I intend to write a literacy essay on the kite runner,  discussing the topic how the author uses language techniques to develop a main character in the novel, and how this character helps you understand one or more themes/ideas.Techniques could include figures of speech, syntax, word-choice (Islamic and Farsi words), style, symbolism, structure, foreshadowing, or narrative point-of-view. the main points I am going to discuss is narrative point of view, symbolism, and word choice

In the book “The Kite Runner” written by Khaled Hosseini. He uses many effective language featured three of these are that helped to develop the main character of Amir are narrative point of you, foreshadowing and symbolism. The character Amir helps the reader to understand the theme of guilt and redemption. Most of the stories plot is about finding redemption and the guilt that the characters are haunted by. during the story Amir has lots of bad memories and guilts  throughout Amirs childhood he tried to spent the majority of his life attempting to redeem himself for the betrayal of his best friend Hassan, when he decided not to help Hassan out when he was raped by Assef.

Narrative point of view is the first language feature that is used to create the character of Amir  because Amir helps us to follow the story and the feelings he is getting at that point of time. The Kite Runner was written as first person from Amirs point of view, Amir narrates the story and explains what he goes through during the book between him and his friend Hassan, Hosseinis first person narrator makes the story of the troubles in Afgahnastan quite personal, we see the story through the eyes of Amir ad his abuse, betrayal and his journey to redemption. Amir talks about all his cultural, religious, political and social issues and events, he uses farsi and arabic words/phrases to help us understand the idea of guilt and redemption. an example in the point of the book where Amir helps us to feel what he is when he said “in the end, i ran. i ran because i was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me…. i actually aspired to be a cowardice, because the alternative, the real person i was running, was that Assef was right: nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price i had to pay, the lamb i had to slay, to win baba. was it a fair price? the answer floated to my conscious mind before i could thwart it: he was just a Hazara wasn’t he?”  this was during the scene where Amir betrays Hassan and lead him to realising that he was guilty for doing so. the narrative point of view during this part of the book makes us realise that Amir is feeling that he needs to betray Hassan in order to stay safe from Assef and so that he can bring back the kite in order to impress Baba. he makes us feel hugely bad for Hassan and that Amir had to make this hard decision to  let his best friend be exposed to this violence and rape. we understand that Amir realises he is a coward for running away although he obviously doesn’t love his friend enough to leave not help him. So amir takes us on his journey and makes us feel like what he does and understand him through different problems and conflicts that arise, with him narrating the story this helps us to understand when he feels the guilt of what he did to Hassan and what emotions he goes through and what leads him to redemption.

Foreshadowing is the second language feature that is used to create the character of Amir. in the story there were lots of parts in the book that hinted at what the story might be about and unfolds clues leading to what might happen. Hosseini uses foreshadowing straight away in the first chapter, ” I became what i am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975, this is what Amir says in the book which makes us realise that this foreshadow is a a flashback, the first chapter is headed with a date meaning that the book will have a flashback to Amirs childhood. chapter one foreshadows the whole book, right from the start Hosseini prepares us for a journey that we will take with amir and how his guilt leads to redemption. we see the foreshadowing in chapter one very easily as there are names and places that we can expect to see later on in the rest of the novel. In chapter six there is foreshadowing this is when Amir and Hassan are testing out each others loyalty towards each other, this was a hint as to Hassan really was…. Amirs brother. When Amir notices Hassans facial expressions and thinks. “thats when it happened again: Hassans face changed… I had the feeling I was looking at two face, the one I knew, …. and another second face, this one lurking just beneath the surface. I had seen it happen before- it always shook me up a little… it just appeared, this other face, for a fraction of a moment, long enough to leave me with the unsettling feeling that maybe i’d seen it someplace before. this shows us the guilt that Amir feels not knowing his brother.

symbolism is the last language feature that is used to create the character of Amir. Hassan and Amir spent most of their time outside, the two boys loved to read Hassan listened to Amir making up lots of his own stories  for example a quote in the story said this, “there was a pomegranate tree near the entrance of the cemetery. one summer day, i used one of Ali’s kitchen knifes to carve our names on it: ‘Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul’. these words made it formal, the tree was ours” the pomegranate tree was the place that Hassan and Amir called their special place, they thought that nothing could be taken away from them, like their friendship. In the book we see that the pomegranate tree no longer held the friendship between the two boys when Amir betrayed Hassan when he got raped. The pomegranate tree helps us to understand the idea of guilt and redemption because Amir is full off guilt and wants to show Hassan how angry he is at himself. Amir throws a pomegranate at Hassan and wants him to throw it back at him, although instead he hits the pomegranate on his own head. after the amirs betrayal of Hassan the pomegranate tree stops growing fruit everything is ruined like it has all just stopped growing and died. this links to amirs journey of guilt to redemption because it shows that the symbolism of the pomegrante tree leads to he guilt of the Amir.

In conclusion during the novel the kite runner there are many different language techniques that create Amir which taught us about guilt and redemption. the three language techniques techniques that i talked about in this essay were; the narrative point of view an how amirs feelings and emotion help us to understand what he is going through and feeling. throughout the book i talked about how this leads to his emotions and how he got to redemption after the guilt that he faced. the narrative point of view helped us to understand this because Amir was the narrator of the story, and we heard it from his point of view. the second language technique i talked about was foreshadowing and amirs clues during parts of the book leading us to get hints about what was to come later on during the story. finally my last point that i talked about was symbolism and how the pomegranate tree related to amirs guilt because it represented the two boys friendship.