The Shadows of Pain, Hatred, Love, and Fear: An Affective Reading of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns

Through the history of human beings there are thousands of stories of pain, hardship and great resistance. The moments in which anybody will lose hope and fall desperately and the moments that they rise again and fight for a great goal. All those magnificent moments are the true meaning of being human; to fall, endure and to rise again. Some believe that our wounds and their scars are precious reminders of a sorrow that we experienced and they are to be considered as our badge of honor, that is to say, they are reminiscent of a bravery and make us proud of our tolerance. However, the reasons for this endurance varies from person to person, some cling to a special objective, while others try to push away the impediments for their love. In this study, we aim to analyze Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns with an affective narratological approach to find out moments charged with pain and sorrow and the incentives to motivate characters to tolerate that misery.

Keywords:

Pain , Love , Endurance , Khaled Hosseini , Affective Narratology