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Summary CONTEXT Tess of the d'Urbervilles and A Thousand Splendid Suns
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By: leenaflade14 • 8 months ago
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ATSS and TOTD context 'cheat sheet'Tess of the d’Urbervilles A Thousand Splendid Suns
Writer’s personal life ● Hardy witnessed the hanging of Elizabeth Martha ● Hosseini is an Afghan refugee himself
Brown when he was 16 years old, a ‘fine figure’ who he ● Father worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul
possible found attractive ● Mother worked as a Persian language teacher at a girls high
● Was an active Justice of the Peace when Tess was being school
written ● Both originated from Herat
● Declared in an interview that there is a ‘Pashtun’ part of him
and a ‘Tajik’ side too
● His wife’s uncle was a famous singer and composer in Kabul
who was outspoken about his dislike for the Communists and
disappeared (like when Taliban shoot the grave of a singer)
● Goodwill Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees
● Khaled Hosseini Foundation provides humanitarian assistance
in Afghanistan
Literary context ● ‘Poor wounded name! My bosom as a bed/Shall lodge ● Title comes from poem about Kabul by Saib-e-Tabrizi, a 17th
thee’ - epigraph from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of century Persian poet
Verona ● Blazon poetry = romantic
● Driving in the rain: ‘At Castle Boterel’ ● ‘Laili and Majnoon’ - in love since childhood but Majnoon dies
● Flintcomb Ash during winter: ‘The Darkling Thrush’ and of heartbreak as Laili marries another man.
‘Winter Word’ ● Novel ends in 2003, published in 2007
● Crime passionel French genre: killing a loved one ● 2001: Taliban left
● Raymond Williams, a Marxist critic, argues that Tess is ● By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in
not a peasant but a member of the educated working parts of the country.
class who is abused by Alec (landed bourgeoisie), Angel ● However, thousands of NATO troops have remained in the
(liberal idealism) and Christian moralism in her family's country to train and advise Afghan government forces and
, village continue their fight against the Taliban, which remains by far
● Science fiction genre was newly developed in the 19th the largest single group fighting against the Afghan
century government and foreign troops
● Paradise Lost subtext ● In January 2018, the BBC reported that the Taliban are openly
● Some critics, such as Ian Gregor, have suggested that active in 70% of the country
Hardy's structures should be seen as a web. Everything ● 2007/ NATO troops still fighting in Afghanisatan: novel is
is interconnected: nature, community, characters, almost like propaganda, bolstering American sympathy for
actions, images. Thus, landscape is connected to the oppressed citizens who will be freed by Western soldiers -
character; seasons to actions and images; outcomes to while reminding people of the humanity of Afghans and their
characters etc. rich culture
● Rosalind Miles: Hardy’s ‘admired women’, the other ● Hosseini’s books on Afghanistan are so appealing to the
important female characters in book, are often Western audience partially because they explore a culture
portrayed as blushing. Tess is described numerous and society that people have little knowledge of, except from
times with pink or red imagery. news about wars and conflict (like Tess, disseminated to an
● An ideal of the ‘angel in the house’, though, was urban population)
counter-balanced by a cultural fascination with her
opposite, the ‘fallen woman’ (a broad definition
encompassing any women who had, or appeared to
have, sexual experience outside of marriage, including
adulteresses and prostitutes) who appears in so much
Victorian literature and art
● All the energy that went into writing conduct books
telling women how to behave shows the concern that
‘proper’ feminine behaviour was far from natural, and
had to be taught
● Edmund Burke’s sublime with the drunk workers
returning home
● Pastoral
Society (and its ● ‘ache of modernity’ ● Majority are Pashtuns: merchants, traders, farmers, animal
changes) ● Emigration to Brazil breeders
● Intended readership: in the cities ● Tajiks: educated, wealthy elite, hold most power
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