Introduction

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This essay seeks to explore how natural symbols, comprising the organic and inorganic, shape human identity within Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns.[1]

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Set in Afghanistan from the 1960s to the 1990s, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a work of historical-realist fiction where the Soviet control and Taliban occupation cast a shadow over the lives of two women, Mariam and Laila. Mariam in particular, being an illegitimate child, faces both societal and familial prejudices; her complex background prompts discussion of identity. Hosseini’s crafting of symbols is drawn from his own lived landscape, as observed in his other titles, The Kite Runner[2] and And the Mountains Echoed[3].

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Identity is a social construct — it can be accepted or adopted consciously by individuals; similarly, others can perceive an individual’s identity or even impose an identity in a more negative sense, with the individual forced to internalise the imposed identity as a result.[4] Yet these two types of identities ought not to be viewed in isolation from each other. Although they can be one and the same, they are often different yet held simultaneously; each individual echoes the identity that others construct for them all while projecting the identities they construct for themselves. Nonetheless, identity is dynamic and subject to change over the course of individuals’ lives. Therefore, organic symbols effectively reflect this dynamism since the organic is similarly in a state of continuous growth. Inorganic symbols, being derived from a natural landscape, are still natural per se and are effective at modelling the identities of characters despite their state of constancy, for they are stative in nature and therefore describe the ways characters are perceived and judged by others. Organic and inorganic natural symbols are considered in two main ways: (i) how they reflect the dual identities of characters, which comprise the adopted and the imposed; and (ii) how they reconcile these disparate identities.

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The natural symbols in A Thousand Splendid Suns (henceforth Suns) are used to shape the identities of narrative personae by reflecting their growth and the perceptions others have of them. Natural symbols permeate Suns, but this essay focusses on how Hosseini uses them to construct the multifaceted identity of the primary protagonist, Mariam. Organic and inorganic symbols are considered through botanical and geological lenses respectively, as these disciplines converge in their applied study of natural environments.

 

The Organic and the Reflection of Identity

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”

-A. A. Milne

 

Hosseini uses the recurring organic symbol of the weed to shape Mariam’s identity as a child, for it is imposed on her by her own mother as a reminder or her illegitimacy and being a harami (a bastard child) abandoned by her father, Jalil:

 

To Jalil and his wives, I was a pokeroot. A mugwort. You too. And you weren’t even born yet.”

“What’s a mugwort?” Mariam asked.

“A weed,” Nana said. “Something you rip out and toss aside”[5]

 

Nana, Mariam’s mother, imposes Jalil’s perception of her own identity on Mariam using the symbol of weeds, thereby signalling her unwantedness. In modern agriculture, all parts of the poke root[6] are highly toxic, while mugworts[7] are an invasive species tending to populate uncultivated waste areas. The negative attributes of commonality, injuriousness, and unwantedness, also reflected by the violent kinaesthetic imagery of purging, are unfairly imputed on Mariam, even before her birth — these defined her from her conception. Mariam’s questioning reveals the formative stage of her identity, during which the external imposition of such attributes are most harmful and lasting; she does not yet recognise that her identity is synonymous with the weed. Weeds thus become symbolic of unwantedness and shape Mariam’s identity as a harami.

 

Similarly, Nana’s suicide is allusive to the symbol of the weed, presented as a destructive force in Mullah Faizullah’s description as the reason for her death:

 

“You see, I knew your mother before you were born, when she was a little girl, and I tell you that she was unhappy then. The seed for what she did was planted long ago, I’m afraid.”[8]

 

The notion of a weed being left to fester here subverts the traditionally positive symbol of the seed as a symbol of fertility and growth, for it is now the underlying cause of self-destruction. Hosseini associates sentiments of unhappiness and hidden depression with weeds, the trend of which is seen later in Mariam’s dealing with her own emotions. Ironically, the active and purposeful process of “[planting]” is contrary to what is expected of weeds, for they are considered an invasive influence and not consciously established by anyone; this implies Nana herself caused her own misery, even before she consciously adopted the identity of being a weed — she was never able to change her identity, for her mental state as constantly despairing was never changed but only been worsened by her rape. The symbol of the weed therefore taints the identities of its bearers with not just unwantedness but also despair, a precursor to destruction.

