LEC052013 ARDRA A.P DIASPORIC DILEMMA IN KHALED HOSSEINI'S THE KITE RUNNER

 LEC052013

ARDRA A.P

Dr. JOSEPH KOYIPALLY

ACADEMIC WRITING

03 FEBRUARY 2021

DIASPORIC DILEMMA IN KHALED HOSSEINI'S THE KITE RUNoR 

                   “Diaspora” is a Greek word that means “scatter”, “spread”, “disperse”, used to refer to a group of people who spread from one original country to other countries, or the act of spreading in this way. Moreover, diaspora literature studies the literary works of the authors who have to leave their birthplace to another one and compose their creative works in host countries. Significant issue connected with the term “diaspora” is the one that concerns the immigrants, workers, refugees have to leave their country for the reasons of war, famine, poverty and pressure. The diaspora study ,first and foremost, is aimed to theorize the major features of diaspora literature by differentiating it from expatriate. The Kite Runner is a heart touching novel that deals with the Psyche of the diaspora.

                   The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is the unforgettable, heart-breaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history. 'The Kite Runner' transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption: and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifice, their lives. The idea of homeland is a significant issue of discussion among diaspora scholars, and most diaspora literature contains the notion of homeland in one way or another. Apart from illustrating nostalgic feeling towards homeland, diaspora novels also demonstrate the idea of a shattered dream and fragmented memories of diaspora subject concerning their “lost” homeland.

                    In Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’(2003), the illustrates a link of the central character Amir, and his father with their homeland in Afghanistan especially in Kabul where Amir and Baba, the father, who are now expatriates in the US, are born and brought up. Therefore, one main element in the novel is the feeling of nostalgia that the characters and the author experience towards their or their ancestors’ home countries. However, Baba and Amir’s relationship with homeland are not the same, and the feeling of nostalgia is reflecting in both positive and negative light. It seems that both characters glorify their homeland according to their elite background. However, Afghanistan in the Taliban eras depicted by Amir in totally distressing tone. Baba, the father, is a successful business man from Kabul who had a privileged upbringing, a son of reputable and well-respected judge of the city who has a close relationship with the monarchy. His house is believed by the townsfolk to be the most beautiful and luxurious house in the city of Kabul. He marries a highly educated woman, a university lecturer in Farsi literature, who is a descendant of the royal family. Baba is a charitable person who always helps people without expecting any return. However, religion is only a custom for him, as he lead a secular and modern life, he drinks, never prays and is severely critical of a religious personality like the mullah. After Amir’s mother dies giving birth to him, Amir lives in the house surrounded by masculine values, with Baba and the  servant. The father and the son did not from a warm and close relationship. Amir has a hidden feeling that his father hates him as his birth is the cause of his beautiful mother’s death whereas in reality his father only sees him as weak and unlike him (Hosseini, 2003:19) Amir tries to win his father’s heart to the detriment of his own relationship with the family’s most trust worthy servant, Ali and Hassan. The incident which later leads to Amir’s persistent feeling of guilt happens during the kite running tournament, a famous custom in Afghanistan before the long war following the Russian invasion of the country in December 1979. Amir, who decides to win his father’s heart by being the champion in the tournament, has to sacrifice his relationship with Hassan when, out of cowardice, he pretends not to see Hassan being assaulted by the psychopathic Assef,and his gang. He also leaves Hassan to their mercy in order to protect himself and to save the kite which Hassan has painfully secured for him and from getting lost or destroyed. Eventually, Ali and Hassan decide to leave the family after Hassan is betrayed once again by Amir who, out of his feeling of guilt and fear, accuses Hassan of stealing birthday wrist watch and money. Not long after that, in March 1981, both Baba and Amir has to flee from Kabul and later migrate to the US due to the war. In the US, Baba and Amir live in Fremont, California. They have to leave behind their luxurious life-style in Kabul and start all over again. Although Baba enjoys the freedom and American political ideology, it is very difficult for him to adjust to his new environment. Afghanistan for him means the love of Afghan culture, family honour, dignity and integrity, as we can see that he is a advocate for honesty and moral upholding. He always emphasizes to Amir the importance of being honest, and he himself is an exemplary charity donor. Baba’s feeling of nostalgia of also intensified by the fact that he was to leave behind his plush and comfortable life in Afghanistan. The tough life he has to go through in the US as a low-paid worker at a gas station and the status of being an immigrant in an alien land being dependent on others, in this case the American government, also undermines his self-esteem. Thus, Afghanistan is a source of reminiscence of his celebrated life in the past. As for Amir, the feeling of nostalgia always brings him back to his beautiful hometown and childhood relationship with Hassan, his ethnic Hazara servant and friend whom later Amir discovers to be his half-brother. At the very beginning of the story readers are introduced to Amir’s life and his close relationship with Hassan. Throughout the story we can see that what makes Afghanistan a home to Amir is his connection with Hassan and his childhood memories. For example, in the scene in which Baba, Amir and other Afghans are fleeing from Kabul, and all of them have to hide in a fuel tank to smuggle out of Afghanistan, Amir feels suffocated, and Baba reminds him to think of something good to keep himself alive. The only incident Amir can think of is Hassan and himself in a beautiful field of blossoming mulberry trees flying a kite together.

                   Nostalgia plays another vital role in ‘The Kite Runner’, it gives an alternative image of Afghanistan before the wars. It might be stated that ‘The Kite Runner’ is probably the first novel in English to give voice to Afghanistan which has for long been portrayed by media only as a victim of war. Hosseini’s literacy work becomes an essential medium in introducing readers to Afghanistan before the wars. This is successfully done through the recollection of the protagonist’s memory about his good old days, which allows readers to share with the characters the Afghanistan of a rich cultural heritage and vibrant people. Therefore, Amir’s nostalgia, which is coupled with a positive depiction of the  country, reflects the alternative dimensions of the socio-cultural history of Afghanistan.

          The Kite Runner is different from other novels of Diaspora because it shows the trauma at home as far more taxing and consuming than the trauma of living outside the country. It thaws the frozen reality of the protagonist and with each layer hidden within “a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near frozen creek,” (Hosseini 1) the reader comes across the wounds that were received by the protagonist and the people around him. Hosseini posits it as the novel about “shame, guilt, regret, friendship, love, forgiveness, atonement.” It is the story of two friends, and through the trajectory of their lives we come to know the plight of Afghanistan: war-ravaged, broken, penurious and plundered. The narrative covers three generations, setting some incidents in 1933 and then ending in 2002. The novel chiefly deals with the theme of nostalgia, sin and redemption. Amir, who had been living in guilt throughout his life, seeks ways to redeem his sins and the only way is going back to Afghanistan. The novel is such a heart touching story with moral and human values of life. The plight and the emotions of diasporic people is beautifully portrayed here with a high impact on the readers.

 Bibliography :

Hosseini, Khaled.The Kite Runner . Great Britain :Bloomsbury, 2003

Cohen, Robin. Global  Diasporas :An Introduction. Abingdon:Routledge, 2008

http://literariness.org