Introduction
One of the aspects of contemporary living is that as time goes by, the world seems to become the ever more violent place. In fact, there are now talks about the impending WW3. Therefore, one’s decision to read the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini could not have proven timelier. After all, The Kite Runner is essentially about the sheer importance for people to be able to act tolerantly towards each other.
The book The Kite Runner is a fictional novel. It was written by the Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini and published for the first time in 2003. The purpose of writing this book, on the author’s part, had to do with his intention to reflect upon his childhood memories of having lived in Afghanistan through the years 1965-1980. Hosseini also wanted to enlighten readers on what happens when people yield to religious fanaticism.
The author was born in Afghanistan in 1965. His family immigrated to the US in 1980, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1988, Hosseini graduated from Santa Clara University, majoring in biology. After having published his first novel The Kite Runner, which became a bestseller, Hosseini has been pursuing the career of a writer.
There is nothing odd about the sheer popularity of The Kite Runner. Just as it is the case with other critically acclaimed works of literature, the novel’s themes and motifs have a strong universal appeal to them. What this means is that, regardless of what happened to be the religious or cultural affiliation of a particular reader, he or she will still be able to relate emotionally to what is being discussed in The Kite Runner. My evaluation aims to explore the validity of this suggestion at length.
Summary
The Kite Runner is best defined as a semi-autobiographical novel. It tells the story of Amir (the novel’s protagonist) – a man with the Pashtun ethnic background, who has spent his formative years in pre-revolutionary Afghanistan. While living in the mansion of his father Baba, Amir used to enjoy the company of his friend Hassan – a Hazara boy, hired by Baba as a servant.
Because of his affiliation with Hazara (a socially underprivileged Shiite tribe in Afghanistan), Hassan never ceased suffering from being bullied by other Pashtun boys, led by the novel’s antagonist Assef. Even though he did like Hassan very much, Amir nevertheless lacked the courage to assume any active stance protecting his friend – something that caused the protagonist to experience the acute sense of guilt while living in America as an adult. Consequently, this prompted Amir to seek redemption in his own eyes.
After having found out about Hassan’s death at the hands of the Taliban and about the fact that his childhood friend had a son (Sohrab), Amir decides to travel to Afghanistan to try to find and save the orphaned boy while hoping that this would help to redeem his guilt. Despite having been almost killed on numerous occasions in the ‘old country’, Amir nevertheless succeeds in his undertaking. As a result, he is shown feeling much better about himself at the novel’s end.
Even though the provided summary is extremely sketchy, it does allow us to identify the main idea promoted by Hosseini throughout the novel’s entirety. This idea can be formulated as follows: redemption can only be achieved through action. Apparently, the author wanted to convince readers that they should be genuinely interested in trying to make the world a better place and avoiding causing pain to others. The reason for this is that, as it appears from the novel, whatever we have done in the past will never cease affecting our present.
Contextual analysis
To have a better understanding of what motivated the novel’s characters to act in the way they did, one must be aware of the forces that define the essence of social dynamics in Afghanistan. In this respect, it will prove beneficial for readers to familiarize themselves with some basic facts about Afghani society as a whole. They are as follows:
- Most Afghanis do not have the sense that they belong to the same nationwhile continuing to be divided along with a number of different ethnic, cultural, and religious lines. In its turn, this results in the intensification of tensions between the representatives of the country’s different ethnoreligious groups (Mazhar, Khan, & Goraya, 2012). For example, as it was shown in The Kite Runner, Pashtuns (Sunnis) tend to regard the members of the Hazara tribe (Shiites) as utterly inferior.
- Afghani society adheres to the so-called ‘traditional values’, concerned withthe assumption that men are superior to women, that one must be respectful of elders, and that only the practicing Muslims deserve to have a voice in the formation of the country’s internal and external policies.
- Being amongst the world’s most impoverished and war-ravaged countries, Afghanistan features one of the highest fertility rates on this planet. Consequently, this causes many Afghanis to grow depreciative of the value of human life. This explains the novel’s yet another notable characteristic – it contains many graphic accounts of people being tortured and murdered.
- Afghanis tend to remain closely observant of their cultural/religious customs, even if living abroad. The validity of this suggestion can be illustrated regarding the novel’s scene, in which Amir (already a grown man) realizes that he will not be able to date Soraya (a Pashtun woman living in America) unless permitted to do so by her father, General Taheri.
Interpretive analysis
When it comes to interpreting the significance of the novel’s themes and motifs, one will be better off doing it within the combined framework of both psychological and socioeconomic discursive approaches. The reason for this is that, even though the act of most of the featured characters appears highly individualized, many of the plot’s developments are undeniably ‘social’. For example, the reason why Baba decided to move to America did not have anything to do with the character’s conscious willingness to live in this country.
Rather, Baba’s decision in this regard was motivated by his realization of the fact that had he and Amir stayed in Afghanistan, it would not take too long for them to end up being killed, “Kindness is gone from the land and you cannot escape the killings. Always the killings. In Kabul, fear is everywhere, in the streets, in the stadium, in the markets…” (Hosseini, 2003, p. 184). At the same time, however, the author clearly wanted readers to think of the behavior of some of the novel’s characters as such that has been predetermined by the particulars of their ‘brain wiring’. The character of Assef exemplifies the validity of this statement.
After all, even though his social upbringing was very similar with that of Amir, he turned out to be nothing short of the living embodiment of evil in the novel, “I will never forget how Assef’s blue eyes glinted with a light not entirely sane and how he grinned, how he grinned…” (Hosseini, 2003, p. 31). Consequently, this contributes even further towards ensuring the plausibility of the plot’s twists – something that explains the novel’s popularity with readers.
