The Kite Runner
and 101 Poems
Against War
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Chapter Four – ‘my grandfather
ordered the two young men to go to
Kandahar at once and enlist in the
army for one year’
‘No history, ethnicity, society or
religion was going to change that
either’ – a statement which quickly
becomes untrue
Hassan takes his ‘punishment’
quietly
– reminiscent of the conscription
which started in Wilfred Owen’s time,
here seen as a punishment.
as said by Amir early on – reminds
us of the ethnic cleansing which took
place in ‘Essential Serbo-Croat’.
– does not shout out, does not plead
for help, unlike Essential SerboCroat but with Amir watching it
becomes like Dulce watching the
man suffer and will come to define
him. It’s also like MCMXIV – moving
from innocence to sin and ugliness.
‘Never such innocence again’.
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Early on chapter 5,When Hassan similar to ‘O What is that Sound?
says ‘’Father! What’s that
sound?’ and they huddle
together, although the fighters
are not coming for them
personally – yet.
Later in Chapter 5, Aseef says
‘We are the true Afghans, the
pure Afghans, not this flat-nose
here. His people pollute our
homeland, our watan. They dirty
our blood.’
This again would refer to
Essential Serbo-Croat, when I
first learned the word ‘ethnic
cleansing’.
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Aseef then says ‘Too late for
Hitler’
and it was obvious to Auden that
Hitler was ‘cleansing Europe’ too
– hence his move to America in
1939. Aseef’s role model is Hitler
and he brings Amir a book for his
birthday – ‘a biography of Hitler’
Chapter 25 – ‘One Tuesday
morning last September, the
Twin Towers came crumbling
down and overnight, the world
changed. The American flag
suddenly appeared everywhere’.
Strongly links in with September
1, 1939 and also ‘A Refusal to
Mourn’. There is a hardening
after the first shock, death, a
change which will never hurt as
much again.
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Does ‘Our old life is gone,
Sohrab, and everything in it
is either dead or dying. It is
just you and me now. Just
you and me’ link with
‘O What is that Sound?’ At
least one of them thinks
they will be together – but
the pressures of war
means one runs off?
‘He is alive’
– absolute opposite to
Futility when Sohrab should
be dead but is young and
would be if ‘his heart hadn’t
been young and strong’
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
the fact that Raymond
Andrews’ daughter also
committed suicide – and
Ray is the person who has
power to adopt Sohrab.
‘Suicide,’ she whispered.
There is a link between
Suicide in the Trenches;
possibly a Refusal to
Mourn as the girl is never
mentioned by Ray?
‘There are a lot of children To children ardent for some
in Afghanistan, but little
desperate glory, the old Lie
childhood.’ Children have to
grow up quickly in war.
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Sohrab’s question ‘Will god put me in has a religious edge to it, like Dulce
hell for what I did to that man?’ when where he is burning in fire or lime.
he knows the catapult has injured
him severely
The fact that the man they need to
see turns out to be Aseef is just like
the theme of ‘O What is that Sound’
– shows that, yes, the war is
personal and the person wants you;
nobody else. The fact that Sohrab
stays (unlike the other in the poem)
and saves Amir’s life is the opposite
to the person running away in the
Auden poem.
O What is that Sound
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Aseef likes the sound
of ‘Ethnic cleansing’
when he refers to
‘Afghanistan is like a
beautiful mansion
littered with garbage,
and someone has to
take out the garbage’
Essential Serbo-Croat
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
The horror of hearing Aseef
slaughtering people but enjoying
doing so: ‘I’d sweep the barrel of my
machine gun around the room until
the smoke blinded me….you don’t
know the meaning of the word
‘liberating’ until you’ve done that,
stood in a room full of targets…free
of guilt or remorse, knowing you are
virtuous, good and decent. Knowing
you’re doing God’s work.’
Links with How to Kill – it is easy to
make a ghost;
The opposite to:
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
As Aseef enjoys the killing.
In which poems do soldiers or the
persona enjoy killing? Which ones
think they are doing God’s work? [All
chapter 22 with Aseef]
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Chapter 21 – ‘when the bloodied
corpses had been unceremoniously
tossed into the backs of red pickup
trucks – separate ones’
is directly comparable to Dulce et
Decorum Est: see quote above.
At the beginning of the chapter, in
Dulce et Decorum Est
italics, there is a long statement: ‘We September 1, 1939, linking to
march on the grass and pull the
September 11, 2011.
wagon behind us around apple and
cherry trees, which become
skyscrapers soaring into clouds,
heads poking out of thousands of
windows to watch the spectacle
passing below (September 11).
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Also in the same paragraph he
states ‘We are Hassan and
Amir…about to receive a medal of
honour for our courageous feat’.
This links in with what Owen was
trying to tell them it wouldn’t be like
in Dulce; with Sassoon getting a
medal but throwing it away in disgust
with all his friends dying and the
terrible waste of life.
Chapter 20 – There are fewer trees How to Kill
now as ‘Snipers used to hide in
A refusal to Mourn
them’. This is similar to How to Kill. It Futility
also says ‘the wars had made
fathers a rare commodity in
Afghanistan’ – similar to a Refusal to
Mourn. It also goes against the view
in Futility when Farid says
‘sometimes the dead are luckier’.
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Chapter 19: ‘He takes a step back
and raises the barrel. Places it on
the back of the kneeling man’s head.
For a moment, fading sunlight
catches in the metal and twinkles.
The rifle roars with a deafening
crack.’
Chapter 19 - However, when he
realizes he is the man who has
pulled the trigger ‘I woke up with a
scream trapped in my throat’
In chapter eighteen, there is a strong
link to MCMXIV: ‘I looked at the face
in the polaroid again, the way the
sun fell on it’, the way Larkin looks
back when he considers the photo in
the poem.
In this part in italics there is a
similarity in How to Kill, except we’ve
gone from 1st to 3rd person.
is similar to ‘In all my dreams, before
my helpless sight’ and ‘smothering
dreams’ of Dulce.
MCMXIV:
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
In chapter 17, there are many
MCMXIV
links: He’s looking at the photo
A Refusal to mourn
where the man appears ‘at ease’
which echoes MCMXIV, a time
just before War and times were
never the same again. Chapter
17 is when he finds out that he is
related to Hassan – ‘A Refusal to
Mourn’, although you could
argue that after the first death
(Hassan’s), Amir is stronger and
more determined and nothing
affects him in the same way
again.
Quotes / Events in the Poem(s) it links to
kite Runner
Chapter 16 – ‘watching
the Communist
propaganda on
television’
Owen was angry with
people like Jessie Pope
and the propaganda
machine which made
war sound good.
Aseef being hit in the
eye – a triumphantly
disgusting moment
Dulce – watch the
white eyes writhing in
his face