Color Symbolism In The Kite Runner

The third section of this chapter mentions the winter of 1975 and Amir reveals ”I saw Hassan run a kite for the last time” revealing that the terrible event that Amir has been foreshadowing so far in the novel, has a relation to Hassan. Four days prior to the start of the tournament, Baba hints that Amir might win the tournament this year stating “I think maybe you’ll win the tournament this year”. This is the statement fuels Amir's determination to win Baba’s love and what has impacts on his choices on what's right and wrong in the future chapters of the

When writing a book authors like to use colors and symbols to describe and help make the story. In most books color is used a lot in the story to describe things from the sky to people's clothes. The Book Thief use color theory very often. Color Theory says that people will judge a character on the environment and what colors are in the environment(“Color Theory“). We are told the color of the sky when the main narrator Death is doing his job. He does not like his job so he uses colors to distract him from taking people's souls. Death says that he looks at the sky when he is doing his job, "I do try to enjoy every color I see - the whole spectrum. A billion or so flavors, none of them quite the same, and a sky to slowly suck on. It takes the edge off the stress," (Zusak 4). The color of the sky when someone dies had a lot of meaning behind the color. In the Book Thief, the colors are red, blue, black show up in the book the most.

In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, ‘The Kite Runner’, it is often thought that symbols and metaphors are used as visual representations to reinforce and put emphasis on important stages in the novel. In can be seen that symbols are used in the novel to highlight particular moments in key relationships. For example Kites, the Pomegranate tree, Scars and the Slingshot are each used to put emphasis on specific moments in the relationships between Amir and Hassan and Amir and Baba. Through using symbolism and metaphor to present these key

Khaled Hosseini writes the novel, The Kite Runner to make readers think of how his use of symbolism and other

The boys tells him to hands over the kite, but Hassan refuses. Hassan is beating up with no help from his best friend Amir, Amir is totally only watchs, “I realized I still hadn’t breathed out. I exhaled, slowly, quietly, i felt paralyzed. I watched them close in on the boy i’d grown up with, the boy whose harelipped face had been my first memory” (Hosseini 71). Hassan has always stands up for Amir, but Amir do not return the favor when Hassan needs him. Amir remember that he and Hassan are more than a friends they were fed from the same breast. Later on Hassan comes to Amir and he is bleeding he gives Amir the kite without saying a word, Amir either does not say anything “I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t. I just watched” (Hosseini 79). From day to another Amir realizes his guilt for not standing for his loyal friend. ِAssef do not feels sorry for what he’s done and he says Hassan deserve it because he is a Hazara.

One example of Hosseini’s use of symbolism as a tool for conveying this theme is the kite. At the start of The Kite Runner, the protagonist Amir explains his relationship with Hassan. He states “Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites” (Hosseini 25). This

Kites signify how much guilt has overtaken Amir and how he doesn't like flying anymore after the incident that happened with Hassan.

“A widespread mythological and literary motif is the one of two brothers, who hate or are in conflict with each other and which sometimes even ends in the murder of one of those brothers.”

In this society not everyone is equal and, for this essay in particular, it is important to know that the different ethnic races aren’t equal as well. In The Kite Runner, there are two different ethnic groups: the Hazaras and the Pushtans. The Hazaras originate from Asia and for this reason, the general conception is that Hazaras don’t have the true Afghan blood in their veins. They are often seen as servants in households. This plays a role in Amir’s conception of the world around him and, in particular, in Amir’s view on Hassan, his best

Comparatively, ‘The kite runner’, explores the disparity created by differences in cultural backgrounds. This connection manifests in the relationship between Amir and Hassan, though Amir is true to Hassan in private, he feels the need to relate to Hassan according to the prevailing social hierarchy in public. “Afghanistan is the land of the Pashtun’s…not the flat-nosed Hazara’s, these people pollute our homeland. They dirty our blood.” The inclusive language at the beginning of the quote is aimed at the Pashtun’s whereas the negative connotations of ‘pollute’ and ‘dirty’ emphasise the subservient position of the Hazara’s in the Afghani society and thus losing their sense of placement within society. Amir has to face that fact he is disloyal to his relationship with Hassan and begins personal growth. “He’s my servant! Had I really though that?” “Everywhere I turned I saw signs of his loyalty, his goddamn unwavering loyalty.” the absence of conjunction emphasises his thorough regrets that act as a barrier preventing him from

Khaled Hosseini’s, “The Kite Runner”, uses an abundance of diction and tone, to convey a centralized motif. Hosseini, uses three specific symbols throughout the story, the cleft lip; kites; the lamb. The central symbols, tie into what the overall theme is of the story, the search of redemption, tension and love between father and son. Hosseini expressed his centralized motif of irony and regressing in time by using symbolism and figurative language to make his point more clear “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.”

In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, he depicts the oppression the Hazara people face in Afghanistan through his main characters, Ali and Hassan. His vivid illustration of the demeaning behavior towards the Hazara people (Ali) set the underlying tone of this novel.

In addition, symbolism is shown to portray redemption at the climax of the book. Amir has rescued Hassan's son, Sohrab, from captivity in Kabul. However, a recent life of sexual abuse has rendered his emotions inert. Attending an Afghan summer celebration, Amir notices a kite-fighting tournament taking place. Purchasing a kite for him and Sohrab, they accomplish in cutting another. Looking down at Sohrab, Amir sees the vacant look in his eyes is gone. “Whistles and applause broke out. I was panting. The last time I had felt a rush like this was that day in the Winter of 1975, just after I had cut the last kite, when I spotted Baba on our rooftop, clapping, beaming. I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curled up just so. A smile. Lopsided. Hardly there. But there” (Hosseini, 391). Thus Amir redeems himself, and thus it is shown that symbolism portrays redemption throughout the story.

The story is based on the life and journey undertaken by Amir, the protagonist. Hosseini expresses essential ideas in his novel through the themes of redemption/atonement, the relationship between father and son and lastly, the theme of degradation/discrimination. The author expresses these themes through the setting and characterization. Hosseini presents characters from different social status in Afghanistan and how this affected their childhood. Amir despite coming from a privileged class had to work hard for his atonement by going back to Afghanistan to face his demons as well as to mend his relationship with his father who had rejected him since his birth. On the other hand, Hassan, from the minority class suffered because of his social status after he was abused and mistreated by those in power. The Kite Runner is a story about two boys who grew up in different worlds because of the presence of various social classes in

In the short story, “A Red Dress 1946” by Alice Munro, Color imagery is used for signifying a girls point of view of her world and her own self by using the color red which represents nonconformity. The narrator has only a slight interest in being red, but she really wants to be blue, just like everyone else. Munro writes, “When I was asked a question in class, any simple little question at all…that I had blood on my skirt”.(2) The narrator is just so nervous about being red she is thinking of bad things that can happen with the color red. She is thinking of all the bad times the color red could do a girl badly, just like a girls period could leak at any moment. In “A Red Dress 1946”, a short story by Alice Munro, she uses Color Imagery to show the significance of the narrator’s view of the color red and all the “Evil” about it.