project the kite runner 1

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Many authors are interested in portraying History and politics in their works. The historical novel is an attempt to reconstruct the atmosphere, the habits of thought and the prevailing psychology of a generation. The novelist selects facts and arranges them according to his own choice. The main function of the novelist is to enliven the past with maximum fidelity without making it dull and insipid. His mind should be a store- house of all types of his background. Actual facts of history are mixed up with stories of love and war, in order to display knowledge of human nature and the complexities of life. The political history of Afghanistan begins in the eighteenth century with the rise of the Pastitun tribes. At the beginning of the twentieth century,

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Page 1: Project the Kite Runner 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Many authors are interested in portraying History and politics in their

works. The historical novel is an attempt to reconstruct the atmosphere, the habits

of thought and the prevailing psychology of a generation. The novelist selects facts

and arranges them according to his own choice. The main function of the novelist

is to enliven the past with maximum fidelity without making it dull and insipid.

His mind should be a store-house of all types of his background. Actual facts of

history are mixed up with stories of love and war, in order to display knowledge of

human nature and the complexities of life.

The political history of Afghanistan begins in the eighteenth century with

the rise of the Pastitun tribes. At the beginning of the twentieth century,

Afghanistan was confronted with economic and social change which also sparked

a new approach to literate. In 1911, Mahmud Tarzi, who came back to

Afghanistan after years of exile in Turkey and was influential in Government

circles, started a fortnightly publication named Saraj’ul Akhbar. In the field of

literature and journalism it instigated a new period of change and modernization.

In poetry, brushing aside personalized themes and the subject of love and

romance, Mahmud Tarzi’s efforts opened the way for technical and European

literary styles, and social and nationalistic aspects were given more importance.

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Mahmud Tarzi tried to clothe new ideas and perceptions in the classical

style, and put new models of expression in the framework of old forms of writing.

Ghary Abdullah, Abdul Hagh Beytat and Khalil Ullah Khalili were the prominent

classical poets in Afghanistan at that time. In 1930s the Kabul literary circle was

formed publishing their own regular magazines dedicated to culture and Ahghan

literature. Those who had influenced on political and social life also left their

marks on the cultured life of society and brought their new ways of thought and

expression into the literary and social circles.

Under the rule of Aman’ ullah, an atmosphere of political and social change

developed. The people enjoyed political self-determination and constitutionalist

were managing the affairs of the country. Free publications appeared in Kabul and

spread to other cities. The press was free and the writers enjoyed free expression.

Novelists who earlier had to resort to allegories and hints could now use a simple

and direct style of narration.

During this period the first novel was printed by the government owned

Marefate Ma’aref, a publication devoted to educational themes. This novel, which

was printed in installments in 1928, is called The Great War by Moulawi

Mohammad Hossain Panjabi, who earlier had to endure long imprisonment

because of his political beliefs. It is a saga of people’s resistance against colonial

Great Britain, the hero is Mohammed Akram and his courageous struggle is the

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main theme of the story. Although this novel uses a more modern writing style, at

the same time it also contains elements of traditional Persian writing.

Taswire Ebrat (1922) written by Mohammad Abdulghadere Afandi can be

considered as the first truly modern Afghan novel. It is a novel of its time and is

written in the modern style of prose. In this novel the author takes a critical look at

the contemporary society, particularly the upper class clinging to the traditional

ways of the novel, especially that of Bibi Khouri Jan, the main charecter of the

novel, is a sample of the language used in the society of the time. The novel also

contains elements of traditional prose, but because of the clear storyline and the

use of contemporary language, it becomes an enjoyable modern novel.

The ten years between 1964 and 1973 were not only an important period for

the development of modern Afghan poetry; they were also of great importance for

the development of modern Afghan prose. During this period, new style of prose

writing developed and the influence of western literature are quite palpable. In

these years one could easily discern the influence of soviet literature on the

Afghan scene. Afghan students studying in the Soviet Socialist Republic, the

friendly relations between the two nations and the visits of delegations to both

countries all played a role, as well as a flood of modern Soviet literature which

became easily available in Afghanistan. These were books written by authors such

as Maxim Gorky, Michail Sholokhov, Chingiz Aitmatov and others. At the same

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time, writers like Franz Kalka, Albert Camus and Sadeghe Hedayat also exerted

their own influence of Afghan prose.

Nineteenth century Russian literature left its impression on Afghan

literature. After French literature, it was Russian literature that affected Afghan

writings the most. The influence of Iranian literature on modern Afghan prose and

poetry, especially in the second half of the twentieth century are taken into

consideration. Western literature, especially French and German, was also much

admired and influenced Afghan literature from the second decade of the twentieth

century onward.

In recent times American literature has also gained influence.

Traditionalists insisted on their old forms and were unwilling to accept new styles,

while on the other hand the followers of the new styles. There have been notable

attempts, by novelists of Afghan origin, to chronicle the pain of their country, like

Atiq Rahimi’s novels Earth and ashes (2002) and A Thousand Rooms of Dreams

and Fear (2006). The noted Pakistani activist Feryal Gautar made the Americal

occupation of the Afghanistan the theme of her recent novel, No Room for Further

burials (2002). Nadeem Aslam, a Pakistani novelist who lives in England and has

visited Afghanistan extensively, has now made his own bid for the fictional peaks.

