The Kite Runner quick fire revision

Question 1

Which character has a partial rehabilitation at the end of the novel?

Answer 1

Troubling ending, Sohrab and permanent loss of his dead parents

Question 2

What does Amir’s protest against the oppression of Hazaras show?

Answer 2

Insufficient protest, individual resistance, little that has changed in Afghanistan. H/e, hope peaks through as survival of one oppressed

Question 3

What parallel stories intertwine in the novel?

Answer 3

• Contrasting worlds of Afghanistan and America
• Past and present
• Historical and personal stories
• Guilt and redemption

Question 4

Contrasting worlds of government (USA v Afghanistan)

Answer 4

• Repressive Taliban regime

- Permissive American regime

Question 5

How is education used in the novel?

Answer 5

World of literate, educated Amir gives him power of Hassan in the illiterate uneducated world. H/e Hassan takes a stand by later writing a letter to him

Question 6

What do Baba and Assef have in common?

Answer 6

powerful influence

Question 7

How does Soraya show resistance?

Answer 7

• Resists her powerful and well respected family
• Chooses her own boyfriend but is then ostracised
• Double standards about her behaviour

Question 8

Amir resists the powerful influence of the Taliban by?

Answer 8

Taking a stand over Sohrab, writing to criticise Taliban,

Question 9

Corruption and abuse of power by whom?

Answer 9

Assef’s treatment of everyone and Sohrab in the last few chapters “locked his arms around his belly”

Question 10

Why is violence needed to be used against those in power?

Answer 10

Violence needed to deter

Question 11

Moral context

Answer 11

Violence for self defense. Sohrab and his slingshot against Assef

Question 12

Political Context

Answer 12

Afghanistan being divided by ethnic identity creating divisions between powerful and powerless. E.g. the largely Pashtun Taliban and subjugation of largely Hazara population

Question 13

Structure used in KR

Answer 13

• Trajectory of submission and passive resistance
• Climatic ending (resistance ultimately succeeds e.g. the episodes of Hassan being bullied until Sohrab uses his slingshot)

Question 14

Other structural features

Answer 14

• Climatic events
• Flashbacks
• non-linear chronology

Question 15

Narrative perspective

Answer 15

first person narrator as sympathetic voice

Question 16

Different voices

Answer 16

Rahim Khan’s narration, Hassan’s letter, dialogue and dramatised confrontation

Question 17

Setting

Answer 17

Afghanistan and America

Question 18

Motif

Answer 18

“look of the lamb” and pomegranate tree

Question 19

Retrospective

Answer 19

A retrospective narrative is when the story being told is not happening at the time the narrator is describing it. The events happened in the past. Retrospective narratives highlight changes in the narrator

Question 20

Bildungsroman

Answer 20

Bildungsroman is a genre of novel that shows a young protagonist’s journey from childhood to adulthood (or immaturity to maturity), with a focus on the trials and misfortunes that affect the character’s growth.