Conclusion Paragraph

In the novel The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses literary devices like imagery and connotation to convey social issues and cultural values of Afghanistan. In chapter 4 page 27-28, Hassan and Amir goes to the pomegranate tree in the cemetery uphill where Amir reads to Hassan because Hassan cannot read himself. Hosseini communicates the cultural values of friendship and peace through imagery because he writes, "I used one of Ali’s kitchen knives to carve our names on it: 'Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul'" (27). Imagery helps create a connection between the reader and Hosseini where he was able to convey the importance of this scene. With the focus on details of this scene, readers can understand the time Amir spends to carve the names on the tree. Despite the traditional values of minorities, Afghans value friendship which can overpower concepts valued by the general public. However, social class still strives because it is mostly in areas separated from the rest of society, for example, under the pomegranate tree, when Amir and Hassan have time and are able to bond and treat each other like true friends. Peace allows people like Amir to separate from society and act upon his will and not on the expectations of others. In addition to imagery, the use of connotation is seen in the passage when Hosseini describes: "Hassan was drawn to the mystery of words, seduced by a secret world forbidden to him" (28). The connotation in this quote is "seduced" because it puts emphasis on the emotional aspect of Hassan and also reveals the social issue of education. In the scope of emotion, it shows Hassan's hunger to read. While one can be seduced by many objects, and different people, in context of the quote, Hosseini uses the word to describe Hassan's seduction by mere words. However, Hassan only has the ability to find attraction to words because he is unable to read. Therefore, Hosseini uses the emotions "seduced" creates to convey the message of social status affecting literacy because Hassan as a Hazara, an ethnic minority, cannot have an education. Whether it is with Hosseini's use of imagery or connotation, he is able to stimulate the emotions and reasoning in readers to become aware of both Afghan values and social issues. Throughout this passage and the novel, Hosseini uses detailed word choices to uncover the affect ethnic discrimination has on Afghans and the cultural value of social status existing but at the same time not affecting Afghans at all times.

Passage from "The Kite Runner" (Chapter 4: pages 27-28)

After school, Hassan and I met up, grabbed a book, and trotted up a bowl-shaped hill just north of my father’s property in Wazir Akbar Khan. There was an old abandoned cemetery atop the hill with rows of unmarked headstones and tangles of brushwood clogging the aisles. Seasons of rain and snow had turned the iron gate rusty and left the cemetery’slow white stone walls in decay. There was a pomegranate tree near the entrance to the cemetery. One summer day, I used one of Ali’s kitchen knives to carve our names on it: “Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul.” Those words made it formal: the tree was ours. After school, Hassan and I climbed its branches and snatched its bloodred pomegranates. After we’d eaten the fruit and wiped our hands on the grass, I would read to Hassan.

Sitting cross-legged, sunlight and shadows of pomegranate leaves dancing on his face, Hassan absently plucked bladesof grass from the ground as I read him stories he couldn’t read for himself. That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali and most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had been born, perhaps even the moment he had been conceived in Sanaubar’s unwelcoming womb—after all, what use did a servant have for the written word? But despite his illiteracy, or maybe because of it, Hassan was drawn to the mystery of words, seduced by a secret world forbidden to him. I read him poems and stories, sometimes riddles—though I stopped reading those when I saw he was far better at solving them than I was. So I read him unchallenging things, like the misadventures of the bumbling Mullah Nasruddinand his donkey. We sat for hours under that tree, sat there until the sun faded in the west, and still Hassan insisted we had enough daylight for one morestory, one more chapter.