Linguistic Analysis of Redemption in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner Through a Critical Discourse Approach

Abstract

Redemption, as a response to guilt and a path toward self-realization, is a fundamental theme in human narratives. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini poignantly explores this theme through the protagonist’s moral conflict, internal struggle, and eventual journey toward atonement. While prior studies have predominantly examined the novel through psychological and literary lenses, this paper adopts a linguistic perspective by applying van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). It investigates how discourse constructs and negotiates guilt, moral responsibility, and redemption through social actor representation, role allocation, and inclusion/exclusion strategies across Amir’s narration, inner monologue, and dialogue. The analysis reveals that linguistic techniques such as association, passivation, and categorization play a pivotal role in shaping the protagonist’s moral transformation. By foregrounding the role of discourse in constructing ethical identity, this study offers a novel contribution to both literary linguistics and trauma narratives. It also adds to global scholarly conversations on how language mediates reconciliation and recovery in postcolonial and transnational fiction.

1. Introduction

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (Hosseini 2003) portrays Afghanistan’s turbulent socio-political landscape from the late 1970s through the Taliban’s rise and eventual collapse, a period that reshaped the nation’s destiny (Du 2017; Xayatovna and Abdurasulovna 2025). Set against this backdrop of war, displacement, and political upheaval, the novel examines the fragile boundary between friendship and betrayal, exploring how guilt and moral failure can be confronted through acts of redemption (Çevik 2022). At its heart is Amir, a privileged Pashtun who fails to protect his Hazara friend Hassan during a brutal assault, an omission that haunts him even after emigrating to the United States. Beyond a personal coming-of-age story, the novel also functions as a political allegory, reflecting the deep psychological scars of violence, loss, and exile (Bhat 2015; Hosseini and Zohdi 2016).

While redemption is a universal human concern (Çevik 2022; Du 2017), most existing studies of The Kite Runner (Magsi et al. 2024; Ahmed and Saeed 2022) approach it through literary or psychological perspectives. Few have examined how the novel’s language itself enacts redemption and shapes the moral arc of the protagonist. This study addresses that gap by applying van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model (van Leeuwen 2008) within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) to analyze how social actors, roles, and acts of inclusion or exclusion are represented in Amir’s narration, internal monologues, and dialogue.

By focusing on linguistic strategies rather than thematic interpretation alone, this paper contributes a fresh perspective to existing scholarship, showing how discourse actively encodes guilt, moral conflict, and the protagonist’s gradual transformation. This aligns with Phelan’s (2005) view that first-person narration is not only a medium of storytelling but also a rhetorical act that shapes readers’ ethical alignment with the narrator. Amir’s shifting self-presentation, from defensive avoidance to moral reckoning, reflects such evolving rhetorical positioning. This approach also enriches broader discussions in the humanities about the relationship between language, identity, and postcolonial trauma.

The study is guided by the following research questions:

• How do linguistic strategies mediate the key themes of guilt, moral conflict, and redemption in The Kite Runner?
• How are social actors represented through discursive strategies such as role allocation, inclusion, and exclusion?
• What specific linguistic patterns illustrate the protagonist’s psychological and moral transformation from guilt toward redemption?

2. Literature Review

The Kite Runner has inspired diverse critical interpretations, notably as a political allegory reflecting Afghanistan’s struggles within broader contemporary geopolitical dynamics. Saraswat (2014) defines redemption as salvation from sin, error, or evil—a state most urgently sought by those burdened with guilt. It entails rescuing a soul led astray by human flaws such as greed or lust, or by the influence of destructive external forces. A defining feature of redemption narratives is the presence of a morally compromised protagonist, driven toward spiritual ruin, and a redemptive figure—often an innocent child—whose actions catalyze the protagonist’s ethical awakening. Previous scholarship has examined the novel’s redemption arc primarily through literary and psychological lenses (Çevik 2022; Dewani 2021; Du 2017; Saraswat 2014; Xayatovna and Abdurasulovna 2025), focusing on character development, narrative techniques, and inner conflict to illuminate the complexities of guilt and transformation.

