GENDER PERFORMATIVITY AND CHAUVINISTIC PRESSURE IN HOSSEINI'S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS: A BUTLERIAN FEMINIST ANALYSIS

Abstract

Khaled Hosseini's _A Thousand Splendid Suns_ is widely read as a novel of war, female suffering, and patriarchal cruelty. That reading is valid, but it does not reach the full depth of the text. The novel also shows how womanhood is produced through repetition, control, and social correction. Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity offers a strong way to read this process. Butler argues that gender is not a fixed inner truth. It comes into being through repeated acts, bodily habits, social pressure, and cultural rules that make femininity appear natural (Butler, 1990, 1993). In Hosseini's novel, Mariam and Laila are pushed into socially approved forms of womanhood through marriage, silence, dress, labor, motherhood, and fear. Their lives reveal that chauvinistic power works not only through open violence, but also through daily routines that train women to accept smaller spaces, lower voices, and limited choices. At the same time, the novel shows that repeated norms are never fully secure. Female friendship, care, and ethical refusal disturb the script. This article offers a Butlerian feminist reading of the novel by tracing the production of gender under pressure, the role of male authority, and the forms of resistance that grow inside imposed roles. It argues that Hosseini's novel is not just about women being oppressed, but about how oppression becomes part of gendered life itself.