...In my view The Kite Runner is an epic story with a personal history of what the people of Afghanistan had and have to endure in an ordinary every day life; a country that is divided between political powers and religiously idealistic views and beliefs which creates poverty, and violence within the people and their terrorist run country. The story line is more personal with the description of Afghanistan's culture and traditions, along with the lives of the people who live in Kabul. The story provides an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political chaos. Of course there are many things that are unsaid and under explained in this tragic novel which, in my observation, is an oversimplification. There is also a heavy use of emotional appeal, and an underlying message. This is a flag for propaganda. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini begins in the 1970s in Kabul, Afghanistan, when the country is in a time of an ending monarchy. The main character, Amir, is the son of wealthy Afghanistan business man, and his playmate, Hassan, the son of his father's houseman, Ali. Hassan is a Hazara and Amir is a Pashtun, which makes them from different social classes. The author has undoubtedly stirred my emotions and I admit that I did cry several times. I think that this was the author's objective; this is an appeal to emotion, one of the fallacies of propaganda. Propaganda is a message or an idea that persuades the audience to change their perspectives in one way or another...
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...Khaled Hosseini worked as a medical internist at Kaiser Hospital in Mountain View, California for several years before publishing The Kite Runner.[3][6][7] In 1999, he learned through a news report that the Taliban had banned kite flying in Afghanistan,[8] a restriction he found particularly cruel.[9] The news "struck a personal chord" for him, as he had grown up with the sport while living in Afghanistan. He was motivated to write a 25-page short story about two boys who fly kites in Kabul.[8] Hosseini submitted copies to Esquire and The New Yorker, both of which rejected it.[9] He rediscovered the manuscript in his garage in March 2001 and began to expand it to novel format at the suggestion of a friend.[8][9] According to Hosseini, the narrative became "much darker" than he originally intended.[8] His editor, Cindy Spiegel, "helped him rework the last third of his manuscript", something she describes as relatively common for a first novel.[9] As with Hosseini's subsequent novels, The Kite Runner covers a multigenerational period and focuses on the relationship between parents and their children.[2] The latter was unintentional; Hosseini developed an interest in the theme while in the process of writing.[2] He later divulged that he frequently came up with pieces of the plot by drawing pictures of it.[7] For example, he did not decide to make Amir and Hassan brothers until after he had "doodled it".[7] Like Amir, the protagonist of the novel, Hosseini was born in Afghanistan...
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...In my view The Kite Runner is an epic story with a personal history of what the people of Afghanistan had and have to endure in an ordinary every day life; a country that is divided between political powers and religiously idealistic views and beliefs which creates poverty, and violence within the people and their terrorist run country. The story line is more personal with the description of Afghanistan's culture and traditions, along with the lives of the people who live in Kabul. The story provides an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political chaos. Of course there are many things that are unsaid and under explained in this tragic novel which, in my observation, is an oversimplification. There is also a heavy use of emotional appeal, and an underlying message. This is a flag for propaganda. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini begins in the 1970s in Kabul, Afghanistan, when the country is in a time of an ending monarchy. The main character, Amir, is the son of wealthy Afghanistan business man, and his playmate, Hassan, the son of his father's houseman, Ali. Hassan is a Hazara and Amir is a Pashtun, which makes them from different social classes. The author has undoubtedly stirred my emotions and I admit that I did cry several times. I think that this was the author's objective; this is an appeal to emotion, one of the fallacies of propaganda. Propaganda is a message or an idea that persuades the audience to change their perspectives in one way or another...
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...about how Hosseini opens 'The Kite Runner'? Hosseini conveys many emotions and themes to the reader in the first chapter of his novel ‘The Kite Runner’. One way the author gets messages across is through literary techniques. Firstly Hosseini alerts the reader that the novel will be a recollection of events and also that guilt and regret will be key themes. He does this by personifying the past, he says that it “claws it’s way back”. This powerful technique gives an alive, frightening image to the narrator’s past. Hosseini also conveys the idea that the first chapter is a still before the storm. He does this by saying that it is a “day last summer” and also previously mentioning “winter”. Also the “crisp breeze” suggests that change is in the air as cold breezes are commonly associated with the end of summer and the beginning of autumn and then Winter. This braces the reader and prepares them for what is to come. The narrator also sits on a bench “near a willow tree”. This is relevant as it conveys sadness. This is because the willow tree, or the weeping willow as it is often known, is usually a symbol for a character’s unhappiness. This gives the reader an idea of the state of mind of the narrator. Another interesting thing is that Hosseini suggests that Amir feels very guilty. He does this with the application of the simile “like a pair of eyes staring down on San Francisco”. This simile conveys Amirs guilt as he feels as though the kites are staring at him, judging him...
