Quotes

Question 1

‘The past claws its way out’ (1)

Answer 1

Personification of the past presents it as an aggressive force, invokes image of something dead rising from the grave.

Question 2

‘I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day’ (1)

Answer 2

Formative moment in Amir’s life, pathetic fallacy used to reflect oppressive emotions and situation.
Sets up narrative frame - narrative of series of extended, retrospective flashbacks, foreshadowing of events creates dramatic tension, first person narrative unreliable as events coloured by emotions

Question 3

‘A pair of kites… soaring in the sky’ (1)

Answer 3

Kites symbolise unity of Hassan and Amir as children, symbol of hope, independence and freedom of innocence of childhood - victory against oppression - but also symbolise betrayal of Hassan and guilt that plagues Amir - recurring motif throughout novel

Question 4

‘a face like a Chinese doll chiselled from hardwood… and the cleft lip… where the Chinese doll maker’s instrument may have slipped’ (3)

Answer 4

Symbolises how Hazaras were seen as inferiors, outward defining physical disfigurement symbolises treatment and economic and social disparity and social class difference between Amir and Hassan - Amir’s description dehumanises Hassan and presents him as an outsider

Question 5

‘For you, a thousand times over’ (2)

‘Hassan never denied me anything’ (4)

Answer 5

Reflects Hassan’s devotion and loyalty to Amir but also his servility and unquestioning acceptance of lower social status and the fact Amir had power in relationship - Hassan brave and strong but Amir shows cowardice and betrayal - hyperbole emphasises extent of devotion, plain honesty contrast to Amir’s secrets and lies

Friendship based on Hassan’s enforced servility and unquestioning loyalty - Amir’s unquestioning group mentality

Question 6

‘Lost her to a fate most Afghans considered far worse than death’ ‘Dishonourable reputation’ (6/7)

Answer 6

position of women - Sanuabar judged by Afghan society for her promiscuity and refusal to follow social norms of conforming to role as wife and mother (refuses to hold Hassan and insults Ali), free spirit in pursuit of freedom and pleasure - at the bottom of social hierarchy as Hazara and woman - sexual double standard and unequal treatment of women in patriarchal society as portrayed as predatory evil temptress
Contrast to Amir’s mother - impure/immoral vs powerful, pure, privileged social elite

Question 7

‘Mine was Baba. His was Amir… I think the foundation of what happened… was already laid in those first words’ (11)

Answer 7

First words are people who they are devoted to and desire respect from - implies conflict will arise from Amir’s love of Baba and Hassan’s loyalty to Amir
Hassan’s servility from birth - sense of enslavement as robbed of autonomy and agency

Question 8

“Piss on the beards of all those self-righteous monkeys” “God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands” (16)

Answer 8

Baba’s hatred for ethnic indoctrination and prejudice. Baba disconnected from Afghanistan culture: liberal and westernised views vs conservative Muslims - challenge to authority in taboo rejection of religious authority and power of organised religion, power to be disrespectful

Question 9

“A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (22)

Answer 9

Baba projects expectations of masculinity onto Amir
Sums up Amir’s major character flaw (his cowardice) and shows how much Baba places in standing up for what is right - Dramatic irony - foreshadows Amir’s watching of Hassan’s rape - Amir secretly listens to his father criticise the betrayal he will later commit - Baba is authority figure to Amir so his views are important to Am

Question 10

“I wondered briefly what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one’s place in a hierarchy” (39)

Answer 10

Amir recognises Hassan’s suppression and the ingrained social divisions - Hassan protects Amir, risks own safety in an act of self-sacrifice. Unclear division between loyal devotion and servile humiliation

Question 11

“there’s no monster” (56)

“There was a monster in the lake… I was that monster.”

Answer 11

Hassan’s positive state of mind reinforces his allegiance with and love of Amir - Monster could represent Amir’s fear of letting Baba down / image of monster = suggestion that Hassan is conscious of the cruelty which lies beneath Amir’s surface - Power of the spoken word - Amir and Hassan are acclaimed as heroes and courageous, inspiring individuals - positive omen for kite flying tournament, overcome fear
-In the dream only him and Hassan were swimming which could have been foreshadowing the fact that Amir was the monster all along. The monster existed within Amir but failed to surface. Once he acknowledges that he has become that very thing his friendship with Hassan is no longer.

Question 12

“I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place” (107)

Answer 12

Baba’s strong moral code and confidence contrast to Amir’s actions after Hassan’s rape - Power - although Baba has lost his instrumental and political power after leaving Kabul and his role as a well-respected Pashtun, he maintained his personal and influential power. He shows individual courage by standing up for his values despite the circumstances

Question 13

“Everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was his way of redeeming himself.”

