An Introduction to Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner

1. An Introduction to KhaledHosseini’sThe Kite Runner

2. The Setting • Kabul, Afghanistan to California between 1975 and 2001 • Kabul was a cosmopolitan city in 1975. • Western culture, including movies and literature, mixed with Afghan traditions, such as kite fighting in the winter in Kabul at this time. Lavish parties were normal at the Hosseini family’s home in the upper-middle class neigborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. Thus, elements of the novel are autobiographical in nature.

3. Introduction to Kite Running • Kite running is the practice of running after drifting kites in the sky that have been cut loose in kite fighting. Kites are flown and fought in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, especially in the Indian subcontinent throughout the year and during kite flying festivals. In south America in Chile and Brazil, flown "volantines" or "papagaios" with "hilocurado" in Chile or "cerol" in Brazil, and try to fight or cut the others. The manja or the kite flying string that is used to fly these kites is coated with powdered glass. Kite flyers entangle the manja of their flying kites with each other and try to cut the string of the other by the pull or release method. The winner's kite remains flying while the loser's kite string is cut loose, drifting free with the wind until it falls to the ground. Kite running is the practice of running after these cut kites to try and capture them when they come down; typically the custom is that the person who captures a cut kite can keep it. Droves of people of all ages may run after a kite and try to capture it with the help of poles or broken off tree branches with which they try to entangle the loose string trailing with the kite. Running after and capturing these kites is often made more difficult when these drifting kites are taken long distances with the wind or fall atop trees, electric poles and houses over compound walls and fences, or in the middle of or across busy roads and railway lines. In cities and towns, the bigger and more expensive looking the kite, the more people can usually be seen running after it to try and capture it as their free prize.

4. Both kite runners and kite fighters die or endanger their lives because they run into the path of oncoming traffic and trains without looking down or fall from trees and buildings which they were trying to scale to get at kites that landed on top while gazing up and running after kites. They may walk around in the middle of congested towns and cities and while gazing up may be dangerously unaware of what is happening on the ground in their immediate surroundings causing injuries and collisions with traffic.

5. KhaledHosseini

6. Personal Connections • In 1970, the Foreign Ministry sent Hosseini’sfather to Iran. While the family only spent a few years there, Hosseini taught a Hazara man, who worked as a cook for the family, how to read and write. By this time, KhaledHosseini was already reading Persian poetry as well as American novels, and he began writing his own short stories. • While KhaledHosseini has said before that his first novel is largely fictional, he acknowledges that the Afghanistan he knew as a child inspired it.

7. Controversy Surrounding Film Adaptation • - In 2007, it was made into a feature film. The movie encountered some problems. The children who played Hassan, Amir and Sohrab, and a fourth boy with a smaller role, had to be moved out of the country. Hassan’s rape scene in the film, along with Sohrab’s abuse at the hands of the Taliban, put the young actors and their families in possible danger, as some Afghans found the episode insulting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLtavGjAOJY

9. A Literary Masterpiece • Conforms to the Bildungsroman Novel • The Bildungsroman is a novel of formation, novel of education, or coming-of-age story and is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood; therefore, character change is extremely important. • Other examples of Bildungsroman Works:

10. Additional Literary Elements • Protagonist: Amir – Who also acts as the narrator, occurs four days after the final events of his story; occurs in past tense with extended flashbacks • Tone: The tone of the novel is confessional, as Amir professes profound remorse throughout the entirety of the work. • POV: The narrator speaks in the first person, primarily describing events that occurred months and years ago. The narrator describes these events subjectively, explaining only how he experienced them. At one point, another character does narrate the work from his point of view. • Primary Conflict: Amir spends many years trying to atone for his actions after failing to properly defend Hassan. (Man v. Self, Man v. Man, Man v. Society) • Prevalent Themes: The search for redemption; the love and tension between fathers and sons; the intersection of political events and private lives; the persistence of the past

11. Motifs and Symbols • Motifs include irony and regressing in time. • Symbols include kites, the lamb, and the cleft lip.