An Interpretation Of Hassan In The Kite Runner From The Perspective Of Scapegoat Theory

The Kite Runner is the first novel published by the American-Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini.Since its publication in 2003,it achieved a huge success and has been well received by readers and critics.The work is one of the greatest novels in the 21~stt century and made Hosseini a dark horse in the world literature.The novel is based on the background of Afghan real history since 1970s,integrates fiction and reality and tells the story of betrayal and redemption of two Afghan teenagers in their process of growing up.This thesis selects the protagonist Hassan as the research object,through the method of textual close reading,analyzes the scapegoat characterizations of Hassan with French theorist Rene Girard's scapegoat theory,and reveals the plight of Hassan's living condition and the minorities'survival predicament from a new perspective of textual criticism and arouses people's attention to the challenges faced by Afghans in the post-war social and national development.This thesis is divided into six parts.The introduction mainly introduces the writer Khaled Hosseini,his masterpiece The Kite Runner,overseas and domestic research status and briefly summarizes the study content and the purpose of the research.Chapter One introduces the origin of the scapegoat theory and its development,the latter part introduces the four stereotypes of persecution of Rene's Girard's scapegoat theory that used in this thesis and provides a theoretical framework for the thesis.The second chapter expounds Hassan's special marks as a scapegoat,including the external features,mainly referring to Hassan's typical Mongolian appearance and inborn cleft lip,and Hassan's inherent personality traits as submissiveness and stubbornness.These special marks make him the object of the accusation and reveal the reasons for Hassan to be selected as a scapegoat.Chapter Three expounds the accusations on Hassan's crimes as a suspect,revealing Hassan's innocence and helplessness from the aspects of history,religion and family combining with the current background of Afghanistan.Chapter Four introduces the last stereotype of Girard's persecution paradigms,the persecution on Hassan including verbal persecution referring to Amir and his biological father's deception and other people's insult,the physical persecution referring to Assef's obscenity and Taliban's slaughter,and the psychological persecution on Hassan and his son Sohrab who suffered a terrible psychic trauma.The conclusion part is a summary of the thesis.This thesis reveals the scapegoat characterizations of Hassan,the accusations on him and the persecution he suffered through the scapegoat theory,and straightly discloses the tragic fact that Hassan is a scapegoat and the miserable conditions of the Hazaras represented by him in Afghan,especially the distortion of human nature and moral destruction during wartime.This thesis reveals the author's deep sympathy of the minorities in Afghanistan and his strong condemnation to Taliban's authoritarian rule,uncovers the tremendous conflicts in Afghan society and the unique significance of this novel to the post-war social and cultural reconstruction.