Events:
- Starts with Amir telling the readers about the time he became “good again” and starts again.
- Hassan and Amir are born, Sanaubar ran away whilst Amir’s mother died during childbirth.
- Amir teaches Hassan how to read, Assef arrives and Hassan takes him away with his slingshot.
- Hassan’s birthday and Baba buys him a gift – removing his cleft lip.
- The kite tournament occurs and Amir wins but Hassan is raped.
- The rape of Afghanistan by Russia. Amir and Baba go to Pakistan where Baba stops a rape in the truck.
- Baba and Amir move to America where Amir gets a education and Baba works at the petrol station, Amir meets Soraya at the market.
- Soraya tells Amir her secret – that she previously eloped and the two marry. Baba dies sometime after.
- The pair are unable to conceive and Amir gets a call from Rahim Khan asking him if he can go to Pakistan.
- Upon arriving, he learns that Rahim Khan is dying but he also learns that Hassan and Amir are half-brothers – Baba cheated with his wife with Ali’s wife.
- Amir goes to Afghanistan to save Sohrab > stadium stoning > finding the “leader.”
- The leader turns out to be Assef as an adult, the two fight and Amir wins via Sohrab using his slingshot.
- Sohrab’s attempted suicide > goes back to America to live with Amir and Soraya. Redemption at last.
AO2:
Structure:
- A bildungsroman novel. A rites of passage novel. A coming of age novel. We see the moral development of Amir and his guilt going away.
- Stage 1: Context/Environment: Amir vs his father (page 22), and the Afghan culture where he was brought up without a mother figure (arguable that Rahim Khan is the mother figure).
- Stage 2: Traumatic Event: The rape which sends him a journey of change (page 1). His relationship with Hassan has been ruined because of Amir’s guilt. Second: Moving to America, but this changes him for the good on his journey of redemption as he has a strong relationship with Baba, he gets a job, education and married.
- Stage 3: Long and Difficult Journey: Meeting his wife, education, job, where he is now accepted by people and has control of the future.
- Flashbacks: Provide a different narrative and backstory which is needed. Shows how Amir needs to move on from past events. Because of the rape, he has the flashbacks.
- Non-Linear: Starts mid-way through showing Amir’s confusion, he will not be content until he has atoned for his sins. Serves to demonstrate the differences in the restrictive and constrained views of Afghanistan versus the freedom and liberty of America.
- Time jumps to draw attention to the rebellion of Baba against the Taliban authority.
- Carries thirty years of personal/carried history.
Setting:
- America vs Afghanistan: America is the land of freedom, liberty and hope. Afghanistan is anything but. A sanctuary without conflict. This is why Amir thrives in America through his education but cannot in Afghanistan.
- Afghanistan: Before the Taliban invaded, life was good. Liberal and western.
- After: A hypocrite of it prior to this – page 249. Almost discarded.
- Baba likes the idea of America but can never adapt. Powerless in American compared with the General who maintains his standing.
- Irony of Baba who is thief and hypocritical. Symbolic of the hypocrisy of his social standing.
- Afghanistan was a society that has been oppressed by religion and culture. But, in America the characters have been integrated into a new culture therefore the marriage between Amir and Soraya can take place. Some people, like the General, don’t like this idea of change and won’t allow it. This is why Amir and Soraya can get married in America but not in Afghanistan.
- The General who is told in front of his wife and daughter, about the cultural shift in front of his ‘Americanised’ son-in-law. (“Never refer to him as Hazara boy in my presence”
Narrative
Perspective:
- The Taliban’s interpretation (or narrative perspective) of religion verges on barbaric. Seen as backward thinking.
- Amir as a first personal narrator makes the larger stories of Afghanistan’s troubles seem more personalised almost as if he is blaming himself for the death of Afghanistan.
- The Soviet invasion, Taliban rule, Afghan immigration is made into an intense, emotional journey seen through the eyes of Amir.
- The retrospective narrative allows the reader walks through Amir’s personal redemption as the reader walks through his journey.
