An Anlysis Of Multiple Themes Of The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner is the first Afghan novel written in English and is also the firstnovel of Khaled Hosseini, who is an Afghan-born American writer. It became the biggestdark horse in the international literary world after its publication in2003, and got almostevery New Talent Award. The novel ranked Number one on Amazon Top for131weeksand became a New York Times Bestseller. It was published in70countries and has beensold6million copies, setting a publishing miracle. In2007, it was made into a movie byDreamworks and also moved millions of audients.The novel The Kite Runner was written through the first person perspective, andtold a childhood story of an Afghan immigrant named Amir in the United States and hisprocess of spiritual salvation towards his fault done in his childhood when he grew up.This novel provided the readers with a vivid picture of life in Afghanistan over the pastthirty years. It differs from most other stories about Afghanistan. It not just concentrateson war and disaster, but it includes almost all the great themes in our life. Thisextraordinary novel locates the personal struggles of every person in the terrible sweep ofhistory. Since the novel comes out, its themes, distinct characters, symbolism, exoticbackground about religion, race, politics and life, its narrative style have attracted a largenumber of readers.Although it gets lots of praise and comments in newspapers and magazines, it stillhas not attracted a great many critics in the United States. At the meantime, since it is arelatively new novel in China, there are still limited studies on it nowadays.Chinesecritics haven’t analyzed it from every aspect of its various themes and haven’t dug out inwhat way the themes are deepened and how the story is narrated and composed to makereaders interested in it.Based on closing reading and detailed researches, this thesis will analyze the themesof The Kite Runner from aspects of growing, humanity and self-identity, which willmake us deeply understand this excellent novel.The whole thesis is composed of three parts: the introduction, main body containingthree chapters and the conclusion. The first part gives a brief introduction to the author Khaled Hosseini and the novelThe Kite Runner, and makes a survey of the author’s life and present situation, and findsthe link between the protagonist and him and the influence on composing the novel.Chapter one exhibits the background and characters in this novel, which play animportant role in deepening multiple themes in this novel. In the first part, it willintroduce the Afghan religion, race, politics and the differences of them betweenAfghanistan and America. In the second part, it will analyze the main characters-Amir,Hassan and Baba in the novel. We can see why different characters have different fates,and how the tragedy comes out. Each character in the novel is shaped not only by hisparticular circumstances, but by the historical and political events that occur during hislife. The more background of Afghanistan we know and further analysis of the maincharacters we make, the deeper understanding about the themes we will get.Chapter two analyzes multiple profound themes from three aspects. Theme is themain idea or underlying meaning of a literary work. There are many ways to identify thethemes of the work. They are always expressed and emphasized by the way the authormakes us feel and presented in thoughts and conversations. The actions or events in thestory are used to suggest themes and the main characters usually illustrate the mostimportant themes of the story. First, the thesis makes analysis of themes from growingperspective. In one’s life, the act of growing up can be most difficult. The transition fromchildhood to adulthood is seen as people gain maturity and become less na ve towardsthe world. In this part, it analyzes the three sections of protagonist Amir’ growingprocess and discuss how the kite as a symbol plays an important role in his growingjourney. Second, the thesis makes analysis of themes from humanity. The Kite Runnerscontains all the great themes of literature and of life: love, friendship, honor, devotion,guilt, fear and redemption. Third, the thesis makes analysis of themes from theperspective of the protagonist Amir’s self-identity. Identity is formed depending on theperson and knowing who they want to be instead of what people see them as. Amirmakes everything around him form his identity other than figuring out one for himself.Chapter three illustrates the narrative skills in this novel and shows its appliance todeepening the multiple themes in it. A good and successful story should have a good wayof narrative that means it should have a special way of telling a story. There are many aspects of writing a good narrative: voice and point of view, structure of a narrative, goodbeginnings and endings, plot development, good character description, good settingdescriptions, sentence structure, appropriate dialogue and descriptive language. Thischapter analyzes the narrative skills in the Kite Runner from some of these aspects andhow they deepen the themes of the novel.The last part is the conclusion of the whole thesis. It summarizes the views andcontents that have been discussed in this thesis and points out what this novel conveys.The essence of this bestselling novel does not lie in the heart-warming story telling, but itconsists in reflecting humanity includes both good and evil, delivering the traditionalvalues back to the reader’s hearts.