Background of the Study

1

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader orientation of the selected topic, aggression in A Thousand Splendid Suns. This chapter will comprise five subdivisions, namely, background of the study, problem formulation, objective of the study, benefits of the study, and definition of terms.

A. Background of the Study

This literary study is aimed to study of human’s deviant behavior within the scope of household generated from a make-belief case of husband-to-wife aggression. The concern to converse with is a portrayal of a life after marriage— that will be proven it is not always so sweet to be enviable—taken from A Thousand Splendid Suns. The author who previously has borne The Kite Runner as his debut upholds aggression within a family as a main theme background in his second masterwork. Over the shroud of a prolonged war which rapidly rampages the buildings while keeping mounting the dead toll this aforementioned issue looms to draw more devastating pictures. Despite the pictures of Taliban the infamous warlord that inflicts conservative Sharia law to women as its main interest manifesting their impunities—which include leashing, lashing, stoning, whipping, and their partial tendency toward men—and the pictures of losing the beloved ones upon unpredicted missiles or untraced landmines, the pictures of inhumane husband aggressions suffered by two wives in this novel are in a distant 2 far clearer. The bitter cloud in their hearts pathetically cloud the smoke hovering above devastated Kabul and their tears dampen the noises of bombs raining from the sky. Fundamentally thus, the war aggression storied in this novel feels inundated by the calamity of husband-to-wife aggression undergone by the star- crossed victims. One of the clenching parts of this issue would be on the side of the perpetrator albeit the major people’s attention would be on the victims. The awareness of the rationale behind the aggressor to rest to that unpopular act is the goal to be derived in this study. Despite the host understandings that may generate, the least that this novel can do—even though it can be labeled as this very novel special rarity—is likely to educate people to learn that aggression in whatever sorts are deteriorating but uplifting. Indeed, indubitably, the sort is more catastrophic or at least has its personal degree when the assailant is a person who is very personal to the victims—their husband. . Hosseini submerges profoundly in some particular details of a family life, not to mention the one saliently storied is the husband-to-wife aggression. Three vicarious characters are involved, namely Rasheed, Mariam and Laila, to depict what the worst of this matter can be. Rasheed, the aggressor, is depicted as a husband who continually insults his wives in some forms setting off from uttering harsh words regularly till even it evolves to some physical acts which result in body injuries and defects. As previously informed, my interest levers to this antagonist character by the extent of his rationale to continually aggress against his two wives—Mariam and Laila. I envisage this study will meet many similarities in our literal life as we have learnt violence within husband-and-wife 3 relationship still often covered in news headlines. psychology and sociology seem also perennially take this matter as a favorite which shows that aggression has been as matter of course general but always interesting to study. Eventually, managing to provide a good writing I would try to avoid impartial and hopefully more focused judgments of the alleged aggression by providing justifications derived from the border of psychological reasoning. Despite of this fact of choice, it would probably be a difficult detachment of other scopes of studies with familiar features i.e. sociology and anthropology. However, since the focus of interest of this study is more to human personal relation as a specific case within a family than the society with its generality, the psychological approach is taken as the choice that fits to adjudicate this very issue.

B. Problems Formulation