A level English Literature Prose Essay on the Theme of Marriage in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Received a Grade A
Compare the ways in which writers of your two chosen texts portray marriage in their novels. You
must relate your discussion to relevant contextual factors.
Both Brontë and Hosseini portray marriage as a construct fated to fail without love to sustain it. It
is seen throughout both novels that a marriage that comes to be due to societal and religious
expectations can have extreme negative e ects, speci cally for the women involved. It is also
used to point out the problems in society, the oppression of women and the clear male privilege
that is present, as men use and marry women for their own bene t, caring little for them.
Fear is a theme almost ubiquitously associated with these marriages. An example is Rasheed and
Mariam’s marriage, whose power dynamic thrives o of this fear, as Hosseini puts it ‘after four
years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid.’
By directly referencing that Mariam is a ‘woman’, Hosseini makes it clear that women are the ones
that typically su er in these marriages, suggesting that he believes a more equal power dynamic
is key to a successful marriage, and that the patriarchal society is awed. When a woman marries
she is no longer her own person, becoming the property of her husband, therefore, from the
beginning all control is given to the man. The verb ‘tolerate’ could also be linked to something
Nana said earlier on in the novel: ‘It’s our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure.’ ‘Tolerate’
is a synonym for ‘endure’ therefore, this suggests that it is a microcosm for all women in
Afghanistan and that arranged marriage is simply something else they have to endure, along with
the fear and domestic violence that comes with it. Once again, Hosseini directly references
women, highlighting that they are the majority of victims.
This is also a theme associated with Heathcli and Isabella’s marriage in ‘Wuthering Heights’, due
to the violence and abuse that takes place. Isabella marries Heathcli because she truly thinks
she is in love with him. He’s mysterious, handsome and she is intrigued by him, the byronic hero.
Not knowing much about his character led her to create an idyllic fantasy of what marriage to him
would be like. She is warned by Catherine that she is foolish and that ‘he is not a rough diamond -
a pearl containing oyster of a rustic; he’s a erce, pitiless, wol sh man’. This use of metaphor
suggests that Isabella believes there is something kind and worthwhile deep inside of Heathcli .
The idea of an ‘oyster’ could allude to all of the cruelty he faced in his childhood forcing him to
become closed o from the world and cruel himself. This is further proven through ‘rough
diamond’ as this again suggests something valuable and beautiful has been damaged. However,
she is made to confront the harsh reality and realises her mistake. The zoomorphic adjective
‘wol sh’ foreshadows this as it is his true self. He is associated with an aggressive, wild animal as
he takes out all of his anger towards Edgar on Isabella - ‘that I should be Edgar’s proxy in
su ering, till he could get hold of him.’ Heathcli ’s reasons for marrying Isabella are purely of a
villainous nature. He cannot act on this hatred towards her brother so he uses Isabella. She is his
metaphorical punching bag, since to him she has never had any worth and he is completely
indi erent to her su ering. It was unfortunately common for these sorts of abusive men to use
their wives as a way of relieving themselves of their anger in the victorian era. It was incredibly
di cult for women to divorce their husbands without evidence of their reasoning and most would
be too afraid to even attempt to do so. This once again highlights the worthlessness of a woman
in the eyes of society at the time. This marriage also has an interesting link with Mariam and
Rasheed’s - both women eventually escape their cruel husbands,however for both women this
results in their eventual demise. This highlights that women are somewhat destined to su er no
matter their situation when there is a patriarchal society, di ering only in the circumstances of
their death between a woman in Victorian England and a woman in 60’s - 00’s Afghanistan. This
portrayal of marriage by Brontë shows how impacted a marriage is by the privilege of men, their
immediate control invoking fear into their wives as they come to realise how little society o ers
them in ways of protection once they have been married. Heathcli and Isabella are an extreme
and shocking example of a marriage that should have never taken place.
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