The
parts:
•Part 1: Works in translation
•• Part 2: Detailed study
•• Part 3: Literary genres
•• Part 4: Options (in which works are freely
chosen)
From August to December 2014:
Part 4: Options (Free Choice by Schools)
HOW THE LESSON WILL BE RUN:
- Pre reading : A Brief History of Afghanistan:
·
The Kite Runner: Historical Context
·
Briefly about the novel
·
Khaled Hosseini Biography
·
What is kite running?
·
New terminology pertaining to culture and
character
·
How to analyse a novel from literary perspective
·
Function of expository chapter
·
Reading calendar
·
Themes
·
Characters
·
Setting
·
Plot structure
·
How to ToK The Kite Runner
·
Essential passages
·
Analyzing literary features
·
Quiz questions for exploration
·
Essay topics
·
How to hold an IOP
·
IOP titles from The Kite Runner
·
Mock IOP
Before
you read the novel
The more you understand about Afghan
culture, history, and geography, the more you will be able to enjoy the novel.
Much of the story described in The Kite Runner takes place in Afghanistan
during two time periods, the 1970's and 2001. The political climate of the
country changed dramatically between those two times. Moreover, the novel
describes ethnic and religious groups that are unfamiliar to many Americans. As
you read about Pashtuns and Hazaras, and about Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, you
will want to learn more about these groups and religious denominations.
Use the following websites to
research the information needed to answer the Pre-Reading Questions:
The Kite Runner: Historical Context
The Kite Runner, set in Afghanistan and the United States from the 1970s to 2002, presents a story of
intertwined personal conflicts and tragedies against a historical background of national and cultural trauma.
The early chapters tell much about the richness of Afghan culture as experienced by the young Amir and
Hassan in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The novel's account of the culture of Kabul informs the reader about
everything from the melon sellers in the bazaar to the cosmopolitan social and intellectual lives of Kabul elite
society during the monarchy, to the traditional pastimes of Afghan children. Detailed descriptions treat the
reader to such events as a large extended-family outing to a lake and the annual winter kite tournament of
Kabul. Subsequent political developments, however, appear to curtail these relative freedoms, as first the
Soviet-backed Communist government, then the Northern Alliance, and finally the Taliban progressively
repress the activities of Afghan citizens. The reader learns the effects of the first of these developments
through first-person narration; the effects of the Northern Alliance and of Taliban rule emerge in Rahim
Khan's, Farid's, and Hassan's accounts of Afghan life in the period between the late 1980s and the early 2000s.
Starting in the early chapters of the novel, broad political events such as the revolution that overthrows the
monarchy come to form not just a background for the action, but to become prime movers of the plot. The
sound of gunfire in Chapter 5, for example, initiates a series of political shake-ups that eventually leads to the
Communist takeover of Afghanistan and drives Baba and Amir, along with many of the privileged class, into
exile. In addition, it marks an end to a period that was—despite being marred by the iniquities of the caste
system—relatively idyllic. As Amir observes, "The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know
nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born." This observation foreshadows the traumatized
condition of Amir's nephew Sohrab, born in the midst of violence and orphaned and abused by the Taliban.
The Kite Runner is one of the first works of fiction to include the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United
States within the span of its narrative. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Afghanistan was
portrayed in popular media as a country whose government allowed a terrorist organization to operate within
its borders and committed human rights abuses against its own people. Through a detailed personal narrative,
the novel re-focuses attention on Afghanistan through a different lens, correcting this narrow view of a
country which, despite its problems, has a fascinating history.
Another important historical and cultural context of the novel is the diverse and variegated world of
contemporary multicultural America, particularly in California. Hosseini, the son of a diplomat and a teacher,
left Afghanistan with his family in 1981, much like Amir. Likewise, Amir's experiences in the Afghan
immigrant community of Fremont, California, familiarly known in the San Francisco Bay Area as "Little
Kabul," may reflect the author's experiences of the area from arrival in San Jose in the 1980s. Amir's life as a
young immigrant in the multicultural space of the Bay Area illustrates the increased mixing of diverse
ethnicities in the 1980s and 1990s within U.S. popular culture.
The novel also gives a detailed account of how one ethnic group formed a cultural enclave within American
culture so that its members could help one another and preserve Afghan cultural traditions. Detailed
descriptions in the middle and late chapters give the reader a window on some cultural practices, both formal
and informal, that help define the Afghan community in Fremont. Amir's and Soraya's lives are certainly
taken up with the broader American culture. Both attend public schools and (we presume) mix with
non-Afghan students; Amir takes creative writing classes in which he must read about the experiences of a
diverse group of young writers; and Soraya has a career as a writing instructor at a community college. Still
their identities as Afghans or Afghan Americans are defined in part by the ceremonies and practices of theirfamilies and their community. The Saturday swap meets, for example, exemplify the well-documented
strategy of immigrant groups to adapt already existing institutions in the United States as ways to preserve
their cultures of origin.
Briefly about the novel:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003. Initially published by Riverhead Books, an
imprint of Penguin, The Kite Runner was said to be the first novel written in English by an Afghan writer, and
the book appeared on many book club reading lists. The novel is set in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to
1981 and the start of the Soviet occupation, then in the Afghan community in Fremont, California from the
1980s to the early 2000s, and finally in contemporary Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
The Kite Runner is the story of strained family relationships between a father and a son, and between two
brothers, how they deal with guilt and forgiveness, and how they weather the political and social
transformations of Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2001. The Kite Runner opens in 2001. The adult narrator,
Amir, lives in San Francisco and is contemplating his past, thinking about a boyhood friend whom he has
betrayed. The action of the story then moves backward in time to the narrator's early life in Kabul,
Afghanistan, where he is the only child of a privileged merchant. Amir's closest friend is his playmate and
servant Hassan, a poor illiterate boy who is a member of the Hazara ethnic minority. The Kite Runner, a
coming-of-age novel, deals with the themes of identity, loyalty, courage, and deception. As the protagonist Amir grows to adulthood, he must come to terms with his past wrongs and adjust to a new culture after leaving Afghanistan for the United States.
The novel sets the interpersonal drama of the characters against the backdrop of the modern history of
Afghanistan, sketching the political and economic toll of the instability of various regimes in Afghanistan;
from the end of the monarchy to the Soviet-backed government of the 1980s to the fundamentalist Taliban
government of the 1990s. The action closes soon after the fall of the Taliban and alludes to the rise of Hamid
Karzai as leader of a new Afghan government in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.