Evaluation
Critical Element 1
As it was implied in the Introduction, the foremost reason why The Kite Runner ended up on the best-selling list is that there is the strongly defined progressive/humanistic sounding to many of the novel’s themes and motifs. In its turn, this endows Hosseini’s masterpiece with a high educational value. While exposed to it, readers are being taught how to distinguish ‘right’ from ‘wrong’. The reading of the novel also prompts them to adopt a societal outlook on what should be considered the purpose of one’s life.
The most notable critical element in this respect has to do with the author’s promotion of the idea of secularism, as the key to moral living. After all, the novel reveals that there is a positive correlation between one’s willingness to commit atrocities, on one hand, and the sheer strength of his religious beliefs, on the other. Religious fanatics truly believe that they are on some sort of ‘God’s mission’. This explains the apparent ease with which these people torture and murder ‘infidels’ – in the mind of a religious fanatic, such a course of action is thoroughly ethical because it is divinely endorsed.
One of the novel’s final scenes in which Amir is having a final showdown with Assef exemplifies the full soundness of this suggestion. Hence, the implicit message, conveyed by The Kite Runner – it is in the very nature of just about every monotheistic religion to be dividing humanity on ‘God’s chosen people’, destined to ‘inherit the Earth’, and ‘godless infidels’, who deserve to be exterminated en masse (Hitchens, 2007). Therefore, after having read the novel, many people will end up realizing that religion cannot possibly be considered the source of morality – quite to the contrary. In its turn, this should contribute to making the world a better place.
Critical Element 2
The Kite Runner endorses a progressive outlook on the purpose of human life. The logic behind this suggestion is concerned with the fact that the protagonist could never suppress the guilty thoughts of Hassan in his mind. In its turn, this exposes Amir as a highly conscientious person, whose sense of self-identity is strongly affected by his awareness of having had acted treacherously towards Hassan in the past.
What this implies is that Amir’s view of himself is socially constructed. As such, it is being continually transformed. Thus, readers are being naturally prompted to consider that one cannot go wrong having its intellectual horizons continually broadened. There is, however, even more to it – the character of Amir exposes the sheer wrongness of the assumption that money is the only key to happiness. Rather, it is one’s commitment to remain on the path of continual self-improvement. After all, it was not merely his intention to save Hassan’s son Sohrab that caused Amir to undertake a dangerous journey to Afghanistan, but also his desire to prove to himself that he was not quite as cowardly as his father used to think of him.
What this means is that the purpose of one’s life cannot be solely concerned with the consumption of goods and services, as something that has the value of its own. Rather, it has to do with the idea of serving the society while becoming a better person during the process (Li, 2013). Because people are social beings, this naturally increases the emotional appeal of Hosseini’s novel in their eyes.
Critical Element 3
Kite Runner exposes a person’s life as some kind of a cosmic quest. While addressing life challenges, people are required to make important decisions. As practice indicates, however, these decisions often prove to be wrong. It is specifically on account of his decision to refrain from confronting Hassan’s rapists that Amir ended up suffering from the acute sense of guilt. However, as the novel suggests, it is still possible for people to amend their mistakes from the past.
Such an opportunity is provided by the fact that many events in one’s life exhibit the tendency to recur – even when they assume different forms. The protagonist’s relationships with Hassan and Sohrab stand out exemplary. Even though Amir’s failure to help his childhood friend did prove irreversible in the formal sense of this word, the novel’s main character was still given the chance to make amends by saving the life of Hassan’s son. Mysteriously enough, to be able to succeed in it Amir was once again required to confront Assef. The plot’s development in question was meant to advance the idea that it is never too late correcting mistakes of the past.
It is understood, of course, that this created yet an additional precondition for The Kite Runner to prove commercially successful. After all, the concerned idea correlates rather well with the essence of many unconscious urges in readers.
Conclusion
Reworded thesis
In light of what has been said earlier, the paper’s initial thesis does appear thoroughly legitimate. The reason for this is that, just as it was pointed out in the Introduction, there is indeed nothing accidental about the best-selling status of Hosseini’s novel. The reason why the novel’s publishing attracted the attention of a great many people is that The Kite Runner is innately consistent with the discourse of post-modernity. What this means is that the novel’s themes and motifs appeal to readers on an instinctual level. Therefore, The Kite Runner does have what it takes to be eventually included in the list of the most influential works of American literature.
Clincher
Along with representing a high educational value, The Kite Runner contains a number of insights into the workings of a religious fanatic’s psyche. This makes Hosseini’s novel a rather indispensable asset within the discursive context of the ongoing ‘war on terror’, which culminated in America’s decision to ally with former Al-Qaeda against the legitimate government of Bashar Assad in Syria. It seems that unlike the novel’s author, many governmental officials in America continue to remain utterly unaware that religious fanatics cannot be reasoned with, which means that they should not be used in America’s ‘proxy’ wars. Therefore, it would only prove beneficial to these officials if they were required to read The Kite Runner on a daily basis.
References
Hitchens, C. (2007). God is not great: How religion poisons everything. New York: Twelve Books.
Hosseini, K. (2003). The kite runner. New York: Riverhead.
Li, M. (2013). The 21st century: Is there an alternative (to Socialism)? Science & Society, 77(1), 10-43.
Mazhar, M., Khan, S., & Goraya, N. (2012). Ethnic factor in Afghanistan. Journal of Political Studies, 19(2), 97-109.