Jefferess (2009) interprets The Kite Runner as a political allegory engaging with global humanitarian ethics, suggesting that Amir’s personal journey toward redemption symbolically mirrors Afghanistan’s national struggle for recovery after decades of foreign intervention and internal conflict. This reading highlights the novel’s ethical imperative of empathy and its critique of racial, religious, and national divisions. Similarly, Saraswat (2014) analyzes Amir’s fractured identity, arguing that his guilt over betraying Hassan generates profound psychological unrest that persists despite his privileged life in the United States, intensifying upon his return to a war-torn homeland.

O’Brien (2018) expands this perspective by reading the novel as an allegory of global inequalities through the lens of trauma. The narrative destabilizes dominant East–West migration discourses and exposes the silencing of postcolonial identities. Trauma—embodied not only in Hassan but also in Sohrab—becomes a metaphor for Afghanistan’s collective suffering as a nation seeking recognition within an imperialist world order. Xayatovna and Abdurasulovna (2025) further explore how morality and loneliness are shaped by Afghan socio-historical realities in both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, illustrating how individual pain often reflects broader systemic oppression, while female resilience emerges through solidarity and sacrifice.

Building on these insights, the present study offers both theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, it extends the application of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) to literary discourse, demonstrating how linguistic strategies construct a protagonist’s moral evolution (Mahmood 2021). Practically, it underscores the power of language in shaping redemption narratives, offering pedagogical implications for literature and discourse studies. By bridging literary and linguistic approaches, this research advances scholarly conversations on morality, identity, and postcolonial trauma in contemporary fiction.

3. Discussion

The findings of this study indicate that shifts from passive suppression to active role allocation are integral to charting Amir’s moral transformation. This change operates not only as a thematic device but also as a discursive mechanism, embedded in the novel’s syntax and semantics, that signals his movement from detachment to agency. Viewed through van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model, variations in naming, activation, and association of social actors map the trajectory of Amir’s evolving ethical stance.

What emerges is that redemption in The Kite Runner is not purely psychological or thematic; it is discursively constructed through clause structures, pronoun use, and strategies of association and dissociation. Early in the text, Amir’s silence and impersonal constructions reinforce distance from moral responsibility. Later, first-person active clauses signal self-acknowledgement and accountability. A similar discursive arc appears in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, where Sethe’s shift from the passive “It was all I could do” to the active “I will never run from another thing on this earth” reflects the reclamation of agency. Both Sethe and Amir move from syntactic erasure of the self to explicit self-reference, signaling a moral re-entry into the social world.

The novel’s treatment of father–son relationships deepens this linguistic and thematic transformation. Amir’s need for Baba’s approval informs his early betrayals, while Baba’s own moral contradictions complicate the inheritance of guilt. Comparable patterns are evident in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, where Estha’s muteness after trauma functions as linguistic exclusion akin to Amir’s early narrative suppression. Rahel’s later acts of naming and remembering restore sibling solidarity, much as Amir’s later association with Sohrab repairs fractured kinship bonds. In both cases, the act of telling and the choice of linguistic form become a restorative gesture.

Seen through this lens, The Kite Runner constructs redemption not simply as a sequence of events but as a discursive negotiation between silence, speech, and narrative authority. The narrative’s retrospective structure, rich in confession and moral reckoning, mirrors the ethical burden of witnessing and remembering. This finds resonance in Beloved’s fragmented chronology, where the disjunctions of language enact the instability of memory, and in The God of Small Things’ nonlinear syntax, where temporal shifts mirror the piecing together of a fractured self. Herman’s (1992) stages of trauma recovery: safety, remembrance, and reconnection, offer a useful psychological frame for understanding Amir’s arc. His linguistic progression from exclusion to association parallels the survivor’s movement from silence toward restored relational bonds.

Finally, Amir’s personal redemption resonates with broader postcolonial struggles for identity and moral restitution. His journey parallels the recovery of nations scarred by war, exile, and ethnic division, aligning with Bhabha’s (1994) concept of the “location of culture” as a contested space where identity, guilt, and historical memory intersect. The shift from linguistic exclusion to discursive inclusion mirrors not only the protagonist’s moral awakening but also the possibility of reconstructing ethical communities within fractured postcolonial landscapes.

