Jalil Character Analysis in A Thousand Splendid Suns

Mariam’s father, a successful cinema owner in Herat, who has three wives and nine legitimate children in addition to Mariam. Jalil comes to see Mariam every week when she is a child, but he never allows her to visit him in Herat or join the rest of his family there. Jalil does seem conflicted about Mariam, but he refuses to see her when she comes on her own. Though he seems regretful, he also allows his wives to arrange the marriage between Mariam and Rasheed. For the rest of the novel, there are hints that Jalil deeply regrets the way he acted with Mariam, though it is only at the very end that we learn the extent of this regret and shame.

Jalil Quotes in A Thousand Splendid Suns

The A Thousand Splendid Suns quotes below are all either spoken by Jalil or refer to Jalil. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

History and Memory in Afghanistan Theme Icon

).

For the first time, Mariam could hear [Jalil] with Nana’s ears. She could hear so clearly now the insincerity that had always lurked beneath, the hollow, false assurances.

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,

Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

Related Characters: Mariam (speaker), Jalil

Page Number and Citation: 38

Explanation and Analysis:

Mariam regretted her foolish, youthful pride now. She wished now that she had let him in. what would have been the harm to let him in, sit with him, let him say what he’d come to say? He was her father. He’d not been a good father, it was true, but how ordinary his faults seemed now how forgivable, when compared to Rasheed’s malice, or to the brutality and violence that she had seen men inflict on one another.

Related Characters: Mariam, Rasheed, Jalil

Page Number and Citation: 309

Explanation and Analysis:

Jalil Quotes in A Thousand Splendid Suns

The A Thousand Splendid Suns quotes below are all either spoken by Jalil or refer to Jalil. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

For the first time, Mariam could hear [Jalil] with Nana’s ears. She could hear so clearly now the insincerity that had always lurked beneath, the hollow, false assurances.

“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,

Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

Related Characters: Mariam (speaker), Jalil

Page Number and Citation: 38

Explanation and Analysis:

Mariam regretted her foolish, youthful pride now. She wished now that she had let him in. what would have been the harm to let him in, sit with him, let him say what he’d come to say? He was her father. He’d not been a good father, it was true, but how ordinary his faults seemed now how forgivable, when compared to Rasheed’s malice, or to the brutality and violence that she had seen men inflict on one another.

Related Characters: Mariam, Rasheed, Jalil

Page Number and Citation: 309

Explanation and Analysis: