Characterisation Flashcards

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1
Q

Why do we as a reader have any love for Baba and Hasan?

A

It is the examination of Amir’s love for these characters as the narrator which creates any affection that we as readers hold for them and which drives the story- having only Amir’s perspective to rely on

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2
Q

How may Amir be a fallible narrator?

A

as he does or says things which might undermine our trust of his narration such as his attempts to justify his actions towards Hassan or exaggerated descriptions of his fathers greatness

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3
Q

The Kite Runner is a novel which examines the turbulent history of Afghanistan between what years?

A

1970-2001

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4
Q

What quote from the second chapter suggests that Amir has always felt distanced from Hassan due to their ethnicity and statuses in life?

A

“I never thought of Hassan and me as friends”

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5
Q

Why can Amir be perceived as fallible due to the fact early in the novel he claims that he “never thought of Hassan and me as friends”?

A

as it is clear from the tales he relates that Hassan was indeed his closest, and possibly only friend

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6
Q

Why may Amir desire to distance himself from Hassan early in the novel by stating in Chapter 2 that “I never thought of Hassan and me as friends”?

A

possibly as a result of his childhood jealous and of his later guilty colouring earlier events

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7
Q

Why can it be inferred that Amir’s relaironship with Hasan was the defining relationship in his life despite the fact he claims to have “never thought of Hassan and me as friends?

A

as the novel itself is named after Hasan and the way the novel centres around the terms of their great friendship or in terms of Amir’s guilt over his betrayal of that friendship such as on his wedding day when he wonders if Hassan has married and “whose face he had seen in the mirror under the viel”

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8
Q

What is a clear example of how Amir always thought of Hasan due to their defining relationship?

A

the fact that on his wedding day when he wonders if Hassan has married and “whose face he had seen in the mirror under the viel”

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9
Q

What does Amir tell us in the opening line of the novel?

A

that the person he is was formed on the day in the alley in 1975

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10
Q

How is it clear that his feelings fro Hassan were a positive force in his life?

A

as his desire to write is formed by his time spent reading, and changing stories to Hassan

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11
Q

How can Amir’s desire for marriage and his yearn for children be seen as a link to Hassan?

A

as this can be seen as his way to recreate his own childhood with the chance to redeem himself

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12
Q

How does Amir become the man his father wanted him to be?

A

by retrieving Sohrab from Kabul and literally fighting for his possession

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13
Q

How is it clear that Amir uses his writing to escape his guilt?

A

as it was first used to hide from the lack of love from his father and later in the novel we learn that he admits he is not currently writing about the country, hiding again from the reality of which he fled.

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14
Q

How can the Kite Runner be seen as Catharsis for Amir?

A

as he attempts to make sense of his various actions and emotions by arranging them into a coherent story

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15
Q

How does Hassan exist in most of the novel?

A

as a presence looming over the narrative rather than as a character taking parts in events

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16
Q

In what chapter is Hassan’s cleft lip corrected?

A

chp.5

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17
Q

Hassan was born into servitude but does not appear to resent this. Why does he not suffer the same need as Amir to strive for his father’s affections?

A

as Hassan receives the warmth and love from Ali

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18
Q

How may Amir have self-edited the hardships faced by Hassan prior to the rape?

A

his 30 years of guilt may have coloured the reality of Hassan’s treatment as a Hazara and a servant in order to remember his friend as happy and carefree

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19
Q

What suggests that actually Hassan’s life was not carefree and happy?

A

he would greet Amir’s question about eating dirt and the pomegranate attack with a willingness to take on whatever is forced upon him which shows a child who is used to carrying burdens and coming off second best

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20
Q

How does Hassan open and close the letter to Amir?

A

with religious invocations

21
Q

Hassan opens and closes the letter to Amir with religious invocations- how else does Hassan show religious qualities?

A

during Amir’s pomgerante attack, Hassan literally turns the other cheek

22
Q

How is it clear that Hassan does not hold a grudge against Amir for his past actions and is not weighed down by those actions as Amir is?

A

in his letter he uses such phrases as “I pray that this letter finds you in good health”

23
Q

How is it clear that Amir did not deal with the Hassan situation right after Sohrab’s molestation by Assef is clear?

A

as it is only then that Amir finally understands what Hassan had suffered and how his one-sided guilt caused more damage to their relationship than the rape itself.

24
Q

How does Amir describe his father?

A

as “a towering Pashtun specimen”

25
Q

How is it demonstrated throughout the novel that Baba has a powerfully charismatic personality which affects the people around him?

A

Rahim Khan describes him which a black glare that would “drop the devil to his knees begging for mercy”

the reaction of the man who kisses Baba’s and after protecting his wife from the rape of a Russian solider

From the men in the bar in Hayward who became friends and admirers of Baba in a single evening after Amir’s graduation

26
Q

Why does the story which Amirs tells of his father wrestling with a black bear give us an example of the high regard in which he holds his father?

