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"Old Man & Kite Runner: Past Regrets"

This document compares and contrasts the novels "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway and "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. Both novels highlight the inability to change the past and the need to accept it. "The Old Man and the Sea" is about an experienced fisherman's battle to catch a giant marlin after a long unlucky streak. "The Kite Runner" explores how one moment of betrayal has haunted the protagonist Amir for decades and drives him to seek redemption. While both deal with coming to terms with the past, Santiago cannot accept his inability to change it, whereas Amir accepts his past and focuses on the present. The genres also differ, with "

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Ana-Maria Alexandru
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82 views2 pages

"Old Man & Kite Runner: Past Regrets"

This document compares and contrasts the novels "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway and "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. Both novels highlight the inability to change the past and the need to accept it. "The Old Man and the Sea" is about an experienced fisherman's battle to catch a giant marlin after a long unlucky streak. "The Kite Runner" explores how one moment of betrayal has haunted the protagonist Amir for decades and drives him to seek redemption. While both deal with coming to terms with the past, Santiago cannot accept his inability to change it, whereas Amir accepts his past and focuses on the present. The genres also differ, with "

Uploaded by

Ana-Maria Alexandru
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SRBU NATALIA TEFANIA

ENGLEZ-SPANIOL, ANUL II
"The old man and the sea" vs. "The kite runner"

"The old man and the sea" by Ernest Hemingway and "The kite runnner" by Khaled
Hosseini are two famous works that highlight the fact that the past no longer can change, and the
only thing you can do is to regret what you did and resign oneself.
The two paragraphs are similar but different at the same time. "The old man and the sea"
is about a battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a large marlin. The novel opens with
the explanation that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a
fish. Santiago is considered "salao", the worst form of unluckiness. In fact, he is so unlucky that
his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and
been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. This exceptional story was used as a
therapeutic aid for hopeless and depressed people who needed a powerful force for continuing
struggles of life against fate. They should say as the boy Manolin, "I'll bring the luck by myself."
In the story the old man tells us "It is silly not to hope...besides I believe it is a sin." Hemingway
draws a distinction between two different types of success: outer-material and inner-spiritual.
While the old man lacks the former, the importance of this lack is eclipsed by his possession of
the later. He teaches all people the triumph of indefatigable spirit over exhaustible resources.
Hemingway's hero as a perfectionist man tells us: To be a man is to behave with honor and
dignity, not to succumb to suffering, to accept one's duties without complaint, and most
importantly to have maximum self-control. At the end of the story he mentions, "A man is not
made for defeat...a man can be destroyed but not defeated." The book finishes with this symbolic
sentence: "The old man was dreaming about lions."
Chapter One of The Kite Runner sets the tone for the entire novel. Before we know
anything about the protagonist, including his name, we learn that one moment in his past has
defined his entire life. This tells us that the event has significance beyond its detail; it is not so
much specifically the rape, but more generally the betrayal, that makes that moment in time so
central to Amir's life. We also discover in the short first chapter that Amir has been trying to
forget his secret for the last twenty-six years. His betrayal of Hassan haunts him continually
throughout his life, but it is not until he is 'caught' that it spurs him to action-and then, very
reluctantly. When Amir thinks he is alone with his secret, he can pretend it does not exist. Once
he finds out that Rahim Khan knows what he did, he cannot hide from it anymore. Khaled
Hosseini makes extensive use of foreshadowing in The Kite Runner, including Baba's statement,
"God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into [the religious fundamentalists'] hands," which
anticipates the Taliban's takeover decades later. Hosseini's use of foreshadowing connects him to
the genre of magical realism. Even though there are no supernatural events in the novel, there is
an underlying sense that every action has significance and must come full circle.
These two novels have something in common. Both imply the past, and the wish to
change it. The difference is that in "The old man and the sea" Santiago can't accept the fact that
he couldn't change the past and he always try, while in "The kite runner" Amir accepted his past
and thinks that the most important is the present.
These two works differ in their genre. The first is a tragedy and the second is a family
and war drama.
However these novels were best-sellers and great works that will always be on the list of
books read in a lifetime.

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