CONFRONTING MEMORY: GUILT AND THE QUEST FOR REDEMPTION IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S THE KITE RUNNER, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS AND AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED

Abstract

Despite the existence of a number of studies that have focused on the portrayal of a character‘s psyche and how this affects their respective behaviours, there is a gap in respect to how the immediate space that the characters occupy also positively or negatively affects them. This study reads Khaled Hosseini‘s portrayal of the characters‘ guilt in his novels, as a product of the social and economic hardships that affects them in the Afghani society. A homodiegetic reading has been used to provide an in-depth analysis of character behaviour in Khaled Hosseini‘s The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains Echoed who exhibit behaviours that are products of situations they encounter in their daily life. The characters are portrayed as guilt stricken which eventually traumatizes most of them. Furthermore, it focuses on the impact of the authorial power and background on the characters and setting as shown in the texts. The paper argues that Hosseini uses the pen to portray the life in the war-torn Afghanistan hence providing a communal experience of the suffering of the Afghani people to the whole world. This continuously helps address the reasons why writers write; that is, art for art‘s sake or for social change. Employing Sigmund Freud‘s analysis of the unconscious, repression and neurosis, the concept of withdraw and isolation in trauma as well Louis Althusser‘s concept of ideology, this study argues that though Hosseini‘s books are not autobiographies, there is an existence of the authorial voice in the works in the sense that there is an ever presence of Hosseini‘s personal experience reflected in all the books under study. It would be interesting to see if this will continue to be the case in his upcoming novels and whether he continues to use the Afghani community as his main setting.