A

as it is the kind of story which appears more like a myth or a fable than a true anecdote and suggests that Amir’s regard is almost a form of worship of his father as a a god or idol

27
Q

What is another example of Amir’s poor self-esteem and guilt?

A

the death of Baba’s wife, Sofia upon Amirs birth

28
Q

When does Amir finally see Baba’s treatment of Hassan as fair rather than an insult whereby he is seen to be of no more importance to his fetter than the servants son?

A

when it is revealed that hassan was Baba’s son

29
Q

How is it clear that the ethnicity of Afghans was a prominent social indicator through the construct of Ali?

A

Ali was named after the brother in law to Myhammed, the believed true inheritor of the Islamic faith by Shi’a muslims

30
Q

What is the function of Rahim khan?

A

he acts as a surrogate parent for Amir providing the support, guidance and understanding that he fails to get from his father

31
Q

When Rahim Khan reappears later in the novel- what is he the figure for?

A

redemption

32
Q

What does the name Rahim mean?

A

compassionate

33
Q

How does Amir describe Soraya’s hair which demonstrates her feminity?

A

“smelled like apples in her hair”

34
Q

Who does Amir reserve his most colourful and poetic imagery for?

A

his wife, Soraya

35
Q

What does the name Soraya mean?

A

Princess

36
Q

Where does the name Soraya come from historically?

A

Soraya was the name of the wife of King AManullah Khan, the reforming king of Afghanistan who was the first ruler of the country following the final Ango-Afghan war.

37
Q

What is the effect of using the name Soraya which derives from the wife of King AManullah Khan, the reforming king of Afghanistan who was the first ruler of the country following the final Ango-Afghan war. ?

A

as by using her name, Hosseini connects the story back to a more hopeful and peaceful time in Afghanistan’s history

38
Q

How are we shown that the treatment of the Afghan people by the Taliban is a form of bulling itself on a larger and more comprehensively violent scale?

A

by the connection from Assef as childhood bully to high ranking member of the Taliban

39
Q

What suggests that Assef does not hold to a struct moral and religious code that the taliban espouse which has the effect of demonstrating the hypocrisy of the Taliban and their use of religion for their own twisted agenda for power?

A

the fact that Assef wears Western-styled sunglasses and has a sexual preference for children

40
Q

What can be suggested from the fact that Assef wears a Western-Styled sunglasses and has a sexual preference for children?

A

this suggests that Assef does not hold to a struct moral and religious code that the taliban espouse which has the effect of demonstrating the hypocrisy of the Taliban and their use of religion for their own twisted agenda for power

41
Q

By placing Assef, whom Amir describes as a ‘sociopath’, at the centre of the most violent and disturbing parts of the novel-bullying, rape, mass murder, execution-how do we see how the problems in afghanistan over the time period covered by the novel are as a result of?

A

as a result of the pervasive violation of rights and laws by and against many different groups

42
Q

Sohrab continues a dynasty of discarded children, starting with Ali who was made an orphan, moving down through Hassan who was illegitimate and abandoned by his mother, and finally Sohrab who was orphaned due to the Taliban. In this way, how can these three characters be seen as representative of their ethnic group?

A

as Hazaras, they could be said to have been similarly orphaned and abandoned by the Afghan state

43
Q

Sohrab continues a dynasty of discarded children, starting with Ali who was made an orphan, moving down through Hassan who was illegitimate and abandoned by his mother, and finally Sohrab who was orphaned due to the Taliban. As Hazaras, they could be said to have been similarly orphaned and abandoned by the Afghan state. How could it be said metaphorically that Hosseini gives hope for their drawing back into the mainstream?

A

the fact that Amir, an ethnic Pashtun, rescues Sohrab suggesting a potentially positive future for the remaining Hazara’s

44
Q

Sorhab is, at least for Amir, a subsistute for Hassan. How is it clear that Sohrab has had a far more traumatic upbringing in his childhood?

A

the fact that he attempts to end his own life

45
Q

Who are Sofia and Sanaubar?

A

they are the absent mothers of Amir and Hassan

46
Q

How is Sofia, Amir’s mother, absent in his life but also present?

A

through his love of books, reading and writing

47
Q

What moment of the novel suggests that goodness can prevail even through the hardest of times?

A

When Amir later meets a beggar in the debated Kabul who knew his mother who is a symbol of goodness and purity

48
Q

How is Sanaubar depicted?

A

in very earthly terms as a sexy and sexually active woman who Amir describes as a “beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonrouabel reputation”

49
Q

How does Amir describe Sauaubar?

A

as a “beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonrouabel reputation”