Who is Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds comparable to in The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns?

Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds is Paddy's sister who offers Paddy a job at Drogheda. She is an imperious, controlling widow who convinced her late husband, Michael Carson, to marry her because she was a good-looking woman with brains in Australia, where there were few women. The author describes Mary as wielding as much power "as any puissant war lord of elder days." She controls people in the local society with her imperious ways.

In some ways, Mary might be compared to Sanaubar in The Kite Runner. Sanaubar is a beautiful but notoriously "unscrupulous" woman who marries Ali, 19 years her senior. Like Ali, she is a Hazara and a Shi'a. She has beautiful green eyes that have apparently tempted many men. Sanaubar, like Mary Carson, is not afraid to speak her mind, and she openly expresses her disdain for Ali, her disfigured husband. Like Mary Carson, Sanaubar is married to a man who is less clever and meeker than she is, and Sanaubar runs off five days after her son, Hassan, is born. She is, like Mary Carson, powerful and unkind.

It could be argued that Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns does not resemble Mary Carson at first but comes to be more like her over time. Laila, who is beautiful and brilliant like Mary Carson, marries Rasheed because she can benefit in a material sense from the marriage. She is much younger than Rasheed, but she is pregnant and needs a father for her child. As she seeks to gain an advantage from her marriage, she is like Mary Carson. She, like Mary, becomes a widow when Mariam, Rasheed's first wife, kills Rasheed. Laila then has more power and is reunited with her true love, Tariq. Eventually, Laila becomes better able to steer her own destiny as Mary Carson is. You may, however, decide that other characters are more like Mary Carson.

Why is Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds opposite to Mariam and Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns?

Mary Carson in Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds is the polar opposite of Mariam and Laila in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns in temperament and choices. Let’s look at this in more detail.

Mary is a hard woman who is intent upon getting what she wants but does not follow through on what she promises, even indirectly. She invites her brother, Paddy Cleary, and his family to Australia to run the ranch, implying that they will inherit it when she dies. Mary is attracted to the priest Ralph de Bricassart, and she tempts him to be disloyal to his vocation. When Mary dies, she leaves two wills, one leaving the ranch to the Clearys and one leaving the ranch to the Church. Mary thinks primarily of herself, and she acts for herself. She is a strong woman, but she uses that strength in harmful ways.

Mariam and Laila are also strong women, but their strength develops through hardship. They are both abused women who share the same husband. They must learn how to support each other and work together to survive. They are vulnerable in a way Mary Carson never is. Mariam ends up killing their husband, and she takes the punishment for it, freeing Laila to start a new life with the man she truly loves.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner, who contrasts Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds?

In The Thorn Birds, Mary Carson is a manipulative, vicious character who has become more imperious with age. As a young woman, she used her good looks to get what she wanted, and as an old woman, she achieves the same purpose with her money, even managing to extend her influence beyond the grave with a malicious bequest.

The polar opposite of Mary Carson among the female characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns is Mariam. This is partly because Mariam is a fundamentally good character, who dies heroically and altruistically to save Laila, whereas Mary's dying wish is to create havoc. Also, Mary Carson grew up with many advantages and became embittered and cynical, whereas Mariam endured a very hard life while still maintaining her compassion. Their relations with their husbands are also strikingly different: Mary Carson achieved wealth and power through her marriage, whereas Mariam experienced only suffering and abuse.

There are few women in The Kite Runner, and no exact polar opposites to Mary Carson. The closest fit is Sanaubar, whose character changes from a beautiful and thoughtless young woman to a much more compassionate and generous character whose care for her grandson makes her like Mariam rather than Mary by the end of the narrative. When they were young, however, Mary and Sanaubar might have been somewhat similar.