Critical Lense
Thomas De Quincey once said “ all that is literature seeks to communicate power. ” An author communicates a form of power to others through his/her works. Every piece of literature carries a strong message. These messages can open a person’s eyes and mind to a new perspective. It can also point out things that have repeated throughout history, like discrimination and hatred towards a certain race or what love can do for people. These messages could show what most people don’t see.
Literature works such as To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, have a very strong message underneath. In To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee is a great novel about discrimination and injustice towards a certain race. This is a great novel about a particular trial, where Atticus Finch, a good lawyer, defends Tom Robinson, whose being accused of raping a young white girl. Tom Robinson is a black man, who has done nothing wrong but is being accused of raping someone just because of his skin color.
It did not matter what the black man said back than. Whatever the white person said was always “right”. One of the themes for this book is the existence of social inequality. The social status of Maycomb was very complicated. At the top you had the Finches, than the Cunninghams, than the Ewells, which were considered white trash. But all the way below the Ewells were the blacks. As you can see, the blacks were below the white trash, they were at the very bottom of the social ladder. This really did effect the society in Maycomb. It divided people up into certain groups.
Since the Ewells were above the blacks, it gave them the power to persecute Tom Robinson, an innocent black man. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, is a story about two women and their lives in Afghanistan. These two women with different ideas about life are brought together by war and loss. As they go through all the dangers that life has brought upon them, they create a strong relationship. They create a mother-daughter and kind of sisters bond. Their abusive husband and the dangerous streets of Kabul have brought them together.
This book shows how someone’s love for her family can move this person to shocking self-sacrifice. And the key to surviving all of this is love. Through the theme of female bonds, you can see what the bond of love can do for a women. The efforts of their husband and the government to keep women from having power as much as possible does not work. They form great, strong bonds that give them confidence and strength to fight back. Laila and Miriam form this strong bond together. They both have support in one another. Towards the end, Miriam finally had the strength to fight Rasheed.
She did not get this from herself, but from the confidence and love from Laila. As you can see, both of these great novels have a strong message underneath. One of the messages is that social inequality does exist and does destroy people’s lives. The other message is that bonds can give people strength and confidence, which gives them the ability to step up. Love is they key survival of these bonds. Women forms these bonds and have each other’s support and love to give them strength to do more in their life and also to self-sacrifice. Both of these messages have opened people’s eyes to new point of views.