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...Write about the ways Hossieni tells the story in Chapter 18 of The Kite Runner. In chapter 18 of The Kite Runner, Hosseini continues to use a first person narrative, however the manipulation of past participles allows him to write from the perspective of Baba and Ali on occasion. The effect of this is haunting as the narration symbolises ghosts from the past, which is a dominant theme in the Kite Runner, and creates a reading experience which emulates suffocation. The chapter is told via analepsis, this is a key linguistic mechanism in deconstructing the psyche of Amir. By Chapter 18 he is truly a broken man; he is an orphan, infertile, betrayed his best-friend, and the man he considers a father is dying. In chapter 18 these psychological attributes culminate and form an Amir who reflects the setting in which he is narrating this chapter, Pakistan. Pakistan is an in-between place in Amir's journey, reflecting Amir who is on the cusp of realising his true potential - through the intertwining of setting (Pakistan) and character (Amir), Hosseini foreshadows an ending where Amir will achieve repentance and is entirely happy. On the other hand, the broken tone in which the chapter is written emulates that of a suicide note, the conjuring of past images and "gods greatest sin" suggests Amir is contemplating suicide at this point as he has "let down everyone I love", thus subverting the foreshadowed ending of repentance through the reflective symbolic imagery of character and setting...
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...e Runner begins with our thus-far nameless protagonist explaining that the past cannot be forgotten. A single moment in time defined him and has been affecting him for the last twenty-six years. This moment was in 1975 when he was twelve years old and hid near a crumbling alleyway in his hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan. When the protagonist's friend, Rahim Khan, calls him out of the blue, he knows that his past sins are coming back to haunt him even in the new life he has built in San Francisco. He remembers Hassan, whom he calls "the harelipped kite runner," saying "For you, a thousand times over." Rahim's words also echo in his head, "There is a way to be good again." These two phrases will become focal points for the rest of the novel and our protagonist's story. Chapter Two The protagonist remembers sitting in trees with Hassan when they were boys and annoying the neighbors. Any mischief they perpetrated was the protagonist's idea, but even when Hassan's father, Ali, scolded Hassan, he never told on the protagonist. Hassan's father was a servant to the protagonist's father, Baba and lived in a small servant's house on his property. Baba's house was widely considered the most beautiful one in Kabul. There Baba held large dinner parties and entertained friends, including Rahim Khan, in his smoking room. Though the protagonist was often surrounded by adults, he never knew his mother because she died in childbirth. Hassan never knew his mother, either, because she eloped with...
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...Comparative Literature 153: “International Cultures: Film and Literature” Dr. Thomas Jay Lynn * Penn State Berks * Fall 2015 * MWF 12:00-12:50 Franco 101 * Office Meeting Period MWF 1:15-2:15 (For an office meeting during this or a different time, please e-mail, phone, or speak to me in advance, if possible.) Office: 117 Franco * Office Phone: (610) 396-6298 * E-mail: TJL7@PSU.EDU Please note: This syllabus and various other course documents (including essay guidelines) will be posted online at our ANGEL course site. “I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore Course Overview Official Penn State description of CMLIT 153: “Comparison of narrative techniques employed by literature and film in portraying different cultures, topics may vary each semester.” This Fall 2015 offering of CMLIT 153, “International Cultures: Film and Literature,” focuses on cultural tensions in varied parts of the world. Among the tensions that these films and novels explore are ones that arise in relation to poverty and wealth (class tensions); changing female and male gender roles; concepts of love and marriage; family dynamics; traditional and modern identities; work and education; and shifting political realities. In your approach to the works considered in this course, moreover, please consider how such tensions...
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...One sentence has the power to change your life. Whether it is hearing that a loved one has died, being proposed to, or being accepted to college, the life known previously is gone. In Kite Runner, Amir experiences quite a few moments where his life is changed. This changes his perspective, and angers him, reassures him, or makes him want to go back to his past. In particular, when Amir first overhears Rahim Khan and Baba talking about him, is told that he can redeem himself, and finds out that Hassan is his brother. One major moment is when Amir overhears Rahim Khan say to Baba “You need to let him find his way (Kite Runner 22).” Amir ends up going down the wrong path when he does not defend Hassan or himself. In fact, he pushes Hassan away...
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...The Waltz The Waltz, a short story by Dorothy Parker, tells the story of an unnamed woman’s complaint with a dance partner. The pair meets at a party, when all the other dance partners are unavailable. The woman complains about the way the Man dances. Everything the man does, from the way he looks, to the steps he takes, to his cockiness makes her upset. However, the woman does not say anything to her partner. She struggles silently and it is only the reader who knows why the woman is upset. The story ends and after the dance, and the woman never reveals her thoughts or feelings. The story is an allegory because it tells a story through the story. Parker writes about a dance, but the dance represents more then the dance between the two characters. The dance expresses the relationship that women and men have. The woman, never wanted to talk to the man, but she is forced to. The woman didn’t want to dance with the man but she is forced to. The woman didn’t make mistakes while dancing, but after dancing with him she is forced to lie and say she did. The main character is never able to tell her partner her thoughts about the man’s character and behavior. The waltz is a dance complete by two partners. The male and female dancers both have parts to this dance and they both need to work together and work separately in order to make the dance a beautiful one. However, in the woman’s perspective, the man is unable to be a good partner because of the way he acts. He is very forward...
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..."The Kite Runner", Khaled Hosseini displays a...