In The Wasted Vigil (2008) he ranges across the country’s ancient and modern

history, not just a mesmerizing work of fiction, elegantly speaking for million of

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nameless victims of Afghan tragedy in modern times but also a socio – political

history of the country.

Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan doctor who found refuge in the U.S in the

1980s, has made his mark with his debut novel The Kite Runner in 2003. In the

first Afghan novel to be written in English, Hosseini memorably evokes the

devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. Khaled Hosseini was

born on March 4, 1965 in Kabul the capital of Afghanistan as the oldest of five

children. His father worked for the Afghan Foreign Ministry as a diplomat, and his

mother was a high school teacher of Farsi and History. When he was five years

old, his family moved from Kabul in the historic year of 1973, when Afghanistan

became a republic. In 1976, Hosseini’s father obtained a job in Paris and moved

the family there. After the PDPA (the People’s Democratic Poetry of Afghanistan)

seized control of the government in 1978 and the Soviets occupied Afghanistan

shortly thereafter, the Hosseini family decided to seek political asylum in the

United States and their residence in San Jose, California.

After college, Hosseini decided to become a physician. He attended the

University of California San-Diego’s School of Medicine, where he completed his

M.D in1993. He served his medical residency at the well respected Cedars-Sinai

hospital of Los Angeles and became an internist. Hossieni started writing The Kite

Runner in 2001 while he was a practicing physician. Hosseini published The Kite

Runner in 2003 to critical acclaim. Touch of autobiographical elements is based on

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Hosseini’s childhood in the Kabul neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. While

some events in the story echo those in this, the novel is fictional. By May 2007, it

had been published in thirty-eight countries but not Afghanistan.

When Khaled Hosseini was a child, he had a great deal of Persian poetry as

well as Persian translation of novels ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Mickey

Spillane’s Mike Hammer series. Hosseini’s memories of a peaceful pre-soviet era

Afghanistan, “I have very fond memories of my childhood in Afghanistan”

(Kristine Huntley, review of The Kite Runner, 1864) as well as his personal

experiences with Afghanistan’s Hazara people, led to the writing of his first novel,

The kite Runner.

The Kite Runner has been lavishly praised by the critics, captivated readers

across the country, and climbed steadily up the bestseller lists. His narrative is

moving and evocating that explores all the great themes of literature and life.

Moreover it offers the readers a sweeping overview of three decades of Afghan

history. Hossieni felt estranged from the devastation in Afghanistan, but his

separation from his homeland and his “western sensibility” combined in his fiction

to bring America’s, and the world’s, attention to the faces of Afghanistan.

Hosseini published his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns in May

2007. Unlike The Kite Runner which centers on relationships between men, A

Thousand Splendid Suns, focuses on those between women. Once again set in

Afghanistan, the story twists and turns its way through turmoil and chaos that

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ensued following the fall of the monarchy in 1973, focuses mainly on the lives of

two women, thrown together by fate, Mariam and Lalia. The story starts decades

before the Taliban came into power in 1996, and ends after the era of Taliban rule.

The rest of this unforgettable story reflects the heart-rending sacrifices of these

women, and allows the reader peek behind the burqa, to the heart of Afghanistan.

In the months since its release, the novel has garnered a plethora of positive

reviews.

The Kite Runner is said to be the first novel written in English by an

Afghan. Its first printing was fifty thousand copies, it has been featured on the

reading lists of countless book clubs, and foreign rights to the novel have been

sold in at least ten countries. Reviewers admired the novel for its straight forward

storytelling, its convincing character studies that has accompanied Afghanistan’s

turbulent political scene. The novel was the number three best seller for 2005 in

the United States, according to Nielsen Book Scan. The Kite Runner has been

adopted into a film of the same name released in December 2007.

Hosseiini’s devotion to Afghanistan can be seen not only in his writing but

also in his activism. He has been a goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee

Agency, UNHCR, since 2006 and his personal website contains links to many aid

organize that are helping Afghanistan. According to Daily Telegraph “The Kite

Runner is told with simplicity and poise, it is a novel of great hidden intricacy and

wisdom, like a timeless Eastern tale. It speaks the most harrowing truth about the

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power of evil, personal and political and intoxicates, like a high flying kite, with

the power of hope”.

The kite Runner received the South African Booker prize in 2004. This

extraordinary novel locates the personal struggle of everyday people in the terrible

sweep of history

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CHAPTER 2

In place of dealing with a text in isolation from its historical context, new

historicists attend the historical and cultural conditions of its production, its

meaning and also of its later critical interpretations and evaluations. A literary text

is formed and structures by the particular conditions of time and place. The artistic

resolution of a literary plot is yielding pleasure to the reader, it is an effect that

serves to cover over the unresolved conflicts of power, class, gender and diverse

social group that make up the real tension of a literary text.

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south-

central Asia. The land is an important geostrategic location, connecting East,

South, West and Central Asia. The region has been a target of various invaders

including by Alexander the Great, the Mauryan Empire and Genghis Khan. The

political history of Afghanistan begins in the eighteenth century with the rise of

the Pashtun tribes, when Ahmad Shah Durrani created the Durrani Empire in 1747

which became the forerunner of Modern Afghanistan. Its capital was shifted to

Kabul in1776 and most of its territories ceded to neghbouring empires by 1893.

