RESISTANCE AND EMPOWERMENT: A SOCIALIST FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF KHALED HOSSEINI’S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS AND TONI MORRISON’S PARADISE

Abstract

The study explores feminist ideas regarding the experience of oppression among women as they struggle towards empowerment in the novels, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and Paradise by Toni Morrison. The study analyzes how patriarchal structures coupled with religious convictions and social political tension shape female identities in terms of the socialist feminist theory in Afghan and African American contexts. This study employs Mariam and Laila from Hosseini's work and Consolata and the women at the Convent to see how women communicate themselves in cases where they experience violence as well as exclusion by means of silence. Both books feature tales of women who resist their systemic oppression by means of collective action in an effort to attain autonomy despite differences in culture. The research employs qualitative text analysis by using feminist literary criticism techniques and close reading to derive thematic findings from the text.