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Eventually, the sentiments of unwantedness and grief imputed to weeds translate to Mariam’s evaluation of her own feelings with weeds as a proxy:

 

And the past only held this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they could talke hold.[9]

 

Mariam quantifies her emotions, the very manifestations of the human condition, with the symbol of noxious weeds. Her unwantedness by others now translates to her self-dehumanisation by the rejection of the very stirrings that define her humanity; she evaluates them in terms of their perverse beauty and rejects them wholly, actively seeking to destroy them from the outset. Even the milieu of growth, a metaphor for her psyche, is marked by destitution and barrenness, indicative of her having accepted this identity of being a weed such that her mind is regarded as their festering ground. The recurring motif of uprooting and deracination becomes intertwined with the symbol, as weeds are considered to be difficult to remove once established — the sense of preemption here only intensifies the sentiments of unwantedness, to the extent that they are never even tolerated in their incipience. It is ironic that Mariam, being defined as a weed herself, now seeks to exterminate them figuratively, yet it reveals her failure to fully accept her own identity even though she has acquiesced it: just as she has been treated like a weed, she treats the extensions of herself as weeds.

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Contrastingly, Hosseini also imposes the seemingly positive organic symbol of the tuberose upon Mariam. The ornamental tuberose represents a sense of desirability and therefore wantedness; it is bestowed upon Mariam as her name, unlike the antithetical weed symbolic of her unwantedness, but a label cast upon her.

 

Nana said she was the one who’d picked the name Mariam because it had been the name of her mother. Jalil said he chose the name because Mariam, the tuberose, was a lovely flower.

“Your favourite?” Mariam asked.

“Well, one of,” he said and smiled.[10]

 

Despite the conflicting narratives between her parents, both carry significance: Nana’s rationale imbues the symbol as a name with familial overtones and a desire to memorialise the past, while Jalil’s justification lies in the attractive traits of the tuberose, presumably its physical beauty and perfume-like scent[11]. Regardless, her question already presupposes she has accepted Jalil’s reason for choosing the name over Nana’s. Mariam can therefore enjoy Jalil’s appreciation for the flower translating to his love for her, despite it being just “one of” his favourites — a value judgement from a figure whom she respected greatly then. The tuberose thus begins as a positive symbol shaping Mariam’s identity, one she adopts more consciously than that of being a weed.

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However, Hosseini ultimately subverts the symbol after Mariam has been betrayed by Jalil and enters a forced marriage with Rasheed. The symbol of the tuberose is stripped of the emotional significance previously borne to her and instead becomes a painful reminder of her illegitimacy in her father’s eyes, revealed when Rasheed leaves a gift for Mariam:

 

Only now Mariam saw a basket on the sill. White tuberoses spilled from its sides.

“You like them? They please you?”

“Yes.”

“You can thank me then.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. Tashakor—”[12]

 

The supposedly positive notion of abundance to the point of overflow is subverted as it undermines the significance of the tuberose vested in Mariam’s name by stripping it of the singularity that conferred it uniqueness — the tuberose is thus in some respects like a weed: abundant and now unwanted by Mariam. Jalil’s falsehood as her supposed namer has translated to Rasheed’s reminder of her being unwanted, compounded by the transactional way Rasheed treats the tuberoses — simply as a means of “[pleasing her]”, to the point that he elicits a response and verbal appreciation from her for his own satisfaction. Nonetheless, her curt response indicates her insincerity, for she does not truly appreciate them: she recognises that her identity of being a tuberose no longer holds any positive value, but instead reminds her that she is once again an unwanted harami who has been abandoned by Jalil to Rasheed.

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Hosseini thus employs the twin symbols of weeds and the tuberose to prove that organic plant symbols can be used to denigrate one’s identity through the lives of Mariam and Nana. Ironically, despite the constant state of growth of weeds as organic symbols, they reflect Hosseini’s shaping of Mariam’s unchanging identity as a social outcast; although the tuberose begins on a positive note, the evolution of this symbol leads to the same outcome as the weeds in reflecting Mariam’s unchanging, imposed, and underlying identities of illegitimacy and unwantedness.

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