An Analysis of Amir Pauline’s Character in The Kite Runner.doc

An Analysis of Amir Paulines Character in The Kite RunnerA ThesisSubmitted toCollege of Foreign LanguagesXingtan CollegeQufu Normal UniversityIn Partial Fulfillment of the RequirementsFor the Degree of Bachelor of Arts ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI am deeply grateful to Liang Wenhua, my supervisor, who has given me constant and valuable advice, read my drafts through particularly and offered incisive comments on them. Without her help, the thesis could never have reached its present form.My sincere gratitude also goes to all my teachers who have given me excellent lectures and great help, which are indispensable to the completion of this thesis. I also give great thanks to all my classmates who have offered generous help and useful suggestions in the process of writing this thesis.Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to all the writers whose works have been referred to in this thesis.摘 要追风筝的人一出版不断受到读者的好评，其感情真实的故事内容给我们留下了如此深刻印象。其中不仅有如此博大感人的父爱，有坚不可摧的爱情故事，更有那无私奉献的友情。本文正是从这三个不同的方面对阿米尔的人物性格特点进行了深入分析，并且从主人公所处的生活环境对人物的影响进行对比分析。笔者期望本研究能够对以后的读者有所帮助，能更好地了解该小说及其作者卡勒德 胡塞尼。关键词：生活背景； 父爱； 爱情；友情；人物性格ABSTRACTThe Kite Runner, upon its publication, received praise by readers. The real feelings of story left us with a deep impression. What really moves us is not only broad and touching fathers moving and the indestructible love story, but also the selfless friendships. This article from these three different areas analyzes Amirs characteristics and has comparative analysis of figures according to the living environment. The author hopes that the research could help future readers have a better understanding of this novel, as well as the author of the novel Khaled Husseini.Key words: life background, fathers love, love, friendship, personal characterCONTENTS0. Introduction .11. About the background and the novel.21.1 Background information.21.1.1 Afghanistan situation.31.1.2 The influence.31.2 About the novel.41.3 The main characters.52. Fathers view of Amir Pauline.62.1 His fathers era.72.2 Fathers view.83. Sorayas view of Amir Pauline.93.1 His wifes era.93.2 Sorayas view.104. Hassans view of Amir Pauline.11.4.1 His friends view.124.2 Hassans era.135. Conclusion.13Worked Cited.15vi0. IntroductionThe novel was written by Khaled Hosseini. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. The Kite Runner, his first novel, was an international bestseller, published in forty counties. It is a vivid picture of Afghanistan thirty years ago. It is a heartbreaking story of unlikely friendship and incredible story of the culture. An amount of researchers pay much attention to studying the novel. Just like Isabel Allende said, “It is so powerful that for a long time everything I read seemed bland” (Hosseini 1). It is rare that a book was at once so timely and of such high literary quality. This is a story about fragile relationship between fathers and sons, human and theirs gods, men and theirs countries. The frame of the story is the rhythm of life. In The Kite Runner Hosseini had created a wise, thoughtful book. Once published, the novel has been spoken highly of the people.In our nations, there are many professions to study The Kite Runner. Just like the professor of Beijing Jiao tong University Wang Jianrong, he tries his best to study the image of kite from different perspective. His paper emphasizes the kite as the key image carrying a vast sea of information throughout the whole novel of The Kite Runner. Whats more, the analyses mainly focus on the narrating and expressive functions of the kite image. Its mainly about different protagonists relationship with the kite. Some professors are devoting themselves to study Amirs self-salvation. A professor who is from Beijing Normal University is studying the self-salvation. She holds the view that the novel focuses on the salvation for what he has done in his youth. While Wu Huiquan who is from Nan Chang University research in the self-salvation in his long life of Amir. Finally, Amir not only rescues his nephew, but also himself for his mistakes. After reading many researches, I found that many are studying the character of Hassan. Many readers are moved by his behaviors “For you, a thousand times over” (Hosseini 20), he always said the sentence to his master Amir. He did everything what Amir wanted him to do. Unfortunately, Amir had never regarded him as his friend. Furthermore, a professor who is from Beijing Normal University is devoted to studying the sentence “for you, a thousand times over (Hosseini 20)” from the salvation perspective. There words are throughout the text. This sentence means that Amir starting point of the crime and he gets to the end of his redemption. Some hold that the application of repetition is the most important such as examples in the classification and forms of expression of repetition. This makes the novel very interesting and out of ordinary.Many professors are researching on many aspects just like what I have mentioned above. They have focused on the image of the kite and Amirs self-salvation. However the researches about his comprehensive characters from different angles do not have too much. Research on this subject will give the readers more detailed information about the main character and make the readers understand the novel easily. It is a well-known novel from all over the world. To know the novel will help you comprehend the history of Afghan and know the difficulties about Afghanistan. 