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Khaled Hosseini was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan. In 1970 he moved to Iran. An ethnic Hazara friend that he knew taught him to read and write. The memory of that time had a great impact on Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. In 1980, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, leaving the city of Kabul in a state of chaos. Hosseini’s family was forced to move to the U.S. After having witnessed and experienced the turmoil and changes of Afghanistan society, Hosseini wrote a soul-stirring story The Kite Runner.
The Kite Runner tells us a story about a 12-year-old Afghanistan master Amir, who is gifted, sensitive but coward. He is eager to enjoy love from his outspoken father, but in his eyes, tall and mighty father is just like a servant. A cleft lip boy, loyal and brave is Hassan. Hassan and Amir are not only playmates but also brothers, and the kite-fighting game marks a turning point on their fates. In order to win the game and get his father’s favor, Amir witnessed Hassan being insulted. Due to his cowardice, he chooses to keep silence. To get rid of inner guilt, Amir was once again forced to leave Hassan. The national destiny was bumpy, and the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Amir followed his father to flee to the United States. And years went by, Amir became an adult. One day he got a phone from his father’s friend, Rahim Khan, who told him a secret that Hassan was his father’s illegal son and he had been killed by Taliban, and his son was facing an unexpected future. Astonished and ashamed, he went back to his homeland because he didn’t forget his hideous behavior. With the nightmares always haunting him, Amir made up his mind to save Hassan’s son Sohrab to redeem both his and his father’s sin so as to being good again.
This paper will analyze the symbolic meanings of the kite, which stands for kinship, friendship and love. It also stands for the religious faith, the enthusiasm for their motherland and so on. The paper also attempts to interpret The Kite Runner from the symbolic theory and the concept of image.
II. The Analysis of the Symbolic Theory and the Concept of Image
2.1 The Meaning of the Symbolic Theory
Symbol is not only an artistic symbol but also an existential form of art in literary works. The Merriam Webster said: “symbol is something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention or accidental resemblances especially, a visible sign of something invisible.” (Di 5) For example, a thought, an object, a quality, a nation and a whole church are all the symbols. The pigeon is the symbol of peace. The lion is the symbol of courage. The kite is the symbol of freedom.
The main feature of symbol is that it never goes deeply into the intrinsic quality of concept. Therefore, landscape and human behavior and the concrete manifestation don’t stand for themselves. These rich infectious representation shows kinship among original concepts. To some degree, all those things that people are looking forward to doing or hating are all symbols. There are rational symbols that raise a concept or a concept of mixture of complex emotions.
We should separate the symbols into two factors: one is meaning, the other is the expression of meaning. The meaning is a kind of idea or object, no matter what content it is. The expression of meaning is a perceptual existence or a phenomenon. It is derived from perceptual attention. It is a kind of art image, which is an ideographic image in nature. So this kind of art image can be called symbolic image.
2.2 The Concept of the Image
The image is a concrete representation of sensory image, emotion and thought. Image itself, in its way, belongs to poetry. Image is the core part of poetry which can be performed by all styles of writing. Image is an aesthetic category and it is the object with the author’s subjective thought. An image can be converted into a metaphor. But if it repeats as the presentation and representation, it becomes a symbol. The image has the duality: subject and object. An image is neither pure subjective feeling nor subjective truth. It is comprehensive combined by the two parts in an instant, along with the poet’s inner experience and emotion. Images in literature can effectively serve the people and model the theme.