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...well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara and the son of Amir's father's servant, Ali, spend their days in a peaceful Kabul, kite fighting, roaming the streets and being boys. Amir’s father (who is generally referred to as Baba, "daddy", throughout the book) loves both the boys, but seems critical of Amir for not being manly enough. Amir also fears his father blames him for his mother’s death during childbirth. However, he has a kind father figure in the form of Rahim Khan, Baba’s friend, who understands Amir better, and is supportive of his interest in writing stories. Assef, a notoriously mean and violent older boy with sadistic tendencies, blames Amir for socializing with a Hazara, according to Assef an inferior race that should only live in Hazarajat. He prepares to attack Amir with his steel knuckles, but Hassan bravely stands up to him, threatening to shoot Assef in the eye with his slingshot. Assef and his henchmen back off, but Assef says he will take revenge. Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir, knowing where the kite will land without even watching it. One triumphant day, Amir wins the local tournament, and finally Baba's praise. Hassan goes to run the last cut kite, a great trophy, for Amir saying "For you, a thousand times over." Unfortunately, Hassan runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Hassan refuses to give up Amir's kite, so Assef exacts his revenge, assaulting and raping him. Wondering why Hassan is taking so long, Amir searches for Hassan and hides...
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... May 8, 2014 ------------------------------------------------- Sociology of Education Kite Runner Review Paper The movie “The Kite Runner” was based on one of the best novels written by an Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. The movie tells the story about the freindship Amir, the son of a wealthy afghan businessman, and Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. When the Afghan Monarchy fell through the Russians until the rise of the Talibans, Amir and his father Baba went to California to avoid the conflict in their motherland. It was hard for them to migrate to a country they are not much familiar with. Leaving their wealth was another challenge for them. It took them years to adapt to another kind of lifestyle they are not used to. After years staying in California, Amir decided to go back to his homeland in Afghanistan despite the threat to his life in saving the son of his friend Hassan. Many sad events occurred in the movie. The director of the movie is brilliant. If it weren’t for the information I got from the movie, I would never know that the movie was actually filmed in China. In short, the story of the movie is good and so the actors. The movie tells us so much about the history of the people in Afghanistan. Without any background information about their culture, we’ll think that afghans are so disgusting people. Homosexual...
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...IntroductionMany times since his death in 1883, Karl Marx’s ideas have been dismissed as irrelevant. But, many times since, interest in his ideas has resurfaced as each new generation which challenges the unequal, unjust and exploitative nature of the capitalist system looks for ideas and a method to change the world we live in.Marx’s ideas – a body of work collectively described as Marxism – was added to by his closest collaborator Frederick Engels after Marx’s death and subsequently added to and enriched by the writings and living experience of Lenin and Trotsky who led the 1917 October Russian Revolution.For any person looking to change the world in a socialist direction the ideas of Marxism are a vital, even indispensable, tool and weapon to assist the working class in its struggle to change society.Most people who describe themselves as socialists will have at one stage or another looked at Marxist ideas and, unfortunately, some have chosen to ignore the rich experience and understanding that Marxist ideas add to an understanding of the capitalist world and how to change it.However, Marx’s ideas are once again becoming fashionable; even amongst people Marx would have regarded as his political opponents. Having been voted the thinker of the Millennium in a BBC poll in 2000, Marx has now been taken up by university professors and City analysts alike as offering one of the most modern ways to understand globalised capitalism.But, for socialists who wish to permanently remove...
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...Both Khaled Hosseini's novel ‘The Kite Runner’ and the short stories "Are You Different?" by Mia Francis and "Chinese Lessons" by Ivy Tseng in the anthology "Growing Up Asian In Australia" by various authors discuss the notion of being displaced. In the texts, the role of being an outsider extends from being excluded in one's own family to a large-scale elimination of the ethnic minorities. In both ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘Growing Up Asian in Australia’, it is inferred that the idea of being the outsider causes individuals to experience pain, because the way that they perceive themselves and by the people around them as different leads them to feel voiceless, discriminated, and conflicted in a place where they should feel like they belong....
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...A a key part in the story of the Kite Runner; the events that occur are so drastic that the chapters preceding it prepare us for the scenes and the following chapters deal with its aftershock. Many of the tensions have been building till now, the way Amir abuses Hassan’s loyalty, his desperation to please his father and the question of whether he can stand up for what right; all come together in the events of this chapter. Finally, in this chapter, the readers are faced with the much anticipated events of the “winter of 1975” that scar Amir for the rest of his life. Hosseini’s use of structure therefore, is particularly effective in teasing the readers for the first 7 chapters before the rape and help to build up the growing tension of treatment of Hazaras by Pashtuns. The author’s use of structure is further highlighted in this chapter by the way he introduces “a memory”, “a memory” and “a dream” immediately before Hassan’s rape to again slow down the pace and help to highlight the significance of what is about to occur. Hosseini starts the chapter by using dreams to help tell the story. Hassan tells Amir that in his dream, “a monster had come to the lake” and later claims there was “no monster, just water.” The dream here could be used to subtly prepare the readers for the horrific events that are to follow and to warn Hassan to keep away from the ‘monster’; whether this monster is Amir or Assef however is open to interpretation. If however, as suggested later by Amir, that...
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