本文对美籍阿富汗作家卡勒德·胡赛尼的小说《灿烂千阳》中的两位女主人公．玛利亚姆和莱拉的悲剧进行了解读。卡德勒·胡塞尼在《灿烂千阳》中讲述有着相反的背景却由一个共同的命运而联系在一起的玛丽雅姆和莱拉的故事。她们同样经历着作为阿富汗妇女的苦难。本文展示了在战乱背景下父权制的阿富汗社会中，两位女主人公的转变和成长过程，展现了女性深受性别歧视和父权压迫的政治和生活境遇，以及对这种歧视和压迫的反抗和对自由平等的渴望和追求。

在父权制的阿富汗社会，妇女在社会地位、婚姻地位、经济地位等均处于弱势。她们处在社会的最底层，受到政策的严重束缚，在婚姻中没有自己的自由，只充当延续后代的工具，在经济上不能取得独立，也完全依赖于丈夫，丧失了自己追求自由及平等的权利。在塔利班统治时期，伊斯兰教的部分教义被扭曲，对妇女的要求更加苛刻，妇女的地位更是一落千丈，女性对自由及平等的向往被严重压抑。

本文的通过分析小说中人物的悲剧原因，引起人们对阿富汗妇女命运的沉思，在父权制的社会环境下，女性要通过自己的努力打破父权制的束缚，争夺自己的话语权，用自己的声音为边缘化的女性说话。

关键词：阿富汗妇女， 悲剧，父权制， 极端宗教主义

This thesis analyzes the two feminine protagonists—Mariam and Laila’s tragedy of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan-American author. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini presents the story of Mariam and Laila hailing from diametrically opposite backgrounds linked by a common fate, experiencing similar tribulations of being Afghan women. This thesis showing their transformation and growth against the background of a war-stricken and patriarchal Afghan, depicting their living condition characterized by gender discrimination and patriarchal depression, and revealing their action against discrimination and depression as well as the pursuit of equity and freedom．

Women hold a disadvantageous position in the patriarchal Afghanistan society in terms of social status, marriage and economy.They are at the lowest class in the society and are seriously restricted by the policy of government. As for the marriage，they play a role of tool to reproduce a new generation and can not gain happiness. When it comes to economy,they Can not gain independence and have to relied on their husband to support the family. Therefore，thy have lost the right to seek for freedom and equality. During the Taliban-governed period，some Islamic doctrine was distorted，the requirement on women became stricter,the position of women was downgraded noticeably,and their aspiration for freedom and equality was seriously subdued.

This thesis aims to attract people’s attention to the fate of Afghan women through analyzing the causes of the figures’ tragedy in the novel. In the patriarchal society, women have broken the restraints imposed by patriarchy through efforts and struggle for the right of speech and the support for the marginalized women.

Key words：Afghan women; tragedy; patriarchy; religious extremism

A Thousand Splendid Suns unfolds the tumultuous history of Afghanistan and the struggle of the innocent citizens in the violent and bloody war. The backdrop of A Thousand Splendid Suns is still Afghanistan. The novel spans over 30 years of Afghan torments from the late 1960s to April, 2003 and derives his name from the poem of Kabul, an Afghan well-known poet, which portrays the picturesque splendid Kabul’s scene. Different from the beautiful name of the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, the detail of the novel is filled with streets lined with beggars, fatherless children, and husbandless wives who suffer from poverty, hungry, misery. Hosseini’s narrative captures details of two Afghan females’ lives in turmoil, depicting a love prose to anyone who has ever lost and despaired but has never given up rays of hope. Mariam and Laila, two beautiful characters own the same miserable life. Mariam, a daughter of a businessman and a maid out of wedlock is married to Rasheed, a rude barbarous 45-year old shoemaker. Laila, a daughter with a peaceful and happy childhood in an educated family is forced to marry Rasheed under his conspiracy. In the Afghan turbulent history of the past three decades, the two females’ fates are interwoven and they compose the indestructible love prose. The novel combines the real historical event with the fictional plots, narrating Afghan females’ painful living experiences.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is divided into four parts. Part One tells the story of Mariam. Part Two tells that of Laila. Part Three centers on the shared experience of Mariam and Laila living under the same roof, and part Four serves as an epilogue relating Laila’s life with Tariq and her children in the aftermath of Rasheed’s and Mariam’s deaths. Mariam’s story begins in 1964 when she is five years old. Ten years later, at the age of fifteen, she is walking away from her one-room home or Kolba on the outskirts of the village of Gul Daman into the big city of Herat to find her father. Laila’s story begins in 1987 when she is nine years old. She is born in the same spring as the Communist takeover of Kabul in 1978. Mariam is nineteen at that time. Their stories come together in 1992, as Laila turns fourteen and the Mujahideen battle for control of Kabul. Laila is separated from her family and married to Rasheed at almost the same time that this happens to Mariam. Their circumstances are different, but the results are virtually identical. Eventually, Laila will provide sanctuary for Mariam through the love that she and her children share with her—giving her a family, a sense of belonging, and a purpose. Mariam provides Laila and the children with the prospect of sanctuary through her decisive actions at the climax of the novel. Not only does she save Laila from death, but she also provides the chance and the inspiration for Laila to realize her full potential.

Through Mariam and Laila’s tragedy we can seen women have held a disadvantageous position in the Afghanistan society in terms of social status, marriage, economy and education. During the Taliban—governed period, some Islamic doctrine was distorted, the requirement on women became stricter,the position of women was downgraded noticeably,and their aspiration for freedom and equality was seriously subdued. Women have been required to wear burqa and are ordered not to work and to be educated, so many fights of women have been deprived, which has made women highly dependent on men, their social status remained low and the feminist consciousness subdued. Under the oppression of war, they also lost their family and other.

The novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns” describes the plights of Afghan women under the repressive forces of political parties and at their homes. Islam has really forbidden the woman to come on streets without burqa (veil) because the fair sex can easily be the victim of eve teasing and men’s lustful approaches, the veil serves as a sort of protection. Women in Afghanistan overcome adversity and oppression by the opposite sex everyday of their lives in and outside the confines of their own homes. What Khaled Hosseini describes in the novel is really unfortunate not for the women only but for the humanity at large. The Afghan women are really fighting for their existence of being born women. Khaled Hosseini is concerned with their health, education and their being abused by their fathers, their husbands, their neighbors and largely by the politics of unending war in Afghanistan.

From a certain point of view, we merge into it though we were perched high in the sky observing the intersection of several crossfire’s. One cross fire is that of Afghanistan itself, war torn and demolished by conflict. These are the real, literal bullets that rip holes in homes and leave children fatherless and mothers childless and wives widows. Within this larger crossfire is a smaller, more dangerous crossfire, where the women are the targets of spiritual, psychological, physical, and religious abuse by men whose pain, frustration, and warped religious fervor find release against the most vulnerable, but out of the suffering, true character emerges, real love.