History is a stable pattern of facts and events which can be used as the

background to the literate of an era. New historicists aim simultaneously to

understand the work through its historical context and to understand cultural and

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intellectual history through literature, which documents the new discipline of the

history of ideas. New historicism is a more natural approach to historical events

and sensitive towards different cultures. They claim that cultural and ideological

representations in texts serve mainly to reproduce, confirm and propagate the

power-structure of domination and subordination which characterize a given

society. New historicists thinkers tend to take a more nuanced view of power,

extending throughout society, they tried to show more willingness to perform the

traditional tasks of literary criticism.

New historicism shares many of the same theories as cultural materialism

has. Cultural critics downplay the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and

focus on the production of popular culture. This theory has something in common

with the historical criticism of Hippolyte Taine, who argued that a literary work is

less the product of its author’s imagination than the social circumstances of its

creation, the three main aspects of which Taine called race, milieu and moment.

The concepts, themes and procedures of new historicist criticism took shape

in the late 1970s and early 1980s, most prominently in writings by scholars of the

English Renaissance. New historicist procedures also have parallels in the critics

of American, American and other ethnic literatures, who stress the role of culture-

formations dominated by white Europeans in suppressing, marginalizing or

distorting the achievements of non-white and non-European people.

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Stephan Greenblat inaugurated the currency of the label ‘new historicism in

his introduction to a special issue of Genre, vol-15 (1982). Greenblatt’s essay

entitled Invisible Bullets in Shakespearean Negotiations (1988) serves this mode

of criticism. Thomas Harriots A Brief and True Report of the New Found land of

Virginia, written in 1588 represents the discourse of the English colonizers of

America. Greenblatt then identifies parallel modes of power discourse and

counterdiscourse in the dialogue in Shakespeare’s The Tempest between Prospero

the imperialist appropriator and Caliban the expropriated native of his island. The

same configuration can be seen in Shakespeare’s HenryIV 1and 2 and Henry v.

New historicism is based on the theme of power. Power is means through

which the marginalized are controlled, and the thing that the marginalized seek to

gain. The same mode can be seen in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the

Talibs captured power and ruled over Afghan and changed the whole living

system. In The Kite Runner, there is the transformation of a social order which

exploits people on ground of race, gender and class.

Hosseini memorably evokes the devastating history of Afghanistan over the

last thirty years. The first part of the name, ‘Afghan’ is the Persian alternative

name for the Pashtuns who are the founders and the largest ethnic group of the

country. This Pashtun tribal confederation is numerically and politically important

in the country. The term ‘Afghanistan’ meaning the ‘Land of Afghans’ was

mentioned by the sixteenth century Mughal Emperor Babur in his memories. Until

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the nineteenth century the name was only the kingdom was known as the

‘kingdom of Kabul’. In the late eighteenth century, Afghan authorities adopted and

extended name ‘Afghanistan’ to the entire kingdom. It became the official name

when the country was recognized by the world community in1919, after regaining

full independence over its foreign affairs from the British, and was confirmed in

the nation’s 1923 constitution.

Afghanistan is country at a unique nexus point where numerous civilization

interacted and often fought, and was an important site of early historical activity.

Though the modern state of Afghanistan was established in 1747, the land has an

ancient history and various timeliness of different civilizations. Urban civilization

begun in early 3000BC and the early city of Mandigak may have been a colony of

the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. By the middle of the sixth century BC, the

Achamenid Persian Empire overthrew the Medes and incorporated the region

within its boundaries. In 330 BC, after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier

at the Battle of Gaugamela, Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived

in Afghanistan.

After Alexander, India Maurya got power. They brought Buddish from

India and controlled Southern Afghanistan until about 185 BC when they were

overthrown. Their decline began sixty years after Ashoka’s rule ended, leading to

the Hellenistic recon quest of the region by the Greco-Bactrians. By 1715, Mir

Mahmud Hotaki captured power. In 1738 Nadir Shah and his army conquered the

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region of Kandahar. By 1747, Nadir Shah was assassinated by one of his officers.

The Pashtuns gathered and chose Ahmad Shah as the new head of their state.

Dost Mohammad Khan captured Kabul in 1823. 1837, the Afghan army

descended through the Khyber Pass on Sikh forces at Jarmud. During the

nineteenth century, following the Anglo Afghan wars, Afghanistan so much of its

territory and autonomy ceded to the United Kingdom. In 1919, Afghanistan gained

complete independence over foreign affairs. In 1929, prince Mohammad Nadir

Shah defeated and killed Habibullah Kalakani and with considerable Pshtun tribal

support he was declared King Nadirshah.

Hosseini placed Amir’s father in this political area. Birth of Amir’s father is

concurrent to the year of King Zaher’s accession to the throne. King Nader is

father of the King Zaber, he assassinated due to political motives by a freedom

fighter, Abdul Khaliq, a hazara student, during a football player’s visit in the

Estiqlal high school play ground. Amir’s grandfather is a judge at this time. This

judge has a close relation with King Nader. The judge is from Pashtun ethnic

group (Sayed and Sunny, the largest religious group in Afghanistan), has

completed the case of a traffic accident resulting in the death of a Hazara couple,

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hit by a drunk driver in Paghman way. Only Ali, a five year old son survived from

that accident. The judge took Ali home and raised in his house as a servant. Ali is

a Hazara and Shi. 1953, Muhammad Daoud Khan became the prime minister of

Afghanistan. He sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. During this

period Afghanistan remained neutral. It was not participated in world war second,

nor aligned with cold war. In 1978, a prominent member of the people’s

democratic party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Mir Akabar Khyber was killed by the

Government. The PDPA, led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and

Amin over threw the regime of Mohammad Daoud, who was killed along with his

family.