- First person narrative: Gives Amir dual perspective between his adult self and younger self. Narrator has the benefit of hindsight and maturity and can offer insight and judgement on their earlier experiences. Does this make Amir a flawed narrator as he gets no time in between his narration.
- Hassan’s narrative which fills the gap between what has happened since his departure.
- The fact that he is successful allows Amir to feel more personalised in his redemption.
Language:
- Pashtuns vs Hazaras: The class structure which changes when the move to America occurs.
- Amir teaching Hassan to read (incorrectly) but still maintaining his power. – “plothole”
- The spectacular justice of the stoning serving the purpose to show the mis-interpretation of religion.
- Symbolism – Willow tree: New beginnings and redemption.
- Metaphor: “I have been peaking into that ally”
- Personification of the kites to show how deeply Amir holds them in his life.
- Political allusions of Hassan defying Assef which enables him to be powerful but later turns him to suffering.
AO3:
- Hossieni’s intention is to question if redemption can be stable in Afghanistan – a country that has vastly changed.
Gender:
- The poor treatment/blight of women – seen as either whores or mothers. ‘Damaged goods.’ & “tempted countless men into sin” – page 7
- The absence of women in the book – intended? Hosseni trying to show Afghan society through the book characters. Yes – his other books are about women.
- A woman’s honour is also a mans.
- Women who are oppressed in Afghanistan vs the women who aren’t oppressed in America. Marginalised, disenfranchised, degraded – juxtaposition of women in Afghanistan vs America
- Soraya facing the Afghan community. How she’s forgiven by the semi-Western Amir.
- Expectations of women – their mode of dress. Religion oppressing women, the uniform that signifies gender.
Economic:
- Baba’s money in Afghanistan vs America. How his status means he has no money in America but in Afghanistan it meant a lot.
Religious:
- Baba, who is unwilling to follow religion despite the fact that Islam remained one of the forefront religion. It was unusual for someone to do in Afghanistan.
- The religious differences in Shia vs Sunni. Descendants can be leaders vs not.
- The look of the lamb of Hassan.
- Beard patrol
- Religion and how it shapes moral outlook. Amir and Baba who attempt to challenge it.
- The Taliban who have a warped interpretation of religion. They use religion as a deterrent and to gain power.
Cultural:
- Amir’s casual racism towards Hassan ‘just a Hazara’
- Afghanistan before the Soviet Invasion – Amir and Hassan going to see a Western movie – page 25
- The ingrained beliefs Amir has, how he’s accepted what he has been told. Creating a whole new sub-culture which fits the social norms
Social:
- Hazara vs Pashtuns: Description of the homes ‘mudhut’ vs ‘mansion’ Being born into society – Hazara and Hassan’s fate which has been decided at birth
Psychological:
- Amir growing across the novel – his moral context. Redemption. Feels cathartic when he is punched
- Hassan and his son suffering at the hands of Afghanistan. Mirroring his relationship with Amir when he was a child.
AO4 –
Political & Social Protest:
- Government & State Power: The power of the Taliban to control religion and institutions. State intervention to show how the state intervenes in the live of the personal when it has no right to.
- Gender Imbalances: The difference between Soraya and Amir or Baba and everyone else. Women were not allowed to be free or liberalised, were seen to be the property of men.
- Disenfranchisement: Taliban who does not allow many things which were previously free.
- Literature giving a voice to the voiceless: The book allows the silent Sohrab to otherwise speak in a world in which he would not have usually spoken.
- Rebellion: Amir’s rebellion against the Taliban/Assef. Soraya’s rebellion against her father. Amir’s rebellion against the general at the end.
- Settings: See above for America vs Afghanistan.
- Social Organisations: The social organisation of the Church or in the kite runner, religion which is an opposing form which leads to the ethnic tensions throughout the novel.
- Deprivation: The deprivation which Hassan faces on account of his ethnicity. The deprivation of Amir which is forced upon by this father as Amir cannot live up to his father expectations. The deprivation which Sohrab faces under as he cannot lead a normal childhood.
