An overview of The Kite Runner

1. The Kite Runner
Themes and Symbols

2. Section A(a)
Questions
Write about the ways ….tells the story in
chapter …/a poem.
Only focus on how the story is told
through form/structure/language.

3. In a novel-elements that show the
text fits into a particular genre.
What is Form?
e.g. What shows the Kite Runner
as a bildungsroman novel?
What other genres does the Kite
Runner fit into?

4. What is
Structure?
• Foreshadowing
• Analepsis
• Symbols that are repeated.
Anything that • Mirroring.
links different • Language/phrases that are
chapters together repeated.
or different parts • Signs that a character has
developed.
of the story.

5. Imagery and figurative languagesimiles/metaphors/personification.
What is
Language?
The Lexis used and connotations of the
lexis.
Semantic Fields.
Use of declaratives/imperatives.

6. Circular/Linear/Episodic.
Narrative
Structure
Foreshadowing
Analepsis
Retrospective

7. Type of
Narrator.
Bias
Point of View
Omniscien
t Narrator
Unreliable
Narrator
Does
Narrative
the
Voice.
point of
view
ever
switch?

8. How is the story told through these
devices?
What are the effects on the story through
form/structure/language.
Form
Structure
Language
Link to Aspects of Narrative:
1. Characterisation
2. Settings
3. Time
4. Voices

9. 1. Forgiveness and Redemption: Rahim Khan “There is a way to
be good again”.
2. Identity: “I became what I am today at the age of twelve”.
Link to characterisation.
3. Religion and Spirituality: “The devil shone mirrors too, shone
them to distract muslims during prayer (Ali).” Link to ideology.
Key Themes
“Every other sin is a variation of theft”.
5. Family: “He’d close the door, leave me to wonder why it was
always grown-ups time with him. Link to characterisation.
6. Violence: “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a
man who can’t stand up to anything”.
7. Sacrifice
“was it a fair price?”

10. Key Themes
8. Storytelling/books
An entire chapter dedicated to Hassan’s people.That was how I
escaped my father’s aloofness, in my dead mother’s books…I
started spending my allowance on books.
9. Past
I became what I am today at the age of 12….
10.Rape
The droplets of blood staining the snow dark red, almost black.
Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this
indecency take place.
11. Courage/cowardliness
Baba sit down please…Haven’t I taught you anything? He
snapped. Tell me he’d better kill me good with that first shot.
Because if I don’t go down, I’m tearing him to pieces, goddamn
his father!
A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t
stand up to anything.

11. The Kite
Runner
Symbols
Kites
Pomegranate Tree
Dreams
Stories
Slingshot
Harelip
Rahim Khan
The Lamb
The Alley

12. Kites
Kites feature in the opening of the novel and in the
denouement.
Do you want me to run that kite for you?
Kites also showed the rivalry, status and relationship in
Afghanistan
In Kabul fighting kites was a little like going to war.
The Kite symbolises Baba’s Love.
He was also the city’s most famous kite maker..
Show him once and for all that his son was worthy.
…the chill between Baba and me thawed a little. And the
reason for that was the kites. Baba and I lived in the same
house but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one
paper thin slice of intersection between those spheres.

13. Kites
The kite symbolises (symbolised) joy:
Winter was every kid’s favourite season in
Kabul…Winter was the start of …building
snowmen. And Kites of course. Flying kites. And
running them.
The Kite reveals that Hassan was attuned to
nature-reveals his innocence:
He always got to the spot the kite would land
before the kite did, as if he had some sort of
inner compass.
Kites represent freedom in Afghanistan
But you won’t find kites or kite shops on Jadeh
Maywand or anywhere else in Kabul.

14. Kites
Form and structure: The fact that the
Kite’s meaning and symbolism to Amir
changes through the novel illustrates the
novel as a bildungsroman novel.
Also Amir becomes the kite runner which
also shows that he doesn’t care about
status and he has matured and learnt
from his past mistakes-links to
redemption.
Language- Kites are used as a metaphor
for exploring the relationship between
Baba and Amir.