In The Kite Runner, the central character, Amir is born in 1963, when

Afghanistan was under the rule of King Zahir Shah. Amir’s father Agha Saheb is a

merchant. He married with Sophia Akramia, a literature professor. She died after

giving birth to Amir. On the other hand, Agha Saheb’s friend and servant Ali also

becomes the victim of political influence. He has married with his cousin

Sanauber, who is also a Hazara and escapes after five days of giving birth to

Hassan and joined a traveling dancers and singers clan. Hassan and Amir born on

the same period. Amir says:

“We are kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history,

or religion was going to change that either. I spend most of the first

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twelve years of my life playing with Hassan. Sometimes, my entire

childhood seem like one long lazy summer day with Hassen.”

In the beginning of the novel Hosseini talks about how the two young boys,

Amir and Hassan enjoyed their life. Amir lives a charmed life in the wealthy

neighborhood in 1960’s Kabul. He shared the joys of childhood with his best

friend Hassan, who is more like a brother to Amir and their favorite past time is

summer kite fighting. “Every winter districts in Kabul held a Kite fighting

tournament. And if you were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was

Undeniable the highlight of the cold season.” (43). The two boys reach a turning

point in 1975 when the neighborhood bully Aseef Savages Hassan and Amir does

nothing. The guilty for the betrayal, as well as Amir’s troubled relationship with

his father Baba will rule his life for the next twenty years.

By 1978, the PDPA regime lasted and the democratic republic of

Afghanistan (DRA) came into power. The PDPA captured power and

implemented a socialist agenda. It moved to promote state atheism, which were

misunderstood by virtually all Afghans. They also imprisoned, tortured of

murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment

and the intelligentsia. They introduced women to political life. The US saw the

situation as a prime opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union. Soviet war and Civil

war were the important events in 1979. in response to the soviet occupation of

Afghanistan and part of its overall cold war strategy, the United States responded

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by Arming and other wise supporting the Afghan Mujahideen, which ha taken up

arms against the soviet occupiers. Afghan got support from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia

and other nations. The Soviet occupation resulted in the killings of between six

hundred and two million Afghan civilians. Over five million fled as Afghan

refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. Over thirty six thousand made it to the

United States and many more to the European Union.

This crucial situation became a turning point in the theme of the novel The

Kite Runner. The whole life of Amir, Hassan and Agha Saheb changed due to

Soviet inversion. Agha Saheb and Amir due to Scial Chaos and surrounding

turmoil and after changing of several servants, they were also compelled to leave

the country to Pakistan and later that into California, the USA. Amir and his father

accepted very harsh jobs during their early years of settlement. There Amir’s died

of Canur. Amir becomes a successful novelist in America. But the childhood

memories of betraying his friend haunt him. Amir’s second coming to Afghanistan

is a voyage to the country of blood and terror as to create nostalgic world of love

and redemption. His spatial and temporal displacement allows for a recollection of

the pre-war Afghan. Once Afghanistan was a loveable place-a land of beautiful

landscapes, color and excitement, and of life and adventure Kite playing was a

favorite sport in the land of his birth. The boys spent idyllic days running Kites

and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors.

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Kites served as a centripetal force among Amir, Hassan, his father and

Assef and which in turn affected them all. Amir and Hassan had a carefree

boyhood sharing their dreams of becoming the sultans one day. The story opens in

1975 Kabul on the brink of Soviet inversion and is structured around loss. Amir,

the narrator returns to the scene of complex past trauma and has Farid, a guide

with him because the map of country has shifted and changed depicting a

continuing and inescapable series of deterritorialisations and reterritoriliasations.

The natural picture of Afghan had completely changed.

Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties

on both side, the Soviet withdraw in 1989. Following the removal of the Soviet

forces, the U.S and its allies lost interest in Afghanistan and did little to help

rebuild the war-ravaged country or influence events there. The USSR continued to

support President Mohammad Najibullah until 1992, when the new Russian

government refused to sell oil products to the Najibullah regime. Because of the

fighting, a number of elites and intellectual fled to take refuge abroad. This led to a

leadership imbalance in Afghanistan. The most serious fighting during this period

occurred in 1994, when over 10, 000 people were killed in Kabul alone.

During this time that the Taliban developed as a politico-religious force,

eventually seing Kabul in 1996 and establishing the Islamic Emirate of

Afghanistan. By the end of 2000, the Taliban had captured 95% of the country.

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During the Taliban’s seven year rule, much of the population experienced

restrictions on their freedom and violations of their human rights. Women were

banned from jobs, girls forbidden to attend schools or universities. Communists

were systematically eradicated. The International Security Assistance Force

(ISAF) was established in Afghanistan by the UN Security Council in December

2001, to secure Kabul and other surrounding area. In the same month Taliban and

Al-Quida retreated from war.

