In this essay, the major concern is to analyze the novel “The Kite Runner”, which is written by Khaled Hosseini, in the light of postcolonialism. In literature, postcolonialism refers to the study of the effects of colonialism on countries, their cultures, and their people. In this novel, there are so many points which prove us how this novel can be considered as one of the postcolonial works, and also how the colonization by the Soviet Union destroyed the country of Afghanistan and affected this country and its people in so many ways.
The first point that has to be discussed is how colonization affects the society and culture of the target country. At the beginning of the novel, we witness Afghans as happy people who respected their own traditions and customs and celebrated their national occasions so often. They used to hold and attend feasts and have so many competitions, one of which was the kite-running competition which is significant in this work. But after the Soviet invasion everything changed and started to fall apart. This invasion led to so many deaths among Afghans and many other were forced to run away from their own country. Amir, the protagonist, was among those people and immigrated to the United States with his father. After he visited his country so many years after that event, the country and its people were not the same at all. The Talibs had enforced their customs and traditions, and the Afghan culture had died. It just had become a country with some people with no hope, and a culture which was completely forgotten.
The second major point is the change in economic situation. Before the Soviet invasion and the rule of the Taliban, Afghanistan was a prospering country which was developing and its people were content. Like any other country, there was a poor population as well but they were in an acceptable situation. In this novel, Hassan and his father are the main characters who symbolize those people who could live decently despite being in the low-class of the society. But after the return of Amir which was after so many years, people were in bad circumstances. The country was full of beggars who begged for a little money so they could get some food. There were also so many homeless people who had nowhere to go.
The next point is the language of the colonized country. First, we observe that there’s only one language which is spoken among the people and that is Persian. But then, because of the presence of the Talibs, Arabic is more heard than Persian. The Talibs just roam around the neighborhoods and speak with each other and yell at people in Arabic. It seems like Persian became silent when the people lost the right to speak.
The last point is the presence of the theme of “othering” in this novel. Othering refers to the process by which little by little the native people of a country start to become and feel like foreigners in their own homeland. As it was mentioned previously, after the arrival of the Taliban, the society, culture, economy, and even the dominant language in Afghanistan started to change and this fact made Afghans become isolated and others in their own country. For example, we see that Amir and his driver mention that they don’t know this country anymore and they have no idea how to act in different circumstances like facing the Talibs. Another example is the fact that in numerous situations the Talibs have the right to say anything and behave in any way they desire while the Afghan people don’t have the right to act despite the fact that they are the ones who owned this place at first.
According to the points which were mentioned in this essay, “The Kite Runner” is a postcolonial literary work which was able to show the effects of colonization in the best way since the fact that its writer, Khaled Hosseini, is a person who has felt this process of oppression, and transferred that to this novel.
Parham Banihashemi
