The Kite Runner by SBradley

Social and political protest writing often manipulates setting in order to heighten tensions.

sbradley10 — 2017-02-08 10:32:36 UTC

Thesis Statement:

2017-02-08 10:33:24 UTC

Within social and political protest writing, the author often employs a variety of elements associated with the setting surrounding the protagonist in order to heighten both social and political protest. This is evident in both the post apocalyptic dystopia surrounding Offred in Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", and the distorted, corrupt political setting of the Afghanistan Hosseini's "Kite Runner" his protagonist Amir witnesses as a child and later returns to following the uprising of the Taliban. However, despite the significance of setting in such texts of this genre, the way in which author's introduce and develop a plot structure may be considered more powerful in amplifying social and political tensions.
-S

In Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale...

2017-02-08 10:36:43 UTC

In Hosseini's The Kite Runner...

2017-02-08 10:37:09 UTC

Religion

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Ethnicity

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The physical setting

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The Taliban

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Those with power

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The Eyes

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Gender Roles and Social Class

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Role of Women

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Social Class (links to ethnicity)

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Structure of Plot

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Memories

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Time Shifts

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Institutionalised

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Religion importance to setting

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'Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.'

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"They don't let you be human"

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"He's just a Hazara"
<--- -S

2017-02-08 10:56:53 UTC

'The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.'

2017-02-08 10:57:05 UTC

<--- Shows extent of which certain ethnicities are dehumanised and degraded in Afghastinian society in this era -S

They called him "flat-nosed" because of Ali and Hassan's characteristic Hazara Mongoloid features. For years, that was all I knew about the Hazaras, that they were Mogul descendants, and that they looked a little like Chinese people

2017-02-08 10:57:52 UTC

The book said part of the reason Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras was that Pashtuns were Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras were Shi'a.

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'What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace.'

There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas, some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimp, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they're called. These women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can

2017-02-08 10:58:49 UTC

A return to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?

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2017-02-08 11:00:05 UTC

<--- ""That's the one thing Shi'a people do well," he said, picking up his papers, "passing themselves as martyrs." He wrinkled his nose when he said the word Shi'a, like it was some kind of disease." -S

2017-02-08 11:00:37 UTC

<--- Expression of distaste for people who simply hold a different set of beliefs. Places responsibility for social tension in the hands of everyday people -S

2017-02-08 11:01:48 UTC

"It occurs to me that she may be a spy, a plant, set to trap me; such is the soil in which we grow."

You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.

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--->

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“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.” -S

2017-02-08 11:03:26 UTC

'We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?'

--->

2017-02-08 11:04:09 UTC

Highlights the Gilead's distortion of memories and censorship of past lives before its rise to power. Contrast of physical and political landscape, past/present.
-S

And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.

2017-02-08 11:04:13 UTC

But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest. Maybe none of this is about control…maybe it’s about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it.

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The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either… Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion.

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'I went past the rosebushes to Baba's mansion...Hassan to the mud shack

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"Baba loved the idea
of America"

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The Alley:
'A havoc of scrap and rubble'

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'America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past'

They were foreign sounds to us then. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know nothing but the sounds of bombs and gun-fire was not yet born.”

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’There are only three real mean in this world, Amir’ he’d say. He’d count them off on his fingers: America the brash savior, Britain, and Israel”

2017-02-08 11:15:35 UTC

The lawns are tidy, the façades are gracious, in good repair; they're like the beautiful pictures they used to print in the magazines about homes and gardens and interior decoration.

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2017-02-08 11:18:32 UTC

Hosseini and Atwood use contrast between settings in the novels in order to show the journey of the protagonists. In the Handmaid's Tale there is a clear focus on the dystopia of Gilead and the new names for shops and rituals however in The Kite Runner, there is an emphasis placed upon the difference between Afghanistan and America.

The authorial manipulation by Atwood and Hosseini of the plot structure enables the surrounding events within the novel to become heightened through the exploration of social and political tensions.

2017-02-08 11:18:42 UTC

The tension created by setting is surpassed by the manipulation of plot structure.

Thesis Statement:

21xuenbeic — 2020-07-11 07:44:20 UTC