Amir’s Quest Journey Of Bewilderment, Betrayal And Redemption

The Kite Runner is the first novel of Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Since its first publication in June2003, it has drawn considerable publicity and received praises from the critics all over the world. It is translated into forty-eight languages and has been sold over eight million copies in the past nine years, creating a miracle of the publishing industry.The Kite Runner tells a story of the experiences of an Afghan-American immigrant, whose sin in childhood and efforts to make up his sin as an adult. The present author chooses The Kite Runner’s text as the object to study. By reading the text closely, the author analyzes such features as the plot pattern, contents and set of characters reflected in the novel to explore how the novel manages to use the specific literary genre to show the process of the protagonist’s growth.The first part of this thesis includes a brief introduction of the author’s life and works, literature review on The Kite Runner, and structure of the thesis. Chapter One introduces definition, history and general characteristics of Bildungsroman as well as The Kite Runner’s validity as a Bildungsroman. Chapter Two explores protagonist’s spiritual journey at three stages:childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Chapter Three focuses on protagonist’s quest journey and analyzes other characters. The bildungsroman theory is correspondingly used to prove whether this novel accords to this genre. Finally, a conclusion is drawn that The Kite Runner is a typical initiation story.