights underlies the grating tone and actions of Nana. Most women don't make it far in the world, and Nana wants Mariam to have no hope for making it.

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"Nana said that one of these days he would miss, that she, Mariam, would slip through his fingers, hit the ground, and break a bone. But Marium did not believe that Jalil would drop her. She believed that she would always land safely into her father's clean, well-manicured hands"(21).
Mariam has lived with her mom all of her life, listening to her discontent of having a harami. Nana, her own mother, shows no appreciation, but her father makes her feel like the one joy of his life. Mariam shows gullible and stubborn character traits by not listening to the warnings Nana gives.

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"It was Tariq who was real, flesh and blood. Tariq, who taught her cusswords in Pashto, who liked salted clover leaves, who frowned and made a low, moaning sound when he chewed, who had a light pink birthmark just beneath his left collarbone shaped like an upside-down mandolin. So she sat beside Mammy and dutifully mourned Ahmad and Noor, but, in Laila's heart, her true brother was alive and well"(140).
Tariq has been hanging around Laila since they were children, and in her mind, took over the position of her missing brothers. He protected her, taught her brotherly things, and was always by her side. Tariq defended her from other boys that would mess with her, and would always put her first, like a big brother would. He ended up being more important to Laila when he left than when her real brothers left for war. Tariq has a faithful and sincere personality.

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""What's the sense in schooling a girl like you? It's like shining a spittoon. And you'll learn nothing of value in those schools. There i only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don't teach it in school. Look at me""(18).
Nana's main character trait is clearly shown through this one quote. She no longer has hope for anything, neither her life nor Mariam's. She sees no light at the end of the tunnel. To Nana, Mariam is the obstacle blocking the potential healing rays of sun. Nana feels that her life is ruined, and nothing is going to make it better. She is unforgiving to the future.

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"The film playing on the screen is Wlat Disney's Pinocchio. Laila does not understand"(404).
As simplistic as this movie can seem, it holds a meaning as deep as the Dead Sea. This movie, from the beginning of the novel, was the one movie that Mariam wanted her father to take her to see at his theater. Despite being his own flesh and blood, her father never took her out, for he didn't want to be seen with Mariam. He was ashamed of her existence, a burden to him like she was to her mother. This movie presented in this box represents Jalil asking for Mariam's forgiveness, but of course, it is too late.

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"Aziza tags along, a mop in one hand, the bean-stuffed doll Mariam had made for her in the other." "Aziza has laid claim to the task of spraying and wiping the windows. The doll is never far from where she works"(378).
Forever treasured by Aziza, this doll is the symbol of Mariam and her presence. Mariam has been raising Aziza since she was born, and has slyly became more attached to her than her own mother, Laila. Aziza will not let memories of Mariam fade as the time goes by, and keeps the doll with her wherever she goes.

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"And the burqa, she learned to her surprise, was also comforting. It was like a one-way window. Inside it, she was an observer, buffered from the scrutinizing eyes of strangers. She no longer worried that people knew, with a singe glance, all the shameful secrets of her past"(73).
Although Mariam is contained in the burqa, she feels a sense of freedom. She does not feel isolated in her life that she calls shame, but instead feels safe. She finds peace in the prison of the mesh cover.

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"The tea set was the sole relic that Mariam's mother, Nana, had of her own mother, who had died when Nana was two. Nana cherished each blue-and-white porcelain piece, the graceful curve of the pot's spout, the hand-painted finches and chrysanthemums, the dragon on the sugar bowl, meant to ward off evil. It was this last piece that slipped from Mariam's fingers, that fell to the wooden floorboards of the kolba and shattered"(3).
This sugar bowl, a memory of Nana's past, a symbol of her life, was shattered by Mariam. The birth of her, much like the touch of her hands on the priceless porcelin, destroyed her mother's life, and has forever been a burden Nana has to carry.