15. 1. There was a pomegranate tree near the entrance to
the cemetery. One summer day, I used one of Ali’s
kitchen knives to carve our names on it: “Amir and
Hassan, the sultans of Kabul…Hassan and I climbed its
branches and snatched its blood-red pomegranates”.
2. We sat under our pomegranate trees and I knew I’d
made a mistake…The words I’d carved…I couldn’t
stand looking at them now.
Pomegranate
3. Rahim Khan: we buried her in the cemetery on the hill,
Tree.
the one by the pomegranate tree, and I said a prayer
for her too.
4. The droughts have dried the hill and the tree hasn’t
borne fruit in years but Sohrab and I still sit under its
shade…
5. The carving had dulled, almost faded altogether but it
was still there: Amir and Hassan. The sultans of
Kabul”.

16. 1. Lore has it my father once wrestled a black bear in
Baluchistan….And in those dreams I can never tell Baba from the
bear.
2. Hasan told me he had a dream: But no-one was swimming because
they said a monster had come to the lake…there’s no monster you
say I’ll show you all..They see now. There is no monster just water.
3. I was that monster
take the
Dreams 4. I am lost in a snowstorm…A familiar shape materialises…Ifield of
hand and suddenly the snow is gone…We’re standing in a
apple green grass..I look up and see the clear sky is filled with
kites…They shimmer in the afternoon light (65).
5. And dreamed of Hassan running in the snow…for you a thousand
times over.
6. I dreamed Assef was standing in the doorway of my hospital room,
brass ball still in his eye socket. “We’re the same you and I” he was
saying. “you nursed with him but you’re my twin”.

17. 1.
2.
3.
Stories
Sohrab and Rostam.
Amir loves stories.
Hassan also loves stories but Amir makes fun of him.
1.
“when it comes to words, Hassan is an imbecile”.
2.
“I read him poems and stories, sometimes riddles…though
I stopped reading those when I saw he was far better at
solving them than I was.”
4.
Hassan learns to read later. He names his son, Sohrab.
5.
Sohrab and Rostam is a story about betrayal between fathers
and sons.
6.
Hassan is unaware of the irony. Amir realises the irony.
7.
Is Hassan forgiving Amir-Is he offering a sign of redemption?
8.
Amir’s mother loves reading. Is Baba unhappy because Amir
reads-think about this from a feminist point of view.

18. Slingshot
I turned and came face to face with
Hassan’s slingshot…Hassan held the
slingshot pointed directly as Assef’s
face…If you make a move, they’ll have to
change your nickname from Assef ‘the
ear eater’ to ‘one-eyed Assef because I
have this rock pointed at your left
eye…Hassan was trying to tuck the
slingshot in his waist with a pair of
trembling hands”.

19. Slingshot
1. Where is your slingshot Hazara?
…That was clever. Really clever.
Then again, it’s easy to be clever
when you’re holding a loaded
weapon.”
2. Sohrab had the slingshot pointed
to Assef’s face…The slingshot
made a thwitt sound when
Sohrab released the cup…He put
his hand where his left eye had
been just a moment ago

20. 1.
2.
Harelip
Hassan the harelipped Kite Runner.
A boy with a chinese doll face
perpetually lit by a harelipped smile.
3. But this present will last you
forever…
4. Hassan hadn’t done anything to earn
Baba’s affections; he’d just been
born with that stupid harelip.
5. Because that was the winter that
Hassan stopped smiling.

21. 1) There is a way to be good again
2) I’m in his arms but it’s Rahim Khan’s pinky my fingersare
curled around.
Rahim Khan
3) I heard the story through Rahim Khan.
4) You know, sometimes you are the most self-centred
man I know…As usual you’re over-simplifying.
5) Look, I know there’s a fondness between you and
him and I’m happy about that, Envious but
happy…He needs someone who, understands him.
6) My family would have never accepted her as an
equal. You don’t order someone to polish your shoes
one day and call them ‘sister’ the next…I almost
forgot. Happy Birthday. It was a brown leatherbound notebook.

22. The Lamb
1. It was the look of the lamb.
2. Tomorrow is the tenth day of dhul-hijjah…a day to
celebrate how the prophet Ibrahim almost
sacrificed his own son for God…I see the sheep’s
eyes. It is a look that will haunt my dreams for
week…I imagine the animal sees that its imminent
demise is for a higher purpose. This is the look.
3. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I
had to slay to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The
answer floated my conscious mind before I could
thwart it; He was just a hazara wasn’t he? I ran back
the way I’d come.