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Personification
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
The Kite Runner is a novel with many interlocking settings. It introduces Amir as an adult, then flashes back to his childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan in the early 1970s. This part of the novel depicts a peaceful, almost idyllic Kabul before the 1973 military coup in Afghanistan. King Zahir Shah, who had ruled for about 40 years, was overthrown by his cousin, Daoud Khan, while the king was visiting Europe. Daoud Khan then ended the monarchy and declared Afghanistan a republic. This part of the novel shows Amir's childhood and early adolescence before the specter of war entered his life.
Later in the book, the setting focuses on the changes the Soviet occupation of Kabul brings. Amir, Hassan, Baba and their friends and companions have a very different experience in the city when it’s rocked by the violence and instability of war. Later, in the 1980s, Amir and Baba move to Fremont, California in the United States as refugees. Much of Amir's adulthood takes place here, and he’s preoccupied with trying to adjust to his new life as a member of the Afghani diaspora in the US.
In the late 1990s, Amir returns to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to try and rescue Hassan’s son Sohrab. Under Taliban rule, the beautiful public spaces of Kabul that Amir used to know and love are now places of ugliness and violence. Buildings lie in ruin and people live under strict, brutally enforced religious laws. Public executions and punishments for small misdeeds happen openly in stadiums. Kabul residents who belong to ethnic minorities—especially Hazaras like Hassan and his family—face daily discrimination and the threat of violence from the Taliban. The novel ends in the United States, where Amir brings Sohrab to Fremont and where Sohrab himself has to adapt to a new life in an attempt to move on from the trauma of his abuse at the hands of the Taliban.
Related Themes:
