Quarter 4: Week 4, Post B

This week, I chose to analyze a quote. It's from earlier in the book, but it stuck out to me and I wanted to go back and acknowledge it, even if it's a little late.

"She [Mariam] remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us" (82).

For some reason, these lines immediately struck a chord with me when I read them. First of all, I thought they perfectly showed Nana's grief and unhappiness in life. She was constantly reminding Mariam of how much she had suffered--she pitied herself immensely. She wasted her life away with regrets and resentment. Instead of instilling hope and optimism in her daughter, she was constantly pessimistic. And this is only one example of this. Another reason this quote caught my eye is because of its significance in Mariam's life. When she remembers this moment with her mother she has just lost a child due to miscarriage. Rasheed is furious and upset with himself, the doctors, and Mariam. He is selfish about his grief though, and he doesn't see how Mariam is equally, if not more, grief-stricken by the loss. She does not speak up though. Just as her mother stated about the snowflakes, Mariam endures the loss quietly and alone. She doesn't burden Rasheed with her pain. I think this quote also holds some foreshadowing. Having read further ahead in the book now, I know that Mariam is just beginning to suffer. She is forced to endure much more pain in the future--this is only the beginning. And through all of it, she continues to turn inward and face her pain alone. This quote foreshadows the pain and difficulty Mariam will face in the future.