Finding Solace through Reunion in Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed Ahmed Fouad 12th Grade

Families in poverty are sometimes forced to make incomprehensibly difficult decisions in order to attempt to improve their respective situations. In the novel And the Mountains Echoed, author Khaled Hosseini makes a concerted effort to highlight the unforgiving nature of living in poverty: “Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency” (Hosseini 24). The novel focuses on the specific difficulties the main characters face: the nine chapters in the novel are narrated by a different character, each with a unique story of difficulty and hardship. None of these stories are more impactful on the general development of the text than the relationship between the main protagonist Pari and her brother Abdullah. The separation of these two seemingly inseparable siblings is the main focus of the novel, and their story incorporates the other main characters as part of an expanding narrative. In Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed, Pari is sold to the wealthy Wahdati family when she is three-years-old due to her family’s poverty; this action separates Pari and her brother Abdullah, causing the siblings to experience strong feelings of emptiness and isolation. When...