1. About the background and the novelFrom 1973 Afghan Peoples Democratic Party staged a coup, to 1978 officially ended the long-standing monarchy, let the Afghans in the past way of life quietly ended. Then, in December 1979, the Soviet Unions invasion of Afghanistan expand lasted a full decade war. After the Soviet occupation of Kabul, the frowning Russian soldiers on patrol can be seen everywhere on the sidewalks. I will introduce more background information.1.1 Background informationFighters were roaring past on peoples heads. The cities were just like the great ruins. Trust between the people no longer existed. In order to reward or not be threatened, people were informing against each other. Sadly, in the room of their own home had spoken carefully. Long-term war to the people of Afghanistan brought a heavy disaster, as the book said: “when Russian tanks would roll into the very same streets where Hassan and I played, bringing the death of the Afghanistan I know and marking the start of a still ongoing era of bloodletting” (Hosseini 36). Before my research, I think that it is useful to know more about the background.1.1.1 Afghanistan situationPeople were not killed but displaced from their homes, forced to flee their life a lifetime homes and become refugees. We could easily tell that people have a very difficulty time at that period. When Monarchy and Republican reign were in Afghanistan, the peoples lives at the time were relatively colorful and free even though there existed contradiction. They would wear beautiful clothes and visited each other when the festival was coming. They also had the kite fighting game. During the Taliban rule, peoples lives were monotonous, no merciful. While killing inevitably, this was the era of barbarians leadership. Taliban extreme implementation of Islamic law and doctrine made people miserable. Taliban had forbidden the kite fighting game which takes a lot of fun for the children. They prohibit women speaking aloud, prohibit women from working. Peoples life was in the control of Taliban and they didnt have any freedom. Even the orphanage children were not spared who the Taliban had taken away from the orphanage, which the boys were whitewashed for ruined entertainment and dance buskers monkey dance. 1.1.2 The influenceWhats worse, the way to deal with the adulterous couple they will take them to the stadium and then beaten to death by stoning. Afghanistan, the entire social existence of discrimination and oppression of class, race, descent which was caused by the countrys many years of chaos and war, foreign invasion and civil war in the country so that the confusion of the country further exacerbated the country poverty and backwardness. This cycle had continued in Afghanistan, which lead the country into endless ethnic strife and struggle. The various political parties and religious forces took turns on stage and brought wave after wave of repression and revenge killings. The entire country was becoming without political freedom, economic backwardness, peoples lives miserable and the formation of a social ecology. With the help of the background of the novel, it was not hard for the readers to understand the novel deeply. Some researchers focused on the aspects of racial discrimination and the Amir of self-redemption. And other researchers were paying attention to the image of kite or the interpretation of the Hassans image. They all had their unique opinions to show us. After what they had found, it was very good for me to understand more about the novel. Especially the researchers Ecological Criticism (He Xiaojuan, 2010) brought me so much information. I had a deep understanding of the background at that time. However, there existed little research on the comprehensive character of Amir especially from different roles. I hope that my research would give some help to other readers. Although considerable research had been devoted to the different aspects, rather less attention had been paid to the full personalities of Amir. 1.2 About the novelThe novel was mainly about the characters of Amir, his father, his wife Soraya and his friend Hassan. When Amir was young, Hassan was his accompany. He never left Amir and regarded him as his master. As long as Amir asked Hassan to do things, he never refused to do those whatever they are. In the view of Hassans mind, Amir is the whole world. Just like the novel written, the first word that Hassan was spoken was Amir, while Amirs first word was dad. From this, we can easily told that the different importance in theirs world.Amir and Hassan both did not have theirs mother. Amirs mother died of difficulty labor, so his father may miss his wife very much. Because of that, Amir always thought that his father did not love him that his mother was died of giving birth to him. His father gave much attention to Hassan, having never forgotten Hassans birthday. He would always give him the best presents when his birthday came. 1.3 The main charactersSo Amir was very jealous of what his father did when he found that things. Amirs mind had planted the seed of hatred with the time going. Obviously his father cared more about Hassan rather than himself. As what I had included, Hassan can do anything for Amir and he regarded him as his friend. From the novel, we can discover that Hassan was a very great kite runner. He can easily catch the kites and he always helped his master get the kite no matter what hard it was. As long as Amir wanted, Hassan would do his best at any cost. The kite fighting tournament is an old winter tradition in Afghanistan. The competition started early in the morning and did not end until the winning kite flew in the sky. For the fighters, the most proud prize was the last fallen kite of a winter competition. When the sky cleared of kites and only the