Light in The Kite Runner
The whole world is a stage. And a stage is not just for actors to speak their lines and play their parts. There are stage lights, props, and music that are just as important for the play as the acting itself. In particular, the lighting of all stories have been used by directors, artists, and writers to add that special flair. Successful writers like to add aspects such as mood, parallelism, and symbolism to give their stories that extra flair. In The Kite Runner, the author, Khaled Hosseini, manipulates the position of light relative to the characters to parallel their positions on authority, purity, and love, and in doing so, reveals subtle facts about the mentality and situations of the characters.
Hosseini uses …show more content…
One day in Pakistan, Amir wakes up to find Sohrab missing from their hotel room. After an evening of stressful searching, Amir finally finds him at the Shah Faisal Mosque. When Amir finds Sohrab, Sohrab is “about a hundred yards from the mosque, on an island of grass... The mosque sparkled like a diamond in the dark. It lit up the sky, Sohrab’s face” (316-317). The mosque is described as a “diamond,” which makes the mosque seem pure and clean, representing the purity (or lack of) that Sohrab speaks of. In addition, the light of the mosque also “lights up the sky, Sohrab’s face,” showing that the mosque brings wonder to Sohrab. Despite the wonder that the mosque brings Sohrab, he is sitting “about a hundred yards from the mosque.” If one were to visualize this situation, Sohrab is physically distancing himself from the light of the mosque to sit in the “dark”. He is separating himself from the pure image of the mosque because he considers himself “dirty and full of sin” (319). By extensions, Sohrab is detaching himself from a pure image …show more content…
As soon as the Russian soldier starts inspecting the trucks, and the mood becomes ominous. As he inspects the truck, the Russian soldier requests “time” alone with a women in the truck that Amir and Baba are being smuggled in. He disregards the pleading of the woman’s husband, their child is crying, and nobody dares stand up for her for fear of their life. There seems to be no hope for the woman escaping unscathed. In the background, the people in the truck are in the dark, and the moon is “bone-colored”(114). Then, Baba stands up for the woman, and “eclipsed the moonlight.”() The description of the moon as “bone-colored” matches the description of the situation of the soldier: grim and morbid. What Baba is doing standing up the soldier, is paralleled by him eclipsing the moonlight. Just like he is standing in between the soldier and the woman, Baba is shielding the people from morbid moon. It’s also worth noting that if one were to draw picture of the people in the caravan, Baba would be bathed in moonlight, while the others are standing in his shadow. This displays Baba as overwhelmingly valiant, and the others as meek compared to Baba’s intrepidness. The other passengers are both physically and metaphorically in the shadow of Baba’s “eclipse.” They are metaphorically in
The whole world is a stage. And a stage is not just for actors to speak their lines and play their parts. There are stage lights, props, and music that are just as important for the play as the acting itself. In particular, the lighting of all stories have been used by directors, artists, and writers to add that special flair. Successful writers like to add aspects such as mood, parallelism, and symbolism to give their stories that extra flair. In The Kite Runner, the author, Khaled Hosseini, manipulates the position of light relative to the characters to parallel their positions on authority, purity, and love, and in doing so, reveals subtle facts about the mentality and situations of the characters.
Hosseini uses …show more content…
One day in Pakistan, Amir wakes up to find Sohrab missing from their hotel room. After an evening of stressful searching, Amir finally finds him at the Shah Faisal Mosque. When Amir finds Sohrab, Sohrab is “about a hundred yards from the mosque, on an island of grass... The mosque sparkled like a diamond in the dark. It lit up the sky, Sohrab’s face” (316-317). The mosque is described as a “diamond,” which makes the mosque seem pure and clean, representing the purity (or lack of) that Sohrab speaks of. In addition, the light of the mosque also “lights up the sky, Sohrab’s face,” showing that the mosque brings wonder to Sohrab. Despite the wonder that the mosque brings Sohrab, he is sitting “about a hundred yards from the mosque.” If one were to visualize this situation, Sohrab is physically distancing himself from the light of the mosque to sit in the “dark”. He is separating himself from the pure image of the mosque because he considers himself “dirty and full of sin” (319). By extensions, Sohrab is detaching himself from a pure image …show more content…
As soon as the Russian soldier starts inspecting the trucks, and the mood becomes ominous. As he inspects the truck, the Russian soldier requests “time” alone with a women in the truck that Amir and Baba are being smuggled in. He disregards the pleading of the woman’s husband, their child is crying, and nobody dares stand up for her for fear of their life. There seems to be no hope for the woman escaping unscathed. In the background, the people in the truck are in the dark, and the moon is “bone-colored”(114). Then, Baba stands up for the woman, and “eclipsed the moonlight.”() The description of the moon as “bone-colored” matches the description of the situation of the soldier: grim and morbid. What Baba is doing standing up the soldier, is paralleled by him eclipsing the moonlight. Just like he is standing in between the soldier and the woman, Baba is shielding the people from morbid moon. It’s also worth noting that if one were to draw picture of the people in the caravan, Baba would be bathed in moonlight, while the others are standing in his shadow. This displays Baba as overwhelmingly valiant, and the others as meek compared to Baba’s intrepidness. The other passengers are both physically and metaphorically in the shadow of Baba’s “eclipse.” They are metaphorically in