SummaryResponsenewhistoricist

Back to home page Javon Moore Mrs. Ackerman Honors American Literature 05 May 09

= New Historicist Response to the //Kite Runner// = Summary: //Kite Runner// is the first Afghani book written completely in English. According to Khaled Hosseini and to researchers that have studied his text, the main focus of the //Kite Runner// was to describe a terrorism that is happening in Afghanistan. Although it is a completely fictitious novel, Hoessini based his novel off of the things he heard or saw when he has visited Afghanistan. As an American for a long period of his life, the last time he remembers his hometown in Kabul, it was peaceful; he lived well and happy. Since then he has lived in California, shadowed from the harsh realities of his hometown. This is his purpose; to understand for himself what he missed by mistake and to reveal the cruelties of the white man in his home country, to an English speaking people, bias of the events from 9/11. He wants to change the spelling of Afghani from terrorist back to Afghani. Through his work in 2003’s Kite Runner he has begun to change the views of the people to help a struggling nation, and to charge forth towards a peace between differing nations and cultures. Response: In Khaled Hosseini’s the //Kite Runner,// the authors is trying to change the misconstrued perspectives of the American people by writing a detailed tale of the poverty and struggles Afghanistan has experienced, suggesting that we all have our struggles and that we need to come together to help each nation to defeat poverty, famine, and war. His message is a powerful one. With the description and blunt style of text Khaled uses he is really making an effect to change people’s views. Because he abandoned his nation as a young age he feels compelled to write, “For Hosseini, life doesn't go forward so much as backward, as he continues to explore the psyche of the country he left as a little boy, avoiding three decades of war and mayhem by being the "nauseatingly fortunate" son of a diplomat who was already posted to Paris when the turmoil began. He did not escape Afghanistan so much as abandon it, and he returns there again to reconcile his childhood's watercolor memories with reality's bloody tableau” (Jones 1). The only way for him to fulfill his grief and to develop a love in Afghanistan for him and the Americans is to portray his realizations through his books. I think he is succeeding in changing people. He is making an impression of sorrow for the Afghani nation. He is making a fictional story a real concern, “ To call //The **Kite** **Runner** // a morality tale, or a tale of loyalty and betrayal, is not only to succumb to the power of its melodrama but also to miss the novel’s greater significance and achievement. This is Hosseini using fiction to make real a nation and a people not so much epitomized in as reduced to the picture of a young Afghan girl on the cover of //National Geographic // magazine, a people vying for the short attention span of an American public” (Morace 3). His efforts are changing the world as people turn to help those in need. Since then the Americans have sent troops to Afghanistan to help try to turn a nation in turmoil around. Although efforts have not produced many benefits yet, hopefully someday Khaled’s cry for the Afghanis’ help will be heard and actions will bring peace between nations and cultures.

Works Cited Hosseini, Khaled. __Kite runner__. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004. Jones, Tamara, and Khaled Hosseini. "An Old, Familiar Face: Writer Khaled Hosseini, Lifting the Veil on Afghanistan."" __GaleNet__. 28 May 2007. 5 May 2009 . Morace, Robert A. "The Kite Runner." __EBSCOhost__. 05 May 2009 .