Mariam and Laila Comparison

The life of a woman in the Middle East can be extremely difficult and uncontrollable. Two girls from the Middle East named, Mariam and Laila, are characters in the book, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” written by Khaled Hosseini. They come from different backgrounds, but end up in similar situations. Mariam and Laila are different even though the similar things happen to them. Mariam had a very suppressed childhood, while Laila had more of a normal childhood.

In order to describe Mariam, we’ll start from the beginning. She was a child born because Jalil, her father, had intercourse with a servant of his, her mother. Jalil made an isolated house away from town for Mariam and her mother to live. Mariam would stay there away from the rest of the world and Jalil would come visit her every once in awhile. One day she searched for her father’s house and when she got there she couldn’t go in. She was forced to go back home, but when she got there her mother had hung herself. Jalil then had her arranged to be married to a man that could take care of her. Rasheed was his name and he ended up being a very abusive partner. Mariam ends up meeting a girl named Laila.

However, Laila was born into a normal family. She had a boyfriend named Tariq for a long time. She had two brothers that went to fight in the war. Her family was normally pretty nice to her, but once her brothers died it made things very difficult. Her mother was always very depressed but her father tried to support her. She was taught that education was very important. Tariq’s family was nicer to her than her own family though and it always made her want to spend time with

Tariq. They end up deciding to leave to escape the war, but her house is hit by a missile and her parents are killed.

Mariam never had the chances that Laila had to live such a normal childhood. Both of their mothers ended up being isolated/depressed which caused them to have