The process of discovery enlightens and educates individuals with fresh, meaningful ideals about the physical and spiritual world, whilst also reshaping an individual’s perspectives of the world, themselves and others. Two texts which explore this dynamic of discovery is Simon Nasht’s documentary Frank Hurley: The Man Who Made History (2004) and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner (2003). Nasht’s documentary uses Frank Hurley’s expedition into the Antarctic as a vehicle to convey one’s pursuit for awe-inspiring discoveries of new and wondrous lands. Nasht also influences us in a positive light, as the unexpected meta-discovery of Hurley’s photographs elevates us to reassess their artistic and historical value. In a similar dynamic, Khaled
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Conversely, Hosseini’s novel demonstrates a reverse journey in which Amir returns to the Afghanistan of his childhood to save his nephew Sohrab. Even though both Amir and Hurley embark on journeys into unknown landscapes, the ramifications of discovery differ for individuals and their worlds. The shock and confrontation of the juxtaposing landscapes is immediately apparent. From his “two storey house in America” and his “books and novels”, Amir returns to a world where “the carcass of an old burned-out Soviet tank,” preface the poverty of “women in burqas” in “a string of mud houses”. The palpable experience immediately changes his sense of naivety, from the romantic, “Afghanistan would always be a part of him”, to the displacement metaphor that, “[he] was always a tourist here”. Likewise, a profound process of discovery and re-discovery is enabled through the motif of flying a Kite. The personification of the kites through “their paper-bird-flapping-its-wings sound” is key to expressing the ‘new world’ and the ‘open spaces’ that are catalysed by this symbolism, synonymous with leaving behind the familiar and entering profound new elevation, that of a free, “mind [that] drifted with the kites.” As such, much like Hurley’s activities and adventure in the Antarctic, Amir’s journey back to Afghanistan, and his re-discovery of Afghan traditions such as Kite Fighting lead him to renewed and profound acknowledgement of himself and his relation to the nation he left behind as a
Conversely, Hosseini’s novel demonstrates a reverse journey in which Amir returns to the Afghanistan of his childhood to save his nephew Sohrab. Even though both Amir and Hurley embark on journeys into unknown landscapes, the ramifications of discovery differ for individuals and their worlds. The shock and confrontation of the juxtaposing landscapes is immediately apparent. From his “two storey house in America” and his “books and novels”, Amir returns to a world where “the carcass of an old burned-out Soviet tank,” preface the poverty of “women in burqas” in “a string of mud houses”. The palpable experience immediately changes his sense of naivety, from the romantic, “Afghanistan would always be a part of him”, to the displacement metaphor that, “[he] was always a tourist here”. Likewise, a profound process of discovery and re-discovery is enabled through the motif of flying a Kite. The personification of the kites through “their paper-bird-flapping-its-wings sound” is key to expressing the ‘new world’ and the ‘open spaces’ that are catalysed by this symbolism, synonymous with leaving behind the familiar and entering profound new elevation, that of a free, “mind [that] drifted with the kites.” As such, much like Hurley’s activities and adventure in the Antarctic, Amir’s journey back to Afghanistan, and his re-discovery of Afghan traditions such as Kite Fighting lead him to renewed and profound acknowledgement of himself and his relation to the nation he left behind as a