Rasheed

__//A Thousand Splendid Suns//__, by Khaled Hosseini, begins with Mariam, a young girl, who lives with her mother, Nana, in a small village outside of Herat, Afghanistan. Nana used to work for Jalil until he made her pregnant with Mariam, which is when he cast her out to a shack. Because Mariam was a harami, or a bastard, she caused Jalil much shame and public humiliation until he was able to give her away in marriage, which he did after Nana committed suicide. Jalil and his wife married Mariam off to a shoe shop owner named Rasheed.
 * This will be removed when this is ready for grading* ** SHORT SYNOPSIS **

Towards the beginning of their marriage Rasheed acted kindly towards Mariam. However, with every consecutive failed childbirth, he became more cruel and twisted. Soon after Mariam's failed childbirths, the Taliban move in and start bombing the area regularly. Rasheed and Mariam eventually find Laila, a young marriageable girl who survived a bomb blast. At this point in time, Laila has just become pregnant with Tariq, the man she loves but who had just moved away. Desperate to find someone to care for her baby, Laila answers Rasheed's courting and marries him. Rasheed is ecstatic to find out that Laila is pregnant as he thinks the child is his, however his excitement soon turns to severe disappointment when he finds out the child is a girl (who is later named Aziza). Mariam and Laila soon bond and become good friends in the face of Rasheed's continuous cruelty and domestic violence.

Laila soon becomes pregnant with another child, a boy, who she names Zalmai. Rasheed greatly adores the boy and goes into great debt by spending all he had on Zalmai. Soon after incurring his debt, his shop burns down and they have to send Aziza to an orphanage in order to feed themselves. One day, after visiting Aziza at the orphanage, Tariq shows up in front of Laila. Laila is ecstatic as she had thought Tariq had died years ago. Upon hearing about Laila and Tariq's meeting, Rasheed attempts to kill Laila by choking her and he almost succeeds. Before Rasheed could actually kill Laila, Mariam grabbed a shovel and hit him twice on the head which killed him. Laila and Tariq then flee, marry, and start a new life in Pakistan with Aziza and Zalmai while Mariam stays behind to take the blame for Rasheed's death so that Laila and co can escape. Mariam is later executed on charges for murdering her husband.

At the end of the book, Laila, Tariq, Aziza, and Zalmai move back to Herat to help with the reconstruction taking place after the Taliban left. Over there, Laila finds a letter to Mariam from Jalil that adds closure to Mariam's death. Laila ends up teaching at an orphanage in Kabul while Tariq ends up working for an NGO ( non-governmental organization) that fits land mine victims with prosthetic limbs. Laila ends up becoming pregnant again and vows to name her child Mariam if it is a girl.

** ARCHETYPAL FUNCTION **

** HOW TO SPEAK LIKE RASHEED **
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