4. Methods

This study adopts a qualitative research approach grounded in descriptive and textual analysis to explore how language constructs the protagonist’s journey of guilt and redemption in The Kite Runner. The analysis is framed within the theoretical lens of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), which examines how language reflects and shapes social relationships, power structures, and embedded ideologies.

The selected data for analysis consist of key narrative excerpts—including dialogues, internal monologues, and narrative descriptions that exemplify shifts in the protagonist Amir’s moral identity. These excerpts were purposively chosen based on their relevance to moments of guilt, moral conflict, or redemptive action.

4.1. Theoretical Framework: Van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Model

The discourse analysis is guided by van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model (van Leeuwen 2008), which provides a robust framework for examining how individuals and groups are represented in discourse. The model identifies six core strategies through which language encodes identity and agency. The key strategies identified in this model are highlighted in

Table 1. van Leeuwen’s social actor representation strategies in Critical Discourse Studies.

Strategy	Description
Inclusion and Exclusion	Actors may be omitted (suppression) or indirectly referenced (backgrounding), affecting how responsibility and agency are assigned.
Role Allocation	Social actors are depicted either as active participants (activation) or passive recipients (passivation) of actions.
Genericization and Specification	Actors may be presented generally (e.g., “children”) or specifically (e.g., “Hassan”).
Association and Dissociation	Actors can be grouped together or separated, indicating unity or division.
Nomination and Categorization	Individuals can be named directly (e.g., “Amir”) or described by category (e.g., “a servant’s son”), shaping their social identity.
Functionalization and Identification	Actors may be defined by their roles or occupations (functionalization) or by social attributes/group memberships (identification).

.

While this model has been extensively applied to media (Machin and Mayr 2013), political discourse (Reisigl and Wodak 2009), and educational content (Rashidi and Rasti 2012), its use in literary discourse—particularly in trauma and postcolonial narratives—is still emerging. Recent studies such as Ashrafi, Ranjbar, and Parsa (Ashrafi et al. 2023) and Ahmad, Jamil, and Javed (Ahmad et al. 2022) demonstrate the model’s effectiveness in uncovering ideological and moral subtexts in fiction, particularly in post-conflict or culturally embedded narratives.

4.2. Analytical Procedure

Using this framework, the study conducts close textual readings of selected passages from the novel, analyzing how the protagonist and supporting characters are represented discursively at different narrative junctures. The analysis is structured to trace the protagonist’s shift from moral avoidance to ethical responsibility, examining how specific linguistic constructions such as exclusion, passivation, dissociation, and nomination reflect deeper psychological and social transformations.

The goal is to show how The Kite Runner uses discourse not only to narrate events but to negotiate ideologies of guilt, redemption, and reconciliation, thereby enriching our understanding of how language mediates moral identity in postcolonial literature.

5. Data Analysis and Findings

The findings of this study reveal that exclusion and functionalization dominate early narration, constructing Amir as a detached observer, whereas later passages shift toward association and activation, signaling his movement toward moral agency. By applying van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model, the analysis identifies how specific discourse strategies including exclusion, role allocation, association, and categorization construct Amir’s shifting identity across key moments in The Kite Runner. These linguistic patterns illuminate the protagonist’s transformation from a passive observer of violence and injustice to an active agent of atonement and moral responsibility. Through a detailed examination of narrative choices, this section unpacks how discourse not only reflects Amir’s psychological state but also reproduces and challenges social ideologies such as ethnic hierarchy, guilt, and the struggle for redemption.

5.1. Exclusion

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the discursive strategy of exclusion is employed to suppress agency and obscure responsibility in moments of moral crisis, particularly during Hassan’s assault. Amir’s recollection, “I watched Hassan get raped. I said nothing. Just stood there,” illustrates how exclusion is embedded in the narrative structure, shaping both Amir’s self-representation and Hassan’s portrayal as a victim.

Initially, exclusion operates through passive construction and omission of the perpetrator’s agency. The phrase “get raped” lacks an explicit subject, erasing Assef’s role in the violence. This aligns with van Leeuwen’s notion of suppression, in which social actors are deliberately removed from representation. By avoiding the active form (“Assef raped Hassan”), the narrative linguistically distances Amir from directly naming the act or its perpetrator, creating a space where culpability remains unassigned.

