Women’s Voices between Silence and Resistance: A Psychoanalytic Reading of A Thousand Splendid Suns

Abstract

The representation of women's voices in contemporary fiction has seen a major shift in terms of their depiction, particularly in contexts marked by war, patriarchy, and social oppression. Although there have been many studies on the topic of silence in literature as a means of marginalizing and subjugating people, and while more and more works have started analysing the use of silence as a form of resistance, little has been done regarding the analysis of the use of silence as a mode of resistance in light of the psychoanalytic theory of Julia Kristeva in the context of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Based on theories developed by Julia Kristeva regarding semiotics, symbolic, and repression, this research studies how silence and resistance affect the subjectivity of the female characters Mariam and Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns. It investigates how silence becomes a semiotic space for the expression of repressed feelings in the case of Mariam and how the identity of Laila is constructed through education and awareness in addition to her resistance against the symbolic order. In spite of the differences between their identities, it becomes evident that repression is not a factor that limits the identity construction, but at the same time, it helps in forming identity. It is found that silence becomes more than a lack of voice; it is a type of resistance that creates female solidarity