Though The Kite Runner, Hosseini incorporated real political and historical

events that took place along this time period to allow the reader to get a feel of

what was going on in Afghanistan. Hossieni used symbolism to disengage from

his past to a new beginning.

When Amir returns to Afghanistan he feels like a foreigner. Home ground

in a war tattered country is a foreign territory. The effect of the impossible

conjunctions and the inconceivable distortion of places take him to dead ends in a

labyrinth. It is for this reason that his search for his childhood friend’s son

becomes contorted. There is a clear parallel between the world of his meeting

Sohrab and the inhumanity of war, and the realization of a mongrel violence with

in which people, or rather peoples are consumed, exhausted, deadened and robbed

of meaning. Asif also has a major figure in Taliban government. Amir appears not

as an isolated entity, but rather stands silhouetted against a larger collective.

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CHAPTER – 3

In ‘The Kite Runner’ Khalid Hossini is the articulator of the dark corners,

unspoken and untouched aspects of the horizontal and vertical socio-cultural

domains of a society that cannot be found in an official cultural, social,

geographical or political book. The writer is pointing to the most important and

crucial problem of the time in a society. This novel becomes a tool for blotting,

insulting, devaluating the real values and measures of Afghanistan or the specific

ethnic group in that nation. It also analyses financial and political interests and

benefits which became seditious and dangerous.

Socio- cultural and ethical values and measures of a society, honesty kept

during the evolution and development of the story, could be developed

progressively during the span of the story. One of the most important elements that

have its special place in this novel is the imagination on the basis of the actual

geographic, social, cultural, economical and psychological realities. This

unusually eloquent story is about unlikely friendship, the fragile relationship

between fathers and sons, humans and their gods, men and their countries. Loyalty

and blood are the ties that bind their stories into a moving and unexpected novel.

In The Kite Runner , Hosseini incorporated some of his memories as a child

while he was growing up in Kabul and when he removed and lived in America.

He also incorporated real political and historical events that took place along this

time period to allow the reader to get a feel of what was going on in Afghanistan.

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The main character, Amir, tells the story of his life of how he became who he is

today from the events that took place through his life time. Amir had a unique

relationship with a Hazara boy, Hassan who was the son of the servent Ali.

The intimacy between the boys binds them together despite their different

economic background, religious segments (Amir a Sunni Muslim, a Pashtun but

Hassan a Shir, a Hazara), intellectual achievements (Amir educated while Hasssan

illiterate) and individual temperaments (Amir boastful, arrogant and jealous

towards his friend while Hassan tolerant, doute and forgiving). The friendship

between the boys is suddenly ruptured following an awful event that changes the

nature of their relationship. Hassan falls a prey to Asset and his friends as he is

kite-running for his friend, Amir. He refuses to give up Amir’s kite for which

Asset exacts his revenge by assaulting and raping him. The timely intervention of

Amir would have prevented the intervention of Amir would have prevented the

horrendous but his cowardice fails him. This event strains their relationship and

Amir further resists the efforts on the part of Hassan for reconciliation and

rebonding.

The relationship between Amir and Hassan is a theme in The Kite Runner.

“I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might

have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t. I just watched Paralyzed (64).

That is what Amir, a young Afghan boy in the novel, The Kite Runner, thinks in

his mind before he commits the sins against his friend and also his half brother

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Hassan. This is also the pivot moment of the novel. Amir is the narrator of the

story who tells about how he grew up in Afghanistan. Hassan is the best and

kindest character in the story. He is Amir’s best friend. He faces discrimination

every day, because he is a Hazara, a minority whom the Pashtuns treat like slaves.

Often Aseef ridiculed Hassan, “Hey you flat-nosed Babalu, who did you eat

today? Tell us, you slant-eyed donkey” (34).

The story opens in 1975 Kabul on the brink of Soviet invasion and is

structured around loss. Amir, the narrator returns to the scene of complex past

trauma and has Farid, a guide with him because the map of his country has shifted

and changed depicting a continuing and inescapable series of deterritorilisations

and reterritorilisations. Home ground in a war tattered country is a foreign country.

The effect of the impossible conjunction and the inconceivable distortion of places

take him to dead ends in a labyrinth. It is for this reason that his search for his

childhood friend’s son becomes contorted. There is a clear parallel between the

world of his meeting Sohrab and the inhumanity of war, and the realization of a

mongrel violence within which people or rather people are consumed, exhausted,

deadened and robbed of meaning, Amir appears not as an isolated entity, but rather

stands silhouetted against a larger collective backdrop.

In The Kite Runner, Hosseini describes the complicated and difficult

master-servant relationship and friend relationship between Amir and Hassan

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effectively by using both vivid description and figurative language. The boys are

inseparable, but their friendship is fraught with tension. The protagonist Amir’s

mother died in childbirth. Amir was brought up with his closest friend, the bare

lipped Hassan, was also his servent and a Hazara. Amir’s father Baba, was one of

the wealthiest and most charitable pashtun men in Kabul. Hassan was very close to

his father Ali, who was Baba’s servant.

