Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Physical geography has a major influence to the story. The themes of geography that mainly pertain to the story are Place, Human/ Environmental Interactions, and Movement. Place can have physical and human characteristics. The physical geography of Afghanistan changed after the wars and the Taliban attacks. For example, before in the “old days the wind swept through the irrigated plains around Jalalabad where farmers grew sugar cane and the sweetness impregnated the air.” Now there were narrow road and dries up gutters. In Kabul when Hassan and Amir were young boys, they used to run up hills surrounded by Poplar and Pomegranate trees. Treetops could be seen poking from behind the houses as they played. Now most of the trees were gone used as wood for lumber to keep Taliban from hiding. Where before you could fins street vendors and restaurants, now there are only dusty roads, abandoned buildings, and beggars. The number of beggars and orphaned children increased after the wars. The change in this geographical sense changed the way of life of the Afghanis because now they were homeless because their houses were taken over by “guest” as the referred to the Taliban. They were left without jobs, ways of growing crops and providing for their families. The war left women and children husbandless and fatherless. Another theme of geography that pertains is movement. Because of the war, people were forced to relocate. Those that had money fled from Afghanistan. Baba and Amir left from Kabul to Jalalabad and into a foreign country, America, in hope of a better future. In Afghanistan they were the aristocratic class and in America they became the working class.

The following ethnic groups represented in Kite Runner are Afghans, Pakistan’s, Arabs, Palestinian, Iranians, Russians, and Germans. The major ethnic groups represented are the Afghans’ divided into two major groups, the Hazara’s and the Pashtuns, and the Pakistanis. The Hazara’s are outsiders according to