Endure

Endure (tahamul) is the central survival ethic taught to Mariam by her mother Nana, who declares it the only skill a woman like them needs in life. This concept of silent, unquestioning endurance shapes Mariam's response to decades of abuse, loss, and war, and is later echoed in Laila's own suffering under Rasheed and the Taliban. The novel ultimately interrogates the cost of such endurance, contrasting it with acts of resistance and the possibility of a different kind of strength.

Nana's Doctrine of Endurance

Nana first articulates the doctrine of endurance when Mariam is a child, after Mariam asks to attend school. Nana dismisses the idea, saying, "What's the sense schooling a girl like you? It's like shining a spittoon." She then declares, "There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life, and they don't teach it in school. Look at me. Only one skill. And it's this: tahamul. Endure." When Mariam asks what she must endure, Nana replies, "Oh, don't you fret about that. There won't be any shortage of things." Nana frames endurance as the inevitable lot of women like them, a lesson reinforced by her own story: she was a housekeeper for Jalil's family until her pregnancy, after which she was cast out and forced to live in the isolated kolba. Nana also teaches Mariam a related rule: "Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always." This principle of blaming the woman, regardless of the man's actions, is the social mechanism that makes endurance necessary.

Mariam's Life of Endurance

Mariam internalizes Nana's lesson and practices endurance throughout her life. After Nana's suicide, Mariam is married off to the much older Rasheed and taken to Kabul. In her new home, she endures his initial coldness, his insistence that she wear a burqa, and the pain of their sexual encounters. She endures a series of miscarriages, each one deepening Rasheed's resentment and cruelty. Rasheed's abuse escalates from verbal insults to physical violence, including forcing pebbles into her mouth and breaking her teeth. Mariam's response is to endure, to shrink herself, to become a "Volga" as Rasheed later describes her. She learns to read his moods, to dread the sound of his key in the lock, and to accept his beatings as part of her life. This pattern of endurance is broken only when Laila enters the household and, eventually, when Mariam kills Rasheed to save Laila's life. In that final act, Mariam chooses to act rather than endure, a decision that leads to her own execution but also to Laila's salvation.

Laila's Endurance and the Breaking Point

Laila, too, is forced into a life of endurance. After a rocket kills her parents and she believes her beloved Tariq is dead, she marries Rasheed to give her unborn child (Tariq's) a home. She endures Rasheed's possessiveness, his lies, and his escalating violence. She endures the Taliban's oppressive laws, which confine her to the house and forbid her from working or going to school. She endures the hunger of the drought and the pain of sending her daughter Aziza to an orphanage. Laila's endurance is more active than Mariam's; she secretly saves money and plans to escape. But she is caught and brutally beaten. Her endurance is a matter of survival, not acceptance. The novel shows that while endurance is a necessary skill for survival in a brutal world, it is not a virtue in itself. It is a strategy that can be used to protect oneself and one's children, but it can also become a trap that prevents change.

The Thematic Significance of Endurance

The concept of endurance is central to the novel's exploration of female suffering and resilience. Nana's doctrine is presented as a bitter truth, a survival mechanism passed down through generations of women who have no other options. The novel shows the terrible cost of this endurance: Mariam's youth, her health, her teeth, her spirit. Yet it also shows that endurance can be a form of strength, a way to protect what is precious. Mariam endures so that Laila and Aziza can survive. Laila endures so that her children can have a future. The novel ultimately suggests that while endurance is necessary, it is not enough. True liberation comes not from silent suffering but from the courage to act, to resist, and to choose a different path. Mariam's final act of killing Rasheed is a rejection of endurance, a choice to take control of her own life, even at the cost of her death. Laila's return to Kabul to teach at the orphanage is another form of resistance, a choice to build a new life rather than simply endure the old one. The novel thus transforms the meaning of endurance from passive suffering to active perseverance, from a curse to a kind of grace.