Amir is quiet, bookish and jealous of the attention his father bestows on the

athletic, courageous Hassan. Angry and frustrated, he plays cruel jokes on his

friend, guilty justifying them on the basis of Hassan’s low status: “Because history

isn’t easy to overcome. I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara and nothing was

ever going to change that: (36). Hosseini deftly turns Amir’s struggle with race

into a parable for Afghanistan. Amir’s prejudies contribute to his downfall, much

as the Afghan’s rigid adherence to tribalism led to the country’s implosion after

the Soviet withdrawal.

Despite of their differences, Amir and Hassan were inseparable. Hassen

was ready to do anything for Amir, his first word was even ‘Amir’. Amir read

stories for Hassan. After school Amir and Hassan go near the pomegranate tree on

the hill top and carve their names on it: “Amir and Hassan, the sultans of

Kabul”(24). But sometimes Amir tease him by showing his ignorance.

Amir looks askance at his father showering all love for Hassan. As a boy he

was never known that Hassan is his half-brother and, as such, longs for Hassan’s

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eviction and forces him leave by means more foul than fair. Amir believes he can

gain his father’s love by winning an annual kite-flying contest, where boys battle

for supremacy armed with kite strings coated in ground glass. He longs to present

his father with the best kite fall: “ I’d make a grand entrance, a hero, prized trophy

in my bloodied hands. Then the old warrior would walk up to the young one,

embrace him, acknowledge his worthiness”(59). Amir wins the battle and

dispatches Hassan to capture the fallen kite.

Hosseini has a remarkable ability to imprison the reader in horrific,

shatteringly immediate scenes. Hassan is caught by a group of bullies who make

him an offer: leave the kite or pay for it with his body. Bound by loyalty, Hasssan

chooses the kite. Amir stumbles upon the scene and watches mutelu, too cowardly

to stop them raping his best friend. “Looking back now”, he muses from golden

gate park, “I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last 26

years”(1). Like Amir, the reader watches the suffering and does nothing. Hosseini

turns that shared guilt into a subtle condemnation of a world that watched the rape

of Afghanistan, first by the Soviets, then by regional warlouds and the Taliban.

Although the novel “The Kite Runner” there are various references to

Muslim tradition and beliefs, there is an instrumental roll of Islam on the story and

its characters. Religion seems to be many things to many people in this narrative.

Baba is celebrated in part for his exceptionally secular ways in a traditional

society. Amir exercises it in an entirely private way, as if his faith were more

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repentance than conversion. Hassan is a victim of discrimination and bigotry and

in Assef’s Taliban rendition; Islam is essentially just a pretext for his pathological

cruelty.

Loyalty and friendship are the two main themes in this novel. After Amir

and Hassan win the kite flying competition, Hassan tells Amir they will celebrate

later and takes off after the blue kite as a trophy for his beloved master. Amir calls

out “ Hassan, come back with it” and Hassan responds with his enduring loyalty, ‘

For you a thousand times over’ (59). This shows Hassan’s loyalty towards his

master. During kite flying, Amir says “ I turned my gaze to our roof top, found

Baba and Rahim Khan sitting on a bench, both dressed in wool sweaters, spping

tea. Baba waved. I couldn’t tell if he was waving at me or Hassan”. This shows

that Amir is jealous of Hassan, and also a good example of vivid description that

shows the reader what is happening inside the kids mind.

“They change the name of the lake after that and call it the ‘lake of Amir

and Hassan, sultans of Kabul’, and we get to charge people money for swimming

in it”(53). This is a metaphor, comparing Amir and Hassan with the rulers of

Kabul, Hosseini used in Hassans dream to emphasize the powerful relationship

that Hassan want to have between his master and him. Although Amir is cowardly

and selfish, he loves Hassan. When Amir’s kite cut the blue kite, the last one Amir

shouts, “we won! We won”(58). Clear the Amir feels that he wouldn’t have won

without Hassan’s help. The sins committed against Hassan. Being raped by Assef

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while Amir does nothing to help him – are immediately forgiven, because he loves

Amir so much. Through his, Hosseini shows a good example of friendship, even

though one is master and another is servant.

Even though Hassan thinks Amir as his master and also his friend, Amir

never thinks Hassan as his friend. “But in one of his stories did Baba ever refer to

Ali as his friend. The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as

friends either” ( ). This is the comparison Hosseini made to show that master never

think his servant as friend in Afghanistan. Religious tolerance was not an issue for

Hassan, who takes for granted the position in life that his family enjoys. For

Hassan, his position in life is due to religious tolerance and is something he lives

with on a daily basis.

As a boy, Amir never known that Hassan is his half brother and as such,

longs for Hassan’s eviction and forces him leave by means more foul than fair. To

this end, he frames Hassan as a thief and Hassan, on his part, accepts the charge

with malice towards none. Baba forgives him, despite his frequent and firm

assertion that “theft was the one unforgivable sin, the common denominator of all

sins…there is no act more wretched than steeling”( ). Hassan’s father, Ali feels

humiliated and leaves the house along with Hassan against Baba’s extreme sorrow

and frequent pleading. Hassan has to pay a heavy prize for Amir’s foul play, but

the latter’s moral realization of his deceit is a saving grace.