- Control: The control Assef has over the novel as a whole. The control and dominance Assef has over Hassan during the rape. “it was the look of the lamb.” The control Assef has over Sohrab and the control Assef has over Amir throughout his life. The control Baba has over social situations. The control the General has over Soraya before her marriage to Amir.
- Corruption: The corruption of the Taliban in enforcing their rules in the name of religion. The corruption of Baba against Ali and Hassan in that he committed adultery and did not tell him. Assef’s corruption against the ideology of Afghanistan and then using Hilter in order to enforce it.
- War: The war of Afghanistan vs the rest of the Western world in that Hosseni was trying to write about Afghanistan’s “forgotten past”. The war between Afghanistan vs Russia.
- Endings: Ambiguous endings in the Kite Runner. Sohrab’s silence, did Amir actually atone for his past? The unknown limbo in which Afghanistan is left in when readers are fully aware of the current situation.
- Protest voices: The voice of Amir who is protest against the new Afghanistan and cannot believe what the Taliban have done.
- Treatment of women: The appalling treatment of women in which Soraya is shunted from society and silenced. Hassan’s mother who was seen as a sex symbol with the property of men. The overall absence of women throughout the novel – Rahim Khan as the mother figure, Hosseini trying to show that women had no place in society according to Afghan culture.
- Tyranny: The tyranny of the Taliban and Assef who control much of the novel. Tyranny of Baba who controls Amir and Ali, without them knowing. The tyranny of the General who controls Soraya in America.
- Social injustice: Soraya who got shunted by society. The social injustice felt by Hassan without him even knowing he was an inferior or not acknowledging it.
- Defiance: The defiance of Amir who returns to Afghanistan to atone for his sins. Defiance of Hassan against Assef and later Sohrab.
- The law: There is Afghan law but no-body follows it until the Taliban come in and replace with the law they call their own in the name of religion. Baba’s unwillingness to follow the “law.” The law of America which allows Amir to thrive. Afghanistan which becomes the very thing the Founding Father of America did not want any country to become.
- Invasion: The invasion of Russia against Afghanistan.
- Morality: Unknown?
- The class system: More the ethnic system in which Hassan is oppressed just for this ethnicity.
- Breaking boundaries: Hassan who breaks the boundaries of the class system by using his slingshot, later on Sohrab does the same. Amir who breaks the boundaries of the Taliban by saving Sohrab.
- Socio-economics: The economy which does not allow Ali and Hassan to make a living for themselves and they are funded by Baba.
- Deprivation of language: Hassan being unable read before Amir teaches him and he learns by himself eventually writing a letter to Amir and his language being professional and better than Amir.
- Links with political journalism: Amir taking a job as a writer, writing about Afghanistan showing the power of the pen in a time of political tensions.
- Enfranchisement: People now getting the vote and freedom. What Amir gained when he arrived to America – new opportunities he did not have in Afghanistan.
- Oppression: Hassan’s overall oppression. Amir’s oppression which he had felt by his father. Sohrab’s oppression by Assef. Soraya’s oppression on account of her being female.
- Literature breaking the rules: Would Amir really return to Afghanistan? Would Hassan really learn how to read? Would Assef really not try and go after Amir? Would Amir actually return to America safely?
- Decision-making: Amir’s decision to plant the watch, Amir’s decision to return back to Afghanistan, Amir’s decision to marry Soraya despite everything she had done. Amir’s decision not to intervene in the rape of Hassan. Baba’s decision not to tell Ali and Hassan about their true circumstances.
- Nostalgia: Amir feels this when he returns to Afghanistan and sees his old home.
- Power: The power Baba, Assef and eventually Amir holds over the country, Hassan and Sohrab.
- The public and personal: Politics having to lead to the eventual departure of Amir and Baba from Afghanistan. When state intervention eventually leads to seeding into the minds of the people.
AO5:
- “Rich in warmth and humour” – New York Book Review
- “the novel puts a human face to the painful history of Afghanistan” – Roberts
- “deviates from the typical narrative of heroism and goodness” – Spiegal
- “Baba personifies all that is courageous” – Hower
- “Hassan… The thread that ties the story together” – Hower
- “personal selves permeated by political prejudices” – Saraswat