"She had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold. But somehow, over these last months, Laila and Aziza a harami like herself, as it turned out- had become extensions of her, and now, without them, the life Mariam had tolerated for so long suddenly seemed intolerable. We're leaving this spring, Aziza and I. Come with us, Mariam.

The years had not been kind to Mariam. But perhaps, she thought, there were kinder years waiting still. A new life, a life in which she would find the blessings that Nana had said a harami like her would never see. The two new flowers had unexpectedly sprouted in her life, and, as Mariam watched the snow coming down, she pictured Mullah Faizullah twirling his tasbeh beads, leaning in and whispering to her in his soft, tremulous voice, But it is God Who has planted them, Mariam jo. And it is His will that you tend to them. It is His will, my girl.

• anaphora (she...)

• rhetorical question (was this her penalty...?)

passage 2: page 204

• anaphora (she could hardly move...)

• asyndeton (...dropped to the ground, how she'd screamed, torn at her hair.)

passage 3: page 204

• internal rhyme (stream, dream)

• stream-of-consciousness

• kinesthetic imagery

passage 4: page 193

• alliteration of s (sometimes she spoke...)

• asyndeton

Judgmental Tones

personification

irony

alliteration

repetition: Anadiplosis

second/first person point of view: You, me, I

Code switching

Primarily Hosseini makes Rasheed look unintelligent. "Sometimes, I swear, sometimes" A sentence which has no grammatical sense.

He then proceeds to use Historical Allusion, "I want to put that thing in a box and let her float down Kabul river. Like baby Moses." In the bible, baby Moses was put in a basket and released onto the river Nile. It is also simultaneously a smile, the comparison of the action of abandoning a baby by letting them float away in a river"

When mentioning Aziza he never uses her name, a sign of detachment, lack of affection and emotional connection. Instead he uses objectifying names like the baby or that thing.

Irony, Irony is used as Aziza means "the Cherished One" and he does everything except Cherish her.

-->Imagery

• Kinesthetic

• Visual

• Auditory

-->Metaphor of Mariam's mind and inner conscience and symbolism relating to love and friendship

--> Alliteration

-->End rhyme

--> Code-switching

• Motherhood

"I refuse to believe it," Laila said. "They're not serious." "What the Taliban did to Najibullah looked serious to me," Rasheed said. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"He was a communist! He was the head of the Secret Police."

Rasheed laughed.

Mariam heard the answer in his laugh: that in the eyes of Taliban, being communist and the leader of the dreaded KHAD made Najibullah only slightly more contemptible than a woman.'

"Mariam waded in. She dug in her heels and burrowed against the elbows, hips, and shoulder blades of strangers. Someone elbowed her in the ribs, and she elbowed back. A hand made a desperate grab at her face. She swatted it away. To propel herself forward, Mariam clawed at necks, at arms and elbows, at hair, and, when a woman nearby hissed, Mariam hissed back.

Mariam saw now the sacrifices a mother made. Decency was but one. She thought ruefully of Nana, of the sacrifices she too had made. Nana, who could have given her away, or tossed her in a ditch somewhere and run. But she hadn't. Instead, Nana had endured the shame of bearing a harami, had shaped her life around the thankless task of raising Mariam and, in her own way, of loving her. And, in the end, Mariam had chosen Jalil over her. As she fought her way with impudent resolve to the front of the melee, Mariam wished she had been a better daughter to Nana. She wished she'd understood then what she understood now about motherhood."

"Don't provoke him, Laila jo," Mariam said.

"I'm warning you, woman," he said.

"Either that or smoking."

"I swear to God."

"You can't help being what you are."

And then he was on Laila, pummeling her chest, her head, her belly with fists, tearing at her hair, throwing her to the wall. Aziza was shrieking, pulling at his shirt; Zalmai was screaming too, trying to get him off his mother. Rasheed shoved the children aside, pushed Laila to the ground, and began kicking her. Mariam threw herself on Laila. He went on kicking, kicking Mariam now, spittle flying

from his mouth, his eyes glittering with murderous intent, kicking until he couldn't anymore.

(page 298)

"Rasheed swung the belt again.

This time, Laila shielded herself with a forearm and made a grab at the belt. She missed, and Rasheed brought the belt down again. Laila caught it briefly before Rasheed yanked it free and lashed at her again. Then Laila was dashing around the room, and Mariam was screaming words that ran together and imploring Rasheed, as he chased Laila, as he blocked her way and cracked his belt at her. At one point, Laila ducked and managed to land a punch across his ear, which made him spit a curse and pursure her even more relentlessly. He caught her, threw her up against the wall, and struck her with the belt again and again, the buckle slamming against her chest, her shoulder, her raised arms, her fingers, drawing blood wherever it struck.

Mariam lost count of how many times the belt cracked, how many pleading words she cried out to Rasheed, how many times she circled around the incoherent tangle of teeth and fists and belt, before she saw fingers clawing at Rasheeds face, chipped nails digging into his jowls and pulling at his hair and scratching his forehead. How long before she realized, with shock and relish, that the fingers were hers."

1. "Laila was aware of the face over her, all teeth and tobacco and foreboding eyes. She was dimly aware, too, of Mariam a presence beyond the face, of her fists raining down. Above them was the ceiling, and it was the ceiling Laila was drawn to, the dark markings of mould plaster that was a stolid smile or a frown, depending on which end of the room you looked at it from..."

