Nostalgia And Identity

Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-born American novelist writing in English. The Kite Runner is his first novel,which has achieved great success since its publication because of touching and vivid description of the characters and plot. It is particularly important to note that the novel is closely related with nostalgia and identity. Identity pursuit is a conspicuous thematic concern in contemporary American literature, especially in ethnic literature. During the development of contemporary literary theories, space theory has become a hot topic.Space theory, which highlights social and cultural significance of space, has absorbed theoretical resources from various fields, such as geography, sociology, politics and architecture etc. Space theory provides wide stage and ample space to combine spatial criticism with identity studies. Therefore, it is of great significance to probe into nostalgia and identity of characters in the literary works from the perspective of space theory. This thesis is aimed at interpreting The Kite Runner.The thesis consists of an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion.Introduction consists of four parts. First it talks briefly about Khaled Hosseini's life and his works. After the explanation of the focus and significance of the study, it introduces The Kite Runner and makes a comment on the literature review about the novel. Then, it presents introduction to space theory, and some related theories,such as identity and nostalgia theory.Chapter ? analyzes the physical space and nostalgia, which falls into two parts: space image of Afghan and American, and nostalgia in physical space. Nostalgia in physical space shows recall of the characters about pre-war peaceful life.Chapter ? stays focus on the social space and nostalgia. The first part analyzes the tragedy of Hassan, who has suffered miserably due to racial discrimination in Afghanistan society, and then it studies the flea market(the San Jose flea market), which acts as an ethnic community. The second part discusses nostalgia in social space. Nostalgia in social space is reflected in the view of the protagonist Amir, who has witnessed Afghan social change and showed guilt over the lost Afghan society.Chapter ? deliberates the psychological space and nostalgia. The first part explores the protagonist Amir's incomplete and complete psychological space. As for Amir's incomplete psychological space, he won victory finally at the expense of Hassan. However, Amir constructed complete psychological space eventually. The second part concentrates nostalgia in psychological space, which focuses on the point of individual psychological activity. If subjects only retrospect unconsciously without looking inward, the value target ofnostalgia will be lost.Chapter ? makes a discussion on the characters' nostalgia and identity. The first part explores that the subjects of regressive nostalgia want to stay in the past, as the present for them is so unacceptable that they try to fight off. The second part examines that reflective nostalgia urges people to have clear understandings on the past and the present while with more reflection on the present through nostalgia. The third part lays its focus on the cognitive nostalgia, which provides an opportunity for people to reaffirm themselves and the world. More importantly, it is a kind of necessary means for people to seek significance of survival and belonging of life.Conclusion summarizes the whole thesis and points out that as a minority writer, Khaled Hosseini has to be faced with identity issues due to his hybrid cultural background. The thesis comes to the conclusion that space has become an important channel and means for writers to express their nostalgic feelings and identity pursuit.The construction of identity is the process for the subject himself to build identity, which should be accepted by himself from the heart.