The Great Gatsby - Chapter One

The Great Gatsby - Chapter One

Setting:

• North America, east of New York
• Western, Long Island
• West Egg: less fashionable
• East Egg: more fashionable
• Gatsby's mansion: contrasts Nick small house
• Daisy's house: luxuriously big.

Characters mentioned in Chapter One:

• Narrator - Nick: bombarded with opulence and luxury.
• Daisy: childish, innocent, naive and simple.
• Tom: strong, aggressive, powerful, in control, arrogance of wealth. A physical character - "hulking". 

Expected story from Chapter One:

• Societies roles being challenged 
• Social affairs

Themes presented:

• Aspirations and the American Dream
• The power of money
• Appearance and reality
• Artificiality
• Identity
• Love and desire
• The nature of the good life
• Betrayal
• Male and female expectations
• Loneliness

The Kite Runner - Morals

The Kite Runner - Morals - Chapter 18

The journey of the novel takes us through Amir's journey, and his change.

• "How could I have been so blind?"
• " I wish I could fix my own life as easy"
• "Like father, like son"
• "how was I going to reconcile this new image of Baba"
• "Rahim Khan said I'd always been too hard on myself. But I'd wondered"
• "My brothers face"
• "But how could I pack up and go back home when my actions may have cast Hassan a chance at those very same things"
• "waiting".

Chapter 19: Amir's dream - Amir thinks he is responsible for Hassan's death - his subconscious is torturing him - reflects what he's been through. 

The Kite Runner - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

• The importance of a new setting - 
• Cultural contrast
• linguistic signifiers
• Baba's response
• What America means to Amir

Chapters 11-12:

• Flea market
• significance to the Afghan community
• Explore new characters
• plot Amir's behaviour towards and impression of General Taheri
• Amir's response towards Soraya (semantic field associated with love).

The importance of a new setting

• Baba and Amir: America and Afghanistan is a contrast - Baba is struggling to fit in, whereas Amir adopts the American ways.
• "For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his" - connotations to death "bury" and "mourn" - shows strength because they don't go back.
• Seeing the value of a strong leader - hanging the photo on the wall (page 110) of Ronald Reagon.
• America is a relief, after everything that happened in Kabul, though it pains him to see his father struggling with their new life in America.
• America - an escape - The Land of Dreams and opportunities, though the theme that the past is inescapable is brought forward: "I wish Hassan were here with us".

Significance of the flea market

• The General and Baba become important again at the flea market.
• The linguistic language creates an atmosphere of Afghanistan, where in which General Taheri and Baba can again, like in Kabul, become powerful - this contrasts to Baba in the gas station.

The Kite Runner - Chapter One

Chapter One

This short opening introduces the underlying theme of the past and looking back. From this, we understand that the story is being told from its end point with hindsight. "December 2001" takes us back to the phone call, and then even further back to 1975. The novel is told through a series of extended flashbacks.

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid, overcast day in the winter of 1975" - Present tense, but looking back.
Tells us that an important, significant event happened that changed who he is.
Barthe's Engima Code.
The repetition of "I" in this first paragraph - first person narrative - unreliable narrator - first person perspective = biased.

"Because the past claws its way out", invokes an image of something dead rising from its grave, with it being animalistic and uncontrollable. There is a sense of Amir feeling haunted by this repressed memory, clearly powerful, violent and traumatic. This foreshadows and gives an insight into what is to come.
"There is a way to be good again", one of the most significant quotes from the novel, outlines the general themes of the novel, and its importance to Amir - to atone for his sins.


"Hassan's voice whispered in my head: for you, a thousand times over. Hassan the harelipped kite runner" -  A sense that Hassan is always there with the narrator. We are introduced to Hassan's name before any other - suggests importance of character.