Exclusion is also evident in Amir’s depiction of his own inaction. The clause “I said nothing” focuses on silence rather than potential intervention, emphasizing absence over agency. This choice of wording minimizes his responsibility and reinforces a portrayal of passivity. Similarly, Hassan is reduced to the role of an object in the clause “watched Hassan get raped”, where he is not afforded voice or agency but exists only as the recipient of violence. This backgrounding of Hassan’s individuality further illustrates how exclusionary discourse dehumanizes victims and reflects societal hierarchies that strip marginalized figures of subjecthood.

As the story unfolds, this linguistic pattern of exclusion becomes central to understanding Amir’s enduring guilt. The omission of agency and reliance on passive, detached structures mirrors his internal avoidance and moral evasion. By failing to name perpetrators or acknowledge his potential for action, Amir linguistically constructs a version of events that protects him from immediate blame yet perpetuates psychological distance and unresolved remorse.

In essence, Hosseini’s use of exclusion in this scene is not merely a stylistic choice but a powerful discursive tool. Through suppressed agency, backgrounded victims, and passive constructions, the narrative encodes the ethical consequences of silence and complicity. This linguistic strategy establishes the foundation for Amir’s later struggle for redemption, highlighting how language itself can function as a mechanism for avoiding, concealing, and ultimately confronting moral responsibility.

5.2. Role Allocation

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the narrative intricately weaves the discursive strategy of role allocation to depict Amir’s evolution from a passive observer to an active agent of change. Initially, Amir is characterized by his inaction and detachment, particularly evident in his recounting of traumatic events. For instance, his reflection, “Things happened to Hassan. And he took it,” underscores a deliberate distancing, assigning passivity to both himself and Hassan. This linguistic choice not only minimizes Amir’s own culpability but also reinforces the entrenched power dynamics and social hierarchies between the privileged Pashtun and the marginalized Hazara.

As the narrative progresses, Amir’s journey towards redemption is marked by a significant shift in his linguistic and behavioral stance. Confronted with the opportunity to atone, he asserts, “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to be the man Baba wanted me to be.” Here, the active construction of the sentence highlights Amir’s assumption of responsibility and his conscious choice to act, signaling a departure from his earlier passivity. This transformation is not merely thematic but is intricately embedded within the linguistic structures of the novel, illustrating how language reflects and facilitates character development.

Furthermore, Amir’s active role culminates in his confrontation with Assef to rescue Sohrab, a stark contrast to his earlier inaction during Hassan’s assault. This pivotal moment underscores Amir’s full embrace of agency, as he willingly endures physical harm to protect another, embodying the moral courage he previously lacked. Through this act, Amir not only seeks personal redemption but also challenges the societal norms that once dictated his behavior.

In essence, Hosseini employs role allocation as a powerful discursive tool to chart Amir’s internal metamorphosis. By transitioning from passive constructions that denote avoidance and complicity to active ones that signify accountability and change, the narrative underscores the profound impact of personal choice in the face of moral dilemmas. This linguistic evolution mirrors Amir’s path to redemption, highlighting the intricate interplay between language, identity, and ethical responsibility.

5.3. Association and Dissociation

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the discursive strategy of association and dissociation is central to the construction of Amir’s evolving relationships and moral stance. Initially, Amir’s language reflects emotional detachment and societal prejudice, creating distance between himself and Hassan. Over time, his discourse shifts toward solidarity and intimacy, marking a gradual movement toward reconciliation and moral growth.

Early in the narrative, dissociation is linguistically realized through categorical nouns, modifiers, and the absence of personal deixis. Amir’s remark, “He was just a Hazara,” employs the downtoner “just” to minimize Hassan’s worth and the indefinite article plus noun “a Hazara” to reduce him to a type rather than an individual. The copular clause separates Hassan’s identity from personal connection, while the lack of his name foregrounds social division over friendship. This aligns with van Leeuwen’s notion of dissociation, in which linguistic categorization constructs distance and legitimizes entrenched ethnic hierarchies between the privileged Pashtun and the marginalized Hazara.

