Basic Personal Power to Resist Male Supremacist in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns

Abstract

The study aims to analyze three gender issues embedded in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. Firstly, it asks sexist oppression experienced by the women protagonists. Secondly, it puts a question to women bonding built between the women protagonists. Thirdly, it enquires basic personal power exercised by the women protagonists. On the basis of bell hooks (1984) and Biana (2000), those three problems in the study are analyzed interrelatedly to show that women have power to resist male supremacist’s interpretation of women reality. Besides, the study is conducted since no previous studies analyzed the three problems interrelatedly on the basis of the two theories used. The study applies the content analysis method to analyze the author’s narration, monolog, and dialog that show the three problems or issues in the novel. The results of the study are divided into three parts of which describe each of three issues. Firstly, the women protagonists experience sexist oppression in the form of verbal bullying, psychological, and physical abuse. Secondly, the women protagonists obtain solidarity from the women bonding that lead them build the front unity. Thirdly, the women protagonists are able to exercise their basic personal power from the front unity to resist the male supremacist interpretaion of their reality as the subordinations who are dominated and oppressed.

Keywords—sexist oppression; women power; women solidarity; A Thousand Splendid Suns

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/99-04

Publication date:November 30^th 2023