“Baba had been a thief” - “Things he’d stolen… from me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan his identity”

Answer 13

Formative moment in Amir’s arc as he comes to understand that he and Baba are not entirely different entities despite the “aloofness” Baba effused growing up. Both Baba and Amir’s lives have been governed by redemption - the emotional puzzle of Amir’s childhood.

Question 14

“One day I had an epiphany” “Ive been on a mission since” (259)

Answer 14

Taliban give him free reign to indulge his sadistic tendencies, feels guiltless and justified as Taliban uses religion to excuse their autocracies - corruption - indoctrinated and indoctrinates others, uses excuse of religion for self interest

Question 15

“clean down the middle. Like a hairlip” (273)

Answer 15

Connection between Amir and Hassan - equality - symbol of atonement of guilt - Narrative moves in full circle

Question 16

“You will never again refer to him as ‘Hazara boy’ in my presence.” (331)

Answer 16

Challenge to authority as Amir stands up to General Taheri and questions group mentality - courage contrast to previous cowardice - Amir able to stand up for his own beliefs in equality and facing the truth - rebellion against social divisions and discrimination against disenfranchised

Question 17

“The green kite was scrambling now, panic stricken”
“A smile.Lopsided.Hardly there. But there.”

Answer 17

• As Sohrab and Amir end the novel flying kites we see Amir return to a former state of freedom - post-redemption.
  Sohrab is still bound to Hassan through familial connections and so Amir running Sohrab’s kite represents a newfound selflessness.

Question 18

Sexual violence in TKR

Answer 18

-Sexual violence features prominently in narrative.
-Weaker more effeminate young boys are sodomised in attempt to remove their dignity.
-Sexual threat which accompanies Assef conjoins sodomy with ethnicity.
-Talib leaders like Assef who dress young men in effeminate clothes and apply them with make-up; making a travesty of sexuality whilst also legislating draconian edicts which oppress women - exploiting masculinity.

Question 19

Women within TKR

Answer 19

-Feminist lens might look at how Hosseini damns masculinity but also how women within TKR are characterised by their absence.
-Marginalisation of women present male force as tyrannical. Hosseini also presents male traits as constructs through the emasculating hobbies of Amir.
-Amir’s redemption arc is about reconsolidating his own masculinity - The use of setting is key to this dilema - where the construct of a man in Afghanistan opposes the less rigid constructs of the West.
-Baba overcomes the death of his wife - mentioned in passing - through his ‘aloofness’ and ambivalence towards Amir.
-Hassan’s wife is a minor character, his mother Sanoabar labelled as morally loose and dangerously promiscuous, what constructs the idea of a ‘fate worse than death: dishonourable reputation’ but on the male part.
-Women are marginal figures both in the narrative and in society as a whole.

Question 20

Soraya in TKR, an exception to the marginal female presence

Answer 20

-Typifies the conflicts of Afghan women, the ‘double standard’ that defines their lives.
-Soraya acts as a damning of men through her ability to harness and assuage her guilt and use it as a force for good.
-Soraya foils Amir’s inaction.
-Her supposed weaknesses, being her modernity and dissenting of General Taheri’s espoused traditional morals motivates her to become an educator. Reversing the tide of masculine indoctrination.
-Amir as a sinner sees Soraya’s tainted reputation as a tool for companionship rather than discouraging him.
-Amir provides Soraya an outlet to vocalise her critiques of the double standard and male constructs of Afghan society.
-Soraya foils Baba too who’s reputation is unsoiled by his adultery.

Question 21

Soraya in TKR, an exception to the marginal female presence 2

Answer 21

-The fact that Amir has been ‘raised by men’ means that he hadn’t ever been shown the ‘double standard’ first hand and therefore doesn’t operate with the same hypocrisy as other Afghan men.
-The politics of gender which Soraya and consequently Amir encounter are bound to the ethnicity and traditional principles of Afghanistan. Hosseini conflates both systemic indoctrination with sexual inequality through the personal vehicle of Soraya.
-Soraya subverts the traditional role of women within Afghan society in how she acknowledges Amir is a writer. In line with Afghan tradition single women are not permitted to discuss another man unless the man has been accepted as a suitor. America provides a platform for Soraya’s modernity to flourish.
-Link the domestic to the political in how Soraya dissents the oppression of women which the likes of the Taliban propagate.

Question 22

Ideas from book (chapters 1 and 2) 5 things

Answer 22

-Amir’s retrospective first-person narrative means he omits and embellishes moments from his past. We cannot be sure what parts of the story are coloured by his emotions.

