Double Oppression of Women in Khalid Husseini’s Thousand Splendid Suns and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Abstract

The present study is intended to shed light on the double oppression that occurs to women in the patriarchal culture. In numerous cultures around the world, women are unfairly treated and oppressed regularly. They are marginalized and victimized because of their gender and race. For that reason, the primary target of postcolonial feminists is to oppose the inequality and inferiority experienced by women as a result of racial and cultural dominance. Feminist writers tend to set out on a mission to eliminate all forms of women oppression. In this regard, literature in general, and fiction in particular, satisfies their need to expose their predicament to the rest of the world in order to prove their existence and empower women to achieve the ability to determine themselves. Also, the study aims to investigate the concept of women’s double oppression which is perfectly depicted in Afro- American writer Alice Walker’s Color Purple and Afghan- American author Khalid Husseini’s Thousand Splendid Suns. The two novels are considered among the best written novels in the history of English Literature. Color Purple depicts all the events that Alice Walker’s family experienced and had a profound negative impact on her psych, whereas Thousand Splendid Suns tends to defend women from negative ideologies that created by Taliban’s authority in order to dehumanize and depress women. Ultimately, the paper concludes that both authors desire to demonstrate the power of women when they unit together and rebel against the oppressive authority.