Chapter 24:
- FORM: narrative perspective, tone, tragedy – working on various levels.
· Dramatic present narrated to the reader by a first person retrospective narrator.
· Tragedy of childhood represented in Sohrab as he is described as ‘Just rock[ing] back and forth, his face lit by the silver glow of the images flickering across the screen.’ P272. Then continued in the ‘unofficial’ question Amir asks himself and the reader: P275: ‘Who the hell cared about another dead Afghan kid?’ P277: ‘There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.’
· Confessional narrative: Amir – P274: ‘I didn’t want his blood on my hands. Not his too.’ Hosseini continuing to tell the story by making Amir’s guilt inescapable, penetrating. P283: ‘Then I did what I hadn’t done in fifteen years of marriage: I told my wife everything. Everything.’ As Amir reveals this for him, feels like ‘something lifting off my chest,’ and the reader too relishes in this honesty; there are no secrets anymore.
· Shades of a bildungsroman: P279 – ‘Now as the boy’s pain soaked through my shirt, I saw that a kinship had taken root between us too... “Would you like to come live in America with me and my wife?”’ Amir is presented with an extremely troubled child and rather than ignoring the problem as he did with Hassan, he draws Sohrab against his chest, lets him cry and presents a positive opportunity. Indicative of his journey towards atonement and self discovery.
- STRUCTURE: opening/closing, any link to previous chapter/move on? Describe the series of significant events and how they are presented – linear narrative structure?
· Opens: events pick up from the previous chapter with the arrival in Islamabad. The structure of the opening is controlled after the ‘hodgepodge’ memories that concluded Chapter 23. Initially the opening hints at the possibility of hope for young Sohrab as he ‘perked up at the sight of the mosque.’
· Pace of the chapter accelerates as Amir desperately looks for Sohrab and then decelerates as he discovers him in the mosque.
· P283 – Soraya’s phone call allows the telling of the story to develop.
· Structure injected with obstacles as Amir and Sohrab visit the American Embassy in Islamabad.
· P289: Adumbration of Sohrab’s attempted suicide in Andrew’s daughter’s death.
· Horrifying ending, reaffirming the tragedy of childhood of the novel’s form.
- LANGUAGE: Descriptive detail, use of dialogue.
· Dialogue between Amir and Farid – bold ending to their friendship: P272: ‘I never saw him again.’ Sense of finality.
· Language of introspection and uncertainty: P272 – repetition of ‘I wondered’ in quick succession reinforcing the ultimate uncertainty of Amir and Sohrab’s position.
· Variety of sentence lengths used to convey the anxiety and panic when Amir discovers Sohrab has left. P273. ‘I called him name.’ ‘He was gone,’ is isolated and placed at the end of a paragraph to ensure its impact reverberates with the reader.
· Heated dialogue at moment of crisis: P274: ‘Mr. Fayyaz, have you seen him?...The boy who came with me. Have you seen him or not for God’s sake?’ – short sentences, losing patience conveying Amir’s desperation.
· Irony of Mr Fayyaz words P275: ‘I will drive you because I am a father like you.’ Despite not being a biological father, this is the position Amir now finds he must adopt towards Sohrab.
· Language of reflection: P277 – ‘I’m starting to forget their faces,’ Sohrab said. ‘Is that bad?’ Real fears of the child. P277: ‘Will God put me in hell for what I did to that man?’
· Amir’s narrative voice adopts a sensitive, child-like tone to sooth the fears of Sohrab: P278 – ‘So one day the bad man hurt your father instead. He hurt him in a very bad way, and I...I couldn’t save your father the way he had saved me.’ Language appropriate for Sohrab but also is indicative of how despite being an adult, the painful memories of his childhood still affect him, even how he speaks...not the eloquent writer here, struggling to get the words out.
· P288: empty descriptions of Raymond Andrews – a man who holds the key to Sohrab’s future in America but is described as having ‘glassy eyes’ which ‘didn’t so much as blink.’
· P298: Pathetic fallacy to conclude chapter, then swiftly followed with the language of contrasts. Amir’s joy over Soraya’s info is closely juxtaposed to his horror when he discovers Sohrab has tried to commit suicide:
‘Suddenly I was on my knees, screaming. Screaming through my clenched teeth. Sreaming until I thought my heart would rip and my chest explode.’
