Two mothers both afflicted by "The shining silence of the scorn of God"(G K Chesterton). Nana, from A Thousand Splendid Suns and Miranda from Impossible are both women who faced lives filled with pain and loneliness, and in these ways have much in common. What does it mean to be afflicted? A person suffering affliction is in great physical or emotional pain. Nana is afflicted emotionally by her status in Afghanistan as an unmarried mother. She must endure the ridicule of the townspeople and the loneliness of her isolated life with her daughter. Miranda also suffers emotional affliction during her pregnancy as an unmarried mother-to-be and a runaway. She later continued to suffer emotionally, being treated as an outcast because the world saw her as mentally ill. Nana was afflicted physically as well, the jinn would enter her body and caused Nana a lot of pain. In Afghanistan the jinn is a demon or evil spirit though to enter a persons body and give them fits, when in fact this poor woman suffered from epilepsy. Nana's epilepsy coast her a chance at a normal life. Before the jinn had entered her body for the first time Nana was engaged with a life as a wife and mother ahead of her. In Impossible the physical affliction resides in Miranda's lack of control of her own body and mind, and life as a servant to the evil Pardaig Seeley. Pardaig Seeley's curse has inflicted upon her the physical hardships of living a life as a homeless person. Both of these women are mothers, they both trying to protect their daughters form the pain of the life they where born to. Nana's daughter Mariam was born a harami meaning bastard and idolizes her father who lives separately from them. Nana won't let Mariam go to school in fear that other children will discriminate against her, and tries to stop Mariam form putting so much trust in her father, because Nana knows that he will break Mariam's heart in time. In Impossible Miranda knows before her daughter is born that Lucy will become a pregnant teenager one day and that growing up she and Lucy will never have the typical relationship shared by a mother and her daughter. Miranda tries to prevent her daughter from going to prom knowing that she will be raped and become pregnant, she also tries to establish a connection with Lucy as well as warn her of Pardaig Seeley and the curse by leaving her letters and a diary. Both mothers make astounding sacrifices for their daughters' benefit. In A Thousand Splendid Suns Nana chooses a self secluding life apart from the world to allow Mariam to have a sheltered childhood before eventually meeting the brutalities of life. In Impossible Miranda makes a great sacrifice by having Lucy rather than aborting, if Miranda had an abortion she would have avoided a tremendous amount of pain for herself, but she chose to have Lucy and set things up so that she would have a good life and home.
A Prayer in Darkness
This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,
Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.
If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,
Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,
In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,
The shining silence of the scorn of God.
-G K Chesterton
This poem describes a person in a state of complete madness. In both novels the mothers are often consumed by madness, yet despite their lack of control and sanity both Nana and Miranda manage to do what the believe is best for their children.
A Prayer in Darkness
This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,
Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.
If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,
Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,
In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,
The shining silence of the scorn of God.
-G K Chesterton
This poem describes a person in a state of complete madness. In both novels the mothers are often consumed by madness, yet despite their lack of control and sanity both Nana and Miranda manage to do what the believe is best for their children.