A Thousand Splendid Suns Illegitimacy vs. legitimacy

Name: Course Title: Course Instructor: School: Date Due: A Thousand Splendid Suns Illegitimacy vs. Legitimacy The concept of legitimacy and illegitimacy is evident in most parts of the novel. The focus on Miriam`s birth reveals that the people who surrounded her through her upbringing considered her illegitimate. In the novel, while walking the final twenty paces she pondered, "...this was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings". Her illegitimacy comes from the fact that she was born to a mother who was a maid in her father`s household (Hosseini, 2008, p38). Her mother puts all the blames on her and says that she is the greatest mistake that happened in her life. The illegitimacy puts a heavy burden on her and she is constantly reminded that she would not be of any help to the society. At the beginning, she is forced to accept her position as a harami and keeps silent to avoid attracting anybody to her attention. What makes her case worse is that she is an illegitimate child of one of the most respected personalities in Afghanistan. She expresses the fact that she stands alone after being sent away from her father`s home and she muses over it: "she did not belong here. But where do I belong? What am I going to do now?" (Hosseini, p38). Her actions as an adult however, are considered legitimate as she makes several sacrifices for Tariq, Laila and their children. Laila has a plan to have her third child named after Mariam if it is a baby girl as an honour for her goodness after she made a sacrifice to take up the blame on Rasheed`s death (Hosseini, p.123). She went beyond what the society expected her to do. She achieved much for advocating for the rights of women in prison. The women considered her their hero and honoured her greatly. These women had been convicted for disobeying the Taliban. Her kindness can be gotten from this excerpt, "…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 had 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 could die this way…" On the other hand, Rasheed was considered legitimate at birth by Jalil and his peers in Kabul because he was a child and represented the patriarchical system in Afghanistan. His actions at home however, can be considered as illegitimate, unjustifiable and atrocious. Rasheed runs the house the way he wants (Hosseini, p.212). When Miriam gets pregnant, Rasheed makes toys in preparation for a baby boy and when Miriam faces him with the possibility that it could as well be a girl, he becomes upset....