-Amir describes Hassan using poetic imagery - ‘a face like a Chinese doll chiseled from hardwood’ - reinforces love which Amir still has for Hassan (Lyrical language is associated with Amir’s childhood, Kabul, Kite flying and Hassan)

-Amir’s pursuit of reading is seen as emasculating and a weakness of his by Baba (“read one of those books of yours”) - Bildungsroman genre is key even during opening of novel as Amir is attempting to win Baba’s approval.

-Fate of women is mentioned in passing (of Sofia and Sanaubar) - Role of women in the novel is largely characterised by their absence.

-Amir discovers a ‘whole chapter dedicated to Hazara history’ at which he is ‘stunned’. This is found in one of his mother’s books which highlights how Amir’s formative ideology and perspective on Afghan caste system is more progressive, although not entirely actualised.

Question 23

Ideas from book (chapters 3 and 4) 9 things

Answer 23

Explain this

-Amir is the only thing Baba couldn’t mould to his desires.

-Baba is portrayed as benefactor through building orphanage and general charities. This is contrasted with Amir’s tenuous relationship with him and Baba’s excessive love for Hassan.

-Amir paints Baba as somewhat mythological and removed, whereas Rahim Khan fills the role as a surrogate father.

-Baba’s inability to see Amir as his son forms the foundation of their relationship and Amir’s character arc.

-We see how Amir’s failing relationship with Baba manifests in cruelty towards Hassan, as he demonstrates the ‘mean streak’ Rahim Khan dismissed he could possess.

-Western movies as a motif which links in western world with simplistic allegory of good guys versus bad guys.

-Vivid description of colourful food and settings in Kabul contrasts with the dilapidated setting upon Amir’s return.

-Pomegranate is symbol of a fruitful existence in Afghan’s glory days and the ‘brotherhood’ between Amir and Hassan. It’s recurrence throughout the novel helps signpost different stages of Amir’s redemption arc.

-Amir achieves a sense of identity and connection with his dead mother through writing and reading her books. Writing is also a tool for oppression and a way for Amir to ‘tease’ Hassan, dismissing his literacy because he’ll never amount to ‘anything but a cook’ - A symbol of systemic issues in education and how Afghan’s adopt prejudices through indoctrination.

Question 24

Ideas from book (chapters 5 and 6) 9 things

Answer 24

-Sexual threat which always accompanies Assef’s role.

-Amir thinking ‘he’s not my friend!…He’s my servant!’ shows how willing Amir is to sacrifice Hassan - ingrained hierarchy.

-Extreme bully of Assef who Amir sees as a ‘sociopath’.

-Assef holds Hitler in high regard which foreshadows the extreme subjugation of Hazara’s by the Taliban, when the likes of Assef are given power.

-Assef as symbol of Afghanistan becoming violent and self-destructive.

-Performative charity in Baba healing Hassan’s cleft lip (to assuage guilt).

-Kite symbolises freedom of Afghan’s ‘glory days’ and the independent attitude of the Afghani people.

-Poetic language in how Amir describes Kabul during winter (‘The sky is seamless and blue, the snow so white my eyes burn’).

-Hassan’s intellect far exceeds his subservient role. He understands the balance of power between himself and Amir as he subtly undermines Amir’s ‘eating dirt’ scenario by saying ‘Would you ever ask me to do such a thing, Amir agha?’.

Question 25

Ideas from book (chapters 7 and 8) things

Answer 25

-Hassan’s story about the monster: maybe he can see an element of cruelty in Amir underneath the surface, the ‘mean streak’. He feels Amir needs to rid his jealous and sadistic side.

-Amir’s view of the rape is akin to sexual voyerisom making it all the harder to accept. (link to sexual threat which follows Assef).

-Narrative becomes episodic which mimics repressed memories in Amir. Shows use of omission and how narrative is embellished.

-Physical manifestation of guilt is a key motif in the novel: ‘I am going to be sick’, and ‘I became an insomniac’.

-Hassan refuses to let Amir assuage guilt by ‘crushing’ pomegranate against his own forehead. Show’s ingrained acceptance of role.

Question 26

Ideas from book (chapter 9 and 10) things

Answer 26

-Rahim Khan as surrogate father who provides Amir the only gift - in the form of a notebook - which he doesn’t consider ‘blood money’

-Writing symbolises Amir’s redemption and becoming an individual.

-Pathetic fallacy of ‘rain storm’ which accompanies Hassan and Ali’s departure - key formative moment in redemption arc.

-Russian soldier threatening to rape women and Baba’s stern morality contrasts Amir failing to protect Hassan from an act of sexual violence - Baba prevents and Amir’s perceives (a crucial element of Baba Amir must adopt)