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The new political upheaval in the nature of the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan forces Amir and his father flee to Pakistan and then to America,

where Amir becomes a successful novelist. But the childhood memories of

betraying his friend haunt him. Amir’s second coming to Afghanistan is a voyage

to the country of blood and terror as to create a nostalgic world of love and

redemption. Amir’s spatial and temporal displacement allows for a recollection of

the pr- war Afghan. Once Afghanistan was a lovable place – a land of beautiful

landscape, color and excitement and of life and adventure kite playing was a

favorite sport in the land of his birth. The boys spent idyllic days running kite and

telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors. Kites served as a

centripetal force among Amir, Hassan, his father and Assef – and which in turn

affected them all. Amir and Hassan had a care free boy hood sharing their dreams

of becoming the sultans one day. The pomegranate tree up the hill epitomized their

bonding in the childhood. The children’s lives clearly mirror the ambiguities of

affirmation and rejection, love and jealousy, and hope and disenchantment

characteristic of the country at large. The story also peeps into the psyche of a

child who wants to be loved more by the father, if not at least equal to his own

friend.

Amir and his father fled Afghanistan after the Russian invaded and takes

his tragic memories to America to start a new life. Unfortunately, his debt to

Hassan must be paid and he returns to his country to find Hassan’s orphaned son,

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Sohrab, and rescues him. There he discovered that. Sohrab had been became the

sexual plaything of Assef. Ultimately, Amir must defeat Assef in a physical battle

takes the damaged Sohrab out of Afghanistan and tries to help him repair his

spirit. Even though Amir commits the sins against Hassan, this time he sacrifices

for Hassan, this time he sacrifices for Hassan by fighting Assef to help Hassan’s

son, Sohrab.

Throughout the novel, Hossieni provides the reader historical events that is

going on in Afghanistan during this time along with how people from different

social group were treated. Hosseini gives the reader information about how a

wealthyman from Afghanistan comes to the United States and is now part of the

lower class. He discusses historical events that have taken place along with social

differences between a lower and upper class. Hosseini also used the mirror image

in this novel. He began his novel with Amir and Hassan flying kites in the winter

of 1975 in a Kite tournament and he ends his novel with Amir flying a kite with

Hassan’s son Sohrab in the United States.

The kite is the key image, representing Amir and Hassan’s brotherhood.

Kites are present when Amir gets the call from Rahim Khan to “be good again”

( ). And the kite is present in the end, signaling that what was last, was beginning

to be restored. Character’s attitude about religion says a lot about them, from

Baba’s unintentionally prophetic words: “Piss on the beards of all those self-

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righteous monkeys”. God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands”

(115) to Amir’s typical lying about a devout Muslim.

In The Kite Runner, there is also a religious parallel. The biblical Abraham

had two sons, the legitimate Issac and the illegitimate Ishmael. But the parallels

are there, especially when Hassan (Ishmael) is sent away from Amir (Isaac). The

Kites represent an ascension to heaven, with the pure Hassan being the only one

capable of discerning where the blessing will come back down again. Hassan

himself is an angelic figure, a self-sacrificing servant who constantly turns the

other check. His very presence convicts Amir of his sin, as if Hassan were in fact a

messenger of God. But ultimately, the redemption is that his devotion to Amir

never wavered and that’s what finally drew Amir back to Afghanistan.

Redemption is a major theme in this novel. In many cases redemption

becomes a basic necessity because it is contingent on our fundamental humanity

and more importantly our fundamental human need for survival, in Amir’s case,

the opportunity to “be good again” has several connotations. His adulthood is

defined by his desire to immerse himself in American culture and pursue the ideals

of the American dream. The novel is partially autobiographical. There is also self-

denial stemming from the shame and self –alienation he associated with his

Afghan identity, which is represented through Hassan. The idea of Amir as a

superior Pashtun and Hassan as a lowly Hazara is merely a social construction that

Amir follows. Essentially it is the unequivocal suffering of both the innocent, the

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corrupt and the guilty that is necessary to redeeming the human condition, whether

it be in a time of war or peace, that is reflected in the last passage of the novel. The

idea that a tortured soul, like Sohrab, has the ability to smile with hope, even if , as

Amir emphasizes it is only faint, brings Amir’s to his pinnacle point of

redemption, which is aptly reflected in the poignancy of his final words “For you a

thousand times over” (323).

The novel plunges directly into the bizarre-the traditional aristocratic family

of Baba and Alias his servant. It juxtaposes the good old days of Kabul’s

monarchy where the boys are occupied with school, snows, American cowboy

movies and neighborhood psyche of Taliban occupied land. Amir’s story does not

establish an unbroken continuity; it nevertheless proposes something like a

leitmotif which connects different layers of genealogy. The Afghan seems to be

living in an age of nostalgia. Hosseini’s contemplation of the past and the present

thus offers a dialectical picture. The repeated allusions to the fall of Afghan do not

imply a narrative of continuity or implied teleology of events from pre-war

Afghan to the war-frayed land rather the momentary intelligibility of the past

which stands contrast to the present.

Hossieni’s distinctive manner of interweaving autobiography and narrative

shows that the tale attempts a blending of art and life. Hosseini was eleven when

his family left for America and sought political asylum there. Hosseini grew up in

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Kabul more or less on similar socio economic status as the protagonist of the

novel. Both went to the same school, flew kites as kids and loved film. Like Amir,

Hosseini was also a writer and started writing even as a boy. The short story that

Amir writes for Hassan was one that had written as early as 1974. Later both of

them turned out tobe immigrants in the United States. The scenes in the flea

market are intensely personal. The parallel are prominent but not always similar.

