The Kite Runner: Two Snippets and a Chunk
:smash:I chose the following passages from Chapters 1-5 of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner:
Snippet 1: "Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break"(11).
I had a very significant and strong personal response to the above snippet of the novel. I am generally fascniated by the spiritual bonds that can form between human beings, and how the essence of true, honest, and enduring love abiding in such bonds can completely transcend cultural and social bounds that humans place on themselves. The relationship between the narrator, Amir, and Hassan in the novel springs and sustains itself off of a connection between them in their infancy. The above quote is part of a passage that goes on to describe how Hassan and Amir "took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name." This passage is significant for many reasons; it identifies our narrator, establishes the relationship between Hassan and Amir, and foreshadows the consequences of the relationship due to the society into which it is born. The events of the narrator's life following the life-altering winter of 1975 seem to have been "laid in those first words" from the beginning. This passage establishes the relationship between the two boys as one that will be tested and suppressed by society because of its existence outside of socially acceptable Love Laws.
Snippet 2: "Seasons of rain and snow had turned the iron gate rusty and left the cemetery's low white stone walls in decay" (27).
The literary value of this snippet, especially in its use of the season and weather symbol, is very interesting. The way that rain and snow, two precipitate forms of water often associated with cleansing and purity, are most responsible for the decay of protective structures (gates and walls) in the community is a direct comment on the initial cleanliness and moral stability of the community in which the boys live. The fact that the white walls fade and decay is also significant, as white is often used as a color symbol meaning purity and cleanliness. Hosseini is making a distinction between true purity and cleanliness in a way similar to Arundhati Roy in her novel The God of Small Things. Time and weather erode the whiteness and purity of the walls, and arguably the very foundation and fortress, of the cemetery in The Kite Runner and the Ayemenem house in The God of Small Things. One can infer in both novels that the ability of nature to strip both constructs of their white, clean, pure facades reveals an uglier truth about them, exactly what they are enclosing, and what surronds them. All of this is a greater comment on the society in which the symbols of moral decay reside.
Chunk: "Hassan, of course, was oblivious to this. To him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, indecipherable, mysterious. Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys" (30).
This chunk is significant to the duality of language in real life. Language can be a tool of freedom, liberation, and self-expression, but no language, or the better the lack of knowledge thereof, can lead to one's ensnarement and manipulation by those with knowledge and power. Amir's use of language to exert unjust and cruel power over one as loving and trusting as Hassan is very much a tragedy and a clear flaw in Amir's character. The relationship then that Amir has to language, however, as a frequently, negatively exercised source of control only adds more dimension and significance to the relationship Amir has with his father, in which Amir feels and essentially is neglected, unaccepted, and left feeling unloved. Amir uses language to regain dignity and control in his own life, an aspect of his character that disappoints this reader but is, at the same time, very understandable given his situation. Language in this book is then significant to the relationship between Hassan and Amir, which is a focal point of the novel itself.
The Kite Runner: Two Snippets and a Chunk (Part Deux)
I chose the following passages from chapters 6-9 of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner:
Snippet 1: "The color fell from his face. Next to him, the stapled pages of the story I'd promised to read him fluttered in the breeze. I hurled the pomegranate at him. It struck him in the chest, exploded in a spray of red pulp. Hassan's cry was pregnant with suprise and pain" (92).
This passage from the novel contains alot of literary significance, as it is yet another illustration of Hassan as a Christ figure. Just before the sexual act of Hassan's rape takes place in the novel, Amir notices a look on Hassan's face that he associates with a triggered memory of lamb before its being sacrificed for atonement, labeling the look of knowing and acceptance the "look of the lamb." The imagery that Hosseini uses in the passage above and the developing plot surrounding it is quite vivid and striking. The passage describes the first act in a frenzy that ultimately results in Hassan's being "smeared in red like he'd been shot by a firing squad" (93). The holy text of the Christian faith, the Bible, describes Jesus after being beaten as looking inhuman, barely recognizable as a man. One can imagine that he was covered in blood in a way similar to what Amir inflicts upon Hassan. The fact that Amir is the one abusing Hassan in this particular incident is also quite symbolic of Amir's tendency to allow Hassan to be physically and emotionally abused as payment for spiritual voids in his own life - for example, his abuse of Hassan regarding language as a way of dealing with the neglect he feels from his father and arguably as a way of punishing Hassan, a Hazara, for being accepted by Baba just as much, if not more, than Amir himself.
Snippet 2: "'But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? Why he only plays with you when no one else is around? I'll tell you why, Hazara. Because to him, you're nothing but an ugly pet. Something he can play with when he's bored, something he can kick when he's angry. Don't ever fool yourself and think you're something more" (72).
I had a very strong personal response to this passage in particular. Spoken by Assef, just before he rapes Hassan, the passage really opens the eyes of readers as to what the true dynamic of Amir and Hassan's relationship is. Though Assef is a detestable creature in his own right, this passage made me realize that, even with all the pain that Amir goes through that somewhat triggers his actions, he must join Assef in being a true villain of the novel. All of the things that Assef says in the passage above may not be worded in a way that Amir would be comfortable admiting to but are very much what his actions demonstrate. The fact that he could stand there and watch Hassan be raped, knowing that Hassan was allowing it for Amir's benefit, is not only beyond me but greatly indicative of Amir's regard for Hassan being less than human, let alone less than a friend. This passage served as an unpleasant but very distinct turning point for me as a reader of the novel as, after reading this passage, I ceased to make excuses for or show much pity toward Amir as I had done before.
My Chunk: "In Kabul, it rarely rained in the summer. Blue skies stood tall and far, the sun like a branding iron searing the back of your neck. Creeks where Hassan and I skipped stones all spring turned dry, and rickshaws stirred dust when they sputtered by. People went to mosques for their ten raka'ts of noontime prayer and then retreated to whatever shade they could find to nap in, waiting for the cool of evening. Summer meant long school days sweating in tightly packed, poorly ventilated classrooms learning to recite ayats from the Koran, struggling with those tongue-twisting exotic Arabic words. It meant catching flies in your palm while the mullah droned on and a hot breeze brought with it the smell of **** from the outhouse across the schoolyard, churning dust around the lone rickety basketball hoop. But it rained the afternoon Baba took Ali and Hassan to the bus station. Thunderheads rolled in, painted the sky iron gray. Within minutes, sheets of rain were sweeping in, the steady hiss of falling water swelling in my ears" (107-8).
This passage is very significant as it touches on Hosseini's use of irony with season in The Kite Runner. It seems that everything happening in the novel occurs during the most unlikely season possible. For instance, Baba and Amir's relationship blossoms most in the winter, a season associated with death, decline, resentment and bitterness. The use of weather occuring abnormally in seasons significant to relationships between characters in the above passage is blatantly symbolic of what the dynamic between the characters and the state of their relationship. Summer has been the season up to this point in the novel that Hassan and Amir's relationship blossom's most, but the abnormal occurrence of rain right at the time that Hassan and Ali leave, rain being a symbol of cleansing and transformation, is very symbolic of not only the saddness in the emotional moment ensuing but the huge shift that Amir's life is making into the period "post-Hassan." The rain in the summer, when the air is hot and humid (atleast in Alabama) and possibly thick with passion and emotion, is Hosseini's way of letting readers know that a huge transformation is taking place in the plot of the novel that will result in a change in all the characters of the novel as well.
