Insight Paragraph

        After searching up the cities, Herat and Kabul, that the Khaled Hosseini's book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, focuses on, I understood more about how Mariam feels about leaving Herat and going to the capital, Kabul. Throughout history both cities have been through war and invasion but for Mariam, Herat was all she knew before she was sent to Kabul. I chose to link the two cities to websites to emphasize how big of a change the move from Herat to Kabul would be for Mariam. When I read more about the two cities, I realized that since Kabul was a bigger city, there are more opportunities and it is not as traditional as Herat might have been. Mariam describes Kabul as a "big, strange, crowded city, that, Jailil once told her, was some six hundred and fifty kilometers to the east of Herat" (48). Once I searched up exactly where Herat and Kabul are on the map, I understood how Mariam felt about leaving Herat. To be completely displaced from all that she knew and sent to a city with a stranger is overwhelming and it shows how much Afghan culture values reputation over illegitimate children. Jalil would rather protect his reputation and send his daughter to a city with a stranger than accept her.
     For many people, being in a new place is a chance to create a new identity for themselves or it is a wonderful experience, but for Mariam being sent to a new place is an act of betrayal. Mariam's identity is completely stripped because everything she knows is being taken away from her. Since Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan, more events take place there, such as the occupation by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1979 to the Taliban taking control of the government in 1996. Mariam has experienced many of the comings and goings of the events in Kabul and every single event has impacted her. Nowadays, Kabul is a city trying to pick it's pieces back up and rebuild itself.
   Reading more about how Kabul, the capital, has been ravished by different organizations gives me a sense of the society Mariam and Laila lived in. It is a city that has been through many challenges and each time, the people in Kabul manage to push through and find the will to live. Mariam and Laila from Khlaed Hosseini's book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, are the only two characters that represent the millions that live in Kabul.