Later in the novel, association emerges as Amir attempts to repair his past betrayal. When he echoes Hassan’s earlier words, “For you, a thousand times over,” the second-person pronoun “you” and the repetition of Hassan’s phrasing break down previous barriers, constructing emotional closeness and solidarity. The active verbal structure of promise and dedication replaces earlier impersonal references, signaling Amir’s moral realignment and growing empathy towards Hassan.

This linguistic progression demonstrates a shift from detached, impersonal categorization to direct, affective engagement. Dissociation operates through modifiers that downgrade Hassan’s individuality and emphasize social stratification, whereas association uses personal deixis and repetition to restore intimacy and connection. In van Leeuwen’s terms, the narrative charts a movement from discursive separation to discursive alliance, illustrating how language actively enacts Amir’s ethical transformation and journey towards redemption.

5.4. Functionalization and Identification

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the discursive strategy of functionalization and identification constructs Hassan’s identity primarily through roles, attributes, and inherited status, rather than recognizing him as an autonomous individual. This strategy is linguistically realized through definite articles, adjectival modifiers, transitivity patterns, and relational possessives, which collectively reduce Hassan to a social function or lineage-based label.

Early in the narrative, Amir repeatedly refers to Hassan as “the harelipped kite runner.” The definite article “the” positions Hassan as a singular yet impersonal figure defined by function, while the compound noun “kite runner” assigns him a task-based identity rather than personal agency. The adjective “harelipped” highlights a physical trait, transforming identity into a deficit marker. These linguistic choices depersonalize Hassan, aligning with van Leeuwen’s functionalization, where individuals are represented by what they do or what marks them physically, not who they are.

This functionalization is reinforced through transitivity patterns that place Hassan as an object rather than subject of action, as in Amir’s statement: “I let Hassan do the running.” The material process verb “let” assigns Amir control over the action while Hassan remains a dependent participant, foregrounding hierarchy and subordination within their relationship.

Identification operates similarly, classifying Hassan by inherited social position rather than individuality. Phrases like “the servant’s son” use possessive relational structures to link Hassan to servitude, defining him through family lineage and perpetuating societal stratification. This reflects van Leeuwen’s identification strategy, where actors are defined by categorical or relational attributes instead of personal names or unique qualities.

Later in the novel, Amir’s discourse undergoes a significant shift, as he begins to refer to Hassan with personal naming and kinship deixis, e.g., “Hassan, my brother.” The vocative use of his name and possessive “my” restore intimacy and individuality, linguistically undoing earlier objectification. This transition from functionalization to personal identification signals Amir’s moral awakening and the discursive restoration of Hassan’s dignity and agency, paralleling his broader journey toward redemption.

5.5. Personalization and Impersonalization

The concept of personalization versus impersonalization plays a significant role in The Kite Runner, particularly in illustrating Amir’s internalization—and eventual deconstruction—of discriminatory discourse. In the excerpt, “I knew all about the Hazaras. My teachers said they were only good for cleaning,” the teachers’ sweeping generalization impersonalizes the Hazara community, stripping individuals like Hassan of specificity and humanity. This impersonalization functions linguistically to enforce a racialized hierarchy, presenting Hazaras as a faceless, servile class.

Amir’s repetition of this discourse, “I knew all about…”, reveals how such ideologies are absorbed uncritically during childhood. His language reflects inherited prejudice and the ways in which social power structures become internalized through educational and cultural discourse. By presenting Hazaras in generalized, dehumanized terms, Amir unconsciously distances himself from Hassan, despite their emotional closeness.

However, the narrative gradually reveals a shift. As Amir matures and confronts the consequences of his silence and betrayal, his language evolves. He begins to refer to Hassan not through collective stereotypes but through personalized, affective terms, reflecting recognition of Hassan’s individuality and the depth of their shared history. This linguistic move from impersonal abstraction to personal connection marks a crucial step in Amir’s ethical development.

Thus, the personalization of Hassan mirrors Amir’s moral awakening. The transformation in discourse from generalized prejudice to intimate recognition demonstrates how language not only reflects but actively shapes the protagonist’s redemptive journey. In this way, The Kite Runner foregrounds the ethical stakes of language: to name, to humanize, and to reconcile.

