The Kite Runner: Historical Perspective

1. The Kite Runner: Historical Perspective By: Liam Schell and Vitorino Gomes

2. Introduction • The historical perspective is separated into two smaller perspectives called “the old historicism” and “the new historicism”. • Old historicism concerns itself with the time and place the story takes place in. A good story is one that describes the setting well. • New historicism requires more than just reading the work. New historicism requires relating the text to some historical documents of that time.

3. The historical perspective as mentioned before is related to the idea that a good novel is one that closely follows the time in which it was written. • This perspective allows the reader to learn about the setting of the novel just by reading the novel. • The history behind a written work can teach us a lot about the history of what is being written about.

4. Historical Perspective of The Kite Runner • The conflict between the Pashtuns and the Hazaras actually existed and was how people lived. • Other historical events appear in the story such as the fall of the Afghanistan government, 9/11 and the appearance of the Taliban.

5. New Historical Perspective • Shows how the story can relate to documents that are taken from this time period. • Comparing real life evidence to the fictional happenings in the story.

6. New Historical Perspective in The Kite Runner • The story takes events that we know from watching the news or researching current events and uses them to create conflict with the characters. • References the power system of the time, where males were seen as dominant and women were seen as less dominant than males.