final two remained, the kite runner will try his best to catch the last kite to land this prize. Over the years, Hassan was by far the greatest kite runner. After a kite fighting competition, Hassan helped Amir to catch the last fallen kite of a winter competition to get the most prize. When Amir found Hassan, he was humiliating by Assef. At first Assef only wanted the kite, Hassan said “Amir agha won the tournament and I ran this kite for him. This is his kite” (Hosseini 72). This made Assef very angry, so he used his own way to punish Hassan. What had happened had already been watched, he did nothing to save Hassan and ran away. Hassan chose to forgive his master and did as usual .But Amir can not forgive himself when he saw Hassan smiling to him. He was suffering from the torment of conscience. So he decided to make Hassan leave, he framed Hassan stolen his watch which his father give him as a birthday present. In Amirs father view, there was only one sin and that was theft. Every other sin was a variation of theft. Amirs father was not likely to ask Hassan and his father left. He pleaded but they chose to move out and Hassan knew what happened. Hassan decided to hide the truth for ever. When Amir and his father left their hometown to America, they had gone through the difficult journey. With time going on, they settled down in America and Amir went to college. Then Amir still engaged in writing a novel and sometimes helped his father to collect some staffs. But there was still guilty in his heart. Then he loved generals daughter Soraya at the first sight. They had gone through much difficulty to get married at last. One day Amir got a phone from Khan and wanted to meet him. So he had a long journey to Afghan and found a way to be good again. Then he went in the most dangerous area to rescue Hassans son and knew that Hassan was his half- brother. In other words that he had to save his nephew. In the process, he met his rival Assef and had a fight with him. At last his nephew did just like his father Hassan did and helped a lot. So Amir can feel better and he told his wife what he had done when he was young. Soraya really hoped that he can take his nephew to America and lived his new life from then on. They all can have the normal life as other people do. From what I had mentioned above, it is not hard to have a full understanding of the main character Amir. I will analyze it from different aspects. With other researchers materials help, I had known more information about the novel and can analyze the novel from different aspects. I really hoped that my research would help other readers to understand the novel deeply and had a comprehensive understanding of the main characters.2. Fathers view of Amir PaulineWhen Amir started to speak the first word, it was baba. We can easily note that father is so important in Amirs opinion. It was said that Amirs father was once wrestled a black bear. It was well-famous that Afghanistan liked to lavish praise on themselves or others. When the story happened to other people, they may not believe it. If it referred to Amirs father, nobody would doubt the truth.2.1 His fathers eraAmirs father did have three parallel scars to prove the truth. As far as I am concerned, I really doubt the truth of the story. But from this, we can find that his father was a hero at that time around their area. So he wanted his son to be grown up like him. In his view, real men did not read poetry and god forbid that they should ever write it. Real men-real boys-played soccer just as baba had when he had been young (Hosseini 20). Amir did not grow up just like what his father did. Then Amir always held that his father liked Hassan much more than himself. In the novel, the most significant I noted that was the father told Amir the only sin in the world. He once said that when the person kills a man, he steals a life. And when person tells a lie, he steals the right to fairness. When he tells a lie, he steals someones right to the truth. 2.2 Fathers viewAmir used to like reading and he always hided in the library and read the books for a long time. So his father did not like what Amir was from the following conversation between Amirs father and Rahin Khan. His father said that Amir was always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he was lost in some dream. When Amirs father said what was above he was frustrated and almost angry. Also Amir was not like that at all and neither were any of the kids he grew up with. From his fathers point, Amir was not violent. When Amir played on the street with the neighborhood boys, he was pushed around and his toys were taken from him and gave him a shove here. He never fought back and he just dropped his head. Amirs father thought that there was something missing in that boy. When the neighborhood boys teased him, Hassan stepped in and fended them off. Amirs father really hoped that his son could be strong as he was. His father can not know about Amir. He once said if he had not seen the doctor pull him out of his wife with his own eyes, he would never believe he was his son. With the outbreak of war in the novel, Amir followed his father to the United States to re-start a new life, but this meant the end of the young master identity. Then he and his father worked hard and learned from nothing to establish a family. Life tended to be dull and the emotions have been tempered only in taste to the ups and downs of life and to be able to have the conditions of reflection, which was a key factor of the novel. In fact, Amirs father loved him as much as he loved Hassan. He just used the different expressions. Amirs mother died of parodynia, so Amir