5.6. Overdetermination

In The Kite Runner, overdetermination operates through conjunction and disjunction, linking or separating Amir’s self-representations in ways that linguistically encode guilt and moral conflict. This strategy is realized through metaphorical noun phrases, repetition, and syntactic parallelism, which amplify his self-loathing and illustrate his fragmented identity.

One example appears in the line: “I had been the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake.” Here, the conjunction connects two metaphorical noun phrases (snake in the grass, monster in the lake), stacking negative identities within a single clause. The use of the past perfect tense (“had been”) linguistically positions these identities as enduring yet retrospective, signaling long-standing internalized guilt. The metaphors employ animalistic and monstrous imagery, depersonalizing Amir and framing him as a dangerous other, linguistically mirroring his self-accusation for past betrayals.

Disjunction, by contrast, appears later when Amir reflects, “That was the old me. I am different now.” The shift from past tense “was” to present tense “am” creates temporal and ethical separation between his former and current self. Through parallel syntactic structure but contrasting copular verbs, Amir linguistically constructs a boundary that allows partial redemption, signaling an ongoing process of self-redefinition.

This pattern demonstrates van Leeuwen’s notion of overdetermination, where multiple role assignments (snake, monster, betrayer) compound guilt, while later disjunctive clauses attempt to reallocate agency and rebuild moral identity. The linguistic structures do not merely describe emotions but enact Amir’s ethical struggle, showing how discourse functions as a site of self-interrogation and tentative transformation.

5.7. Genericization and Specification

Genericization and specification in The Kite Runner work through quantifiers, plural nouns, and definite naming, shaping emotional proximity and moral accountability. These strategies highlight how Amir’s language either distances him from or brings him closer to individual experiences of suffering, particularly in his encounters with children affected by war.

In the line “There are a lot of children in the orphanage,” the use of the indefinite quantifier (“a lot of”) and plural generic noun (“children”) presents them as an undifferentiated collective. This linguistic choice erases individuality, creating emotional detachment and signaling Amir’s initial discomfort in confronting the consequences of social injustice. The lack of specific reference suppresses personal responsibility, aligning with van Leeuwen’s concept of genericization, where actors are represented broadly to depersonalize or background moral ties.

This changes when Amir meets Sohrab and declares, “This is Sohrab.” The use of the deictic “this” combined with personal naming specifies the child’s identity, foregrounding his personhood and creating immediacy in the interaction. The shift from collective plural to singular proper noun linguistically rehumanizes the victim, moving Amir from detached observer to engaged protector. The sentence structure changes from existential (“there are”) to relational identification (“this is”), signaling a shift toward recognition and emotional connection.

According to van Leeuwen, this transition from genericization to specification represents a discursive narrowing of focus that restores agency to previously backgrounded actors. Linguistically, Amir’s redemption is enacted through naming and individuation, as discourse evolves from distancing abstraction to personal acknowledgment of guilt and responsibility.

5.8. Nomination and Categorization

Nomination and categorization in The Kite Runner are central to how ethnic and social identities are linguistically constructed, shaping Amir’s understanding of himself and others. These strategies are realized through parallel syntactic structures, categorical nouns, and absence of personal deixis, which reinforce social divisions rather than personal connection.

A clear example occurs in Amir’s statement: “I was Sunni, and he was Shi’a. I was Pashtun, and he was Hazara.” Here, nomination explicitly marks religious and ethnic identities through copular clauses (I was… he was…), directly assigning actors to fixed social categories. The repeated coordinator “and” syntactically separates each identity, constructing a series of binary oppositions that emphasize difference over similarity. This reinforces entrenched ethnic hierarchies, aligning with van Leeuwen’s (2008) notion that nomination can mark inclusion and exclusion through explicit naming of group memberships.

Categorization is further realized using bare nouns (“Pashtun,” “Hazara”) without modifiers or personal identifiers, reducing identity to collective, inherited labels. The absence of first names or affective descriptors backgrounds individuality, replacing personal relationships with abstract social classifications. This linguistic choice not only encodes hierarchy but also reflects Amir’s internalization of societal prejudice, distancing him from Hassan despite their shared history.

Later in the narrative, Amir’s discourse shifts toward inclusive and relational naming, as seen when he refers to Hassan as “my brother.” The addition of the possessive determiner “my” reintroduces