Though his writing focuses on the personal and the private sphere of experiences,

he waves contemporary historical events into the fabric as also posits an

inextricable connection between the narration of war and the experiences of daily

living.

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CHAPTER–4

CONCLUSION

The Kite Runner celebrates impurity, intermingling and transformation that comes

of unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas and politics. It

clearly identifies the value of loyalty, devotion and the fragile relationship

between friends because of the class difference between them. The novel also

shows the relationship which ia like a cycle. First, Hassan sacrificed for Amir by

leaving the house. Latter, Amir is overwhelmed with guilt and he sacrificed for

Hassan by saving Hassan’s son. Thus Hosseini presented the relationship between

Amir and Hassan as complicated and difficult.

The Kite Runner throws a few twists and turns, that were unexpected but that’s

what made the book furthermore interesting. It fears the absolutism of the Pure

and recognizes that political intrusion in Afghan has neither ended ethnocentrism

nor been conductive to dilute the differences between a Shia and Sunni. The

Afghan, unfolded in the pages of the novel, emphasizes on the communal identity.

An enthusiastic valorization of the Afghan as an agent of disruption can be said to

characterize Assef, the character with German genealogy. This notoriously violent

boy with Nazi sympathies blames Amir for cultivating friendship with Hassan, a

Hazara, an inferior race to be confined in Hazarajat. His differentiation of the Shia

from the Sunni and the consequent extension of the idea of purity and superiority

lead to violent acts intent on disfiguring the body of the so-called inferior and

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impure individual. To the novelist, writing and dialogicity are strong-holds against

dogma and fundamentalism.

Hosseini’s narrative is fast-paced, and his sensitive portrayal of childhood with all

its fears and tensions is particularly striking. The glimpses of Afghan family life

and values are captivating, particularly because they have been virtually unknown

in American fiction, but is the author’s focus on the humanity of the characters

that gives the novel its universality and great appeal. Amir’s betrayal of Hassan is

believable and understandable in human terms, apart from culture, and his long-

term remorse is not surprising. Hassan’s nobility in the face of his trauma, born

from both his unwavering acceptance of his role as a servant and his genuine

affection for Amir, gives him a saintly aspect which he has simply accepted the

role he’s been given in life. Baba is almost larger than life, and though he never

knows exactly what it is that Amir has done, he is sensitive enough to be disturbed

by it when it occurs, especially since he fears that it may signal weakness. It is

only much later that Amir discovers that Baba, too, has kept some secrets.

The guilt at the roof of this narrative is perhaps obvious-despite of all loss and

betrayal, something rock-like remains, something that has survived the violence

and exploitation and thereby demonstrates the salving possibility that all can be

made whole again, that new maps can be drawn on fresh paper, and that the legacy

of war and violence can beerased. Here indeed are history and geography ionized

and passed through the grid of memory, sifted down through time. Whether and to

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what extent this constitutes a cure for culture and social trauma is a crucial topic.

But then the maps that inform the background for his novel serve to depict the

paradisal fantasy of a remembered as against a war frayed and blood socked land.

The novel depicts panoply of maps and a treasure chest of imagined geographies.

Geography seems to be a key to his realization of his homeland and his present

plight for alienation. His gradually descending through a series of locations- the

mountain sides filled with poplars and pomegranates, the red-brick drive ways, the

cratered road whirling its ways up and down the mountains and the restaurants

smelling Afghan dishes is an attempt to reconstruct Afghanistan with its

traditional culture, customs and cuisine. But the war brought about terrible

changes and ravished the beautiful land beyond recognition. Hosseini’s novel

traces the history of disaster with a series of war, bombings, homelessness,

starvation, life-destroying struggles etc. He finds that the land to khich he wishes

to return is no longer there. The text is replete with geographical descriptions that

it provides us with a kind of ‘geo-graphics’, a kind of graphics or writing that

attempts a reinvention of geography.

Arnold Oganov believes that artistic creation “strives towards maximum sensory

tangibility in artistic depiction” (240). Hosseini conforms to this by relying on his

intensive visual memory and photographic retention to record details that would

ordinarily have been lost to aesthetic presentation. His narrative design endows art

with an inexhaustible means of cognition and a grasp of the country with its socio-

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political conditions. The means and mode of cognition within the narrative help us

arrive at an aesthetic interpretation of reality. The narrative, via a simulation of the

transgressive possibilities of hitherto unrepresented communities.

Afghan cultural traditions, which stress pride, honor and a sense of hospitality

towards strangers, add color to this narrative, and when scenes involving the

Taliban are presented in the last part of the book, the true horror of their repression

of a living culture, in addition to their repression of individuals, becomes obvious.

By following two families, one in the U.S and one in Afghanistan, the contrast

becomes even clearer.

Focusing on the novel’s complex intersections of different beliefs as well as time

and space, this reading seeks to show that the text posits an ethic of hybridity as a

stronghold against fundamentalism. Even as his novel accepts the division of

spaces along religious lines, it does not ignore the manner in which historical and

political circumstances have irrevocably altered the human topography of

Afghanistan. The dissident presence of the intruders in the form of Russian is

powerfully suggested, if not described. His tale presents an invaded land depicts

the social pathology of one forced to inhabit an Afghan where many of their long

cherished values are questioned.