Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Select Two Passages and Discuss Hosseini's use of Seasons

Passages of reference: 6, 7, 12 and 25

Chapter 6:
  • P42 - "Winter" is structurally alone at the start of chapter six, this signifies its importance as it is the winter the reader is built up to (reference page 2, "winter of 1975). The word winter is then repeated many times in it's description; this builds suspense of what is to come later.
  • P42 - "Snow" can be seen to symbolise Hassan's Purity; "Snow so white my eyes burn", syntactically this sentence is worded oddly which can be seen to signify its importance as it can also foreshadow what is to come.
  • P43 - "The chill between me and Baba thawed a little", this juxtaposition between snow melting in the winter represents the schism in the relationship as being awkward.
Chapter 7:
  • P69 - "Those tiny drops that fell from between his legs and stained the snow black" can be seen to do three things:
    • Ruin the purity which Hassan has.
    • If it had happened during the summer when everything was dull in colour there would be less emphasis than there is with snow.
Chapter 25:
  • P324 - "First flake melting" this indicates Amir's redemption through rescuing Sohrab and standing up to the General Tahiri which links back to how it all started, in the snow; showing the reader the journey.
Chapter 12:
  • P125 - Involves the idea of "Yelda" which is not a season in its self but is the "first night of winter". It can be argued that the idea of a long night and the setting of winter could be seen as romantic emphasising Amir's feelings. On the other hand "Starless night tormenting lovers" can be seen as the complete opposite of romantic; painstaking, this idea makes us feel a slight amount of sympathy towards Amir as every night of the week became Yelda for him.

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