The Purpose and the Ideology of Colonization: A Study of the Otherness in The Kite Runner

Abstract

The Kite Runner is considered being the first novel by Afghan-American writer Khalid Hosseini which is published in 2003. The novel discusses the story of Amir, a young Afghan boy who is experiencing colonization. As to the history of Afghanistan through The Kite Runner, it has witnessed a very long history of invasions by the Russians, Turks, British, and Indians. Postcolonial literature concerns with colonialism at the time of colonization as well as colonist ideology along with its legacies as the running effects after the colonized take over. This present paper is aimed to inspect the otherness aspects of some characters in The Kite Runner. Through very critical research and the application of Orientalism, and Post-colonial theory; the researchers attempted to study social, religious, and ethnic otherness in Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The current study is aimed to achieve and reach the otherness aspect through a systematic review of textual analysis and Edward W. Said’s theory of Orientalism, Othering in particular, of the very distinguished and yet very globally celebrated novel of Afghan-American novelist, Khalid Hosseini. The novel-The Kite Runner-with its eloquent and well-expressed structure granted much reputation and glory to the very prominent novelist.  As a matter of fact, the researchers tried to flash the light on how the Pashtun and the Hazara stood as the other in one another’s perspective, and the otherness of Islam as regarded by the colonizers through the novel so far. As far as the novel is studied, it is concluded or found that the colonized people are treated as other, inferior, subaltern, and inhuman by colonizer and colonial hegemony.