• Rhetorical question p.272, 275

• Exclusive pronouns p.272

• Compound adjectives p.272

• Sentence structure = staccato phrases p.275

• Tone = hostile p.275

• Punctuation language = use of dashes p.275

Literary devices

• Hypophora p.272

• Hyperbole p.276

• Metaphor p.272

• Epistrophe p.276

Staccato phrases

Code-switching

Peripety

Linguistic Devices:

Kinesthetic Imagery

Polysyneton

• Linguistic Devices:

• Symbolism

• Characterization

• Foreshadowing

• Imagery

  --> Visual

  --> Tactile

  --> Auditory

  --> Kinesthetic

  --> Gustatory

  
  

p.g 337-338

pg: 107

"Well, his flashlight will be going off before you know it" Babi said, referring to Laila and Tariq's nightly signalling game. They had played it for so long it had became a bedtime ritual, like brushing teeth.

pg: 110

Lover

Female Friendship

"You think?" he said. "Compared to what? The Soviets killed a million people. Do you know how many people the Mujahideen killed in Kabul alone these last four years? Fifty thousand. Fifty thousand! Is it so insensible, by comparison, to chop the hands off a few thieves? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's in the Koran. Besides, tell me this: If someone killed Aziza, wouldn't you want the chance to avenge her?"'

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"

• Conflicts: Man vs. Society (The government laws vs. women)

• ---> Man vs. Nature (medical needs that women naturally must tend to, ex: pregnancy)

• Gender Relations

“But just as he was bearing down on her, Mariam saw Laila behind him pick up something from the ground. She watched Laila’s hand raise overhead, hold, then come swooping down against the side of his face. Glass shattered. The jagged remains of the drinking glass rained down to the ground. There was blood on Laila’s hands, blood flowing from the open gash on Rasheed’s cheek, blood down his neck, on his shirt. He turned around, all snarling teeth and blazing eyes. 

They thrashed to the ground, Rasheed and Laila, thrashing about. He ended up on top, his hands already wrapped around Laila’s neck.”

p. 339

"Mariam was a thirty-three-year-old woman now, but that word, herami still had a sting. Hearing it still made her feel like she was a pest, a cockroach."

" If she were a car, she would be a Volga. You, on the other hand, would be a Benz. A brand new, first class, shiny Benz"

'This hospital no longer treats women,' the guard barked. He was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down icily on the crowd gathered in front of Malalai Hospital.

A loud groan rose from the crowd.

'But this is a women's hospital!'

...

'Go to Rabia Balkhi,' the guard said.

A young woman pushed forward, said she had already been there. They had no clean water, she said, no oxygen, no medications, no electricity. 'There is nothing there.'

'That's where you go,' the guard said.

Irony

Linguistic Devices:

Repetition

Epistrophe

Tone-->unsympathetic, tense

--> Characterisation of Rasheed

--> Rhetorical question

--> Epistrophe

2. "The crack wasn't a smile any longer now but a mocking leer. And it was receding. The ceiling was shrinking, lifting, rising away from her and toward some hazy dimness beyond. It rose until it shrank to the size of a postage stamp, white and bright, everything around it blotted out by the shuttered darkness. In the dark, Rasheed's face was like a sunspot."

"And you're a whore. A whore and a dozd. A thieving whore that's what you are?"

"Back in a Kolba, it seemed after all these years."

"He had a pronounced shaking of his hands and head that reminded Mariam of Mullah Faizullah's tremor."

"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 confidence at last."

"At last, she said, 'Sit down Laila Jo'. Laila did, obediently."

"Let me tend to your wounds now. You're all cut up Laila Jo."

"Mariam's soft maternal voice went on, brought a degree of comfort to her."

"A lovely lie meant to soothe. Like cooing to a distressed child"

"Think like a mother, Laila Jo. Think like a mother. I am."

--> Anaphora

--> Asyndeton

---> How does Khaled Hosseini portray the needs of women's survival in the hospital scene, p.278-280?

• Gender Relations

• The power of female doctors in society

• Historical context of employed women

"'They want us to operate in burqa,' the doctor explained, motioning with her head to the nurse at the door. 'She keeps watch. She sees them coming, I cover.'

She said this in a pragmatic, almost indifferent, tone, and Mariam understood that this was a woman far past outrage. Here was a woman, she thought, who had understood that she was lucky to even be working, that there was always something, something else, that they would take away."

(page 296)

Staccato phrases

Linguistic:

Pragmatic, indifferent tone

Repetition

• The power of memories to keep pain at bay

• Parental relationships

• Dreams

• Love

'In Laila's dream, she and Mariam are out behind the toolshed digging again. But, this time, it's Aziza they're lowering into the ground. Aziza's breath fogs the sheet of plastic in which they have wrapped her. Laila sees her panicked eyes, the whiteness of her palms as they slap and push against the sheet, Aziza pleads. Laila can't hear her screams. Only for a while, she calls down, it's only for a while. It's the raids, don't you know, my love? When the raids are over, Mammy and Khala Mariam will dig you out. I promise, my love. Then we can play. We can play all you want. She fills the shovel. Laila woke up, out of breat, with a taste of soil in her mouth, when the first granular lumps of dirt hit the plastic.'

Staccato phrases

Linguistic:

Stream of consciousness

Amplification

• foreshadowing

• Parataxis or syntax

• Visual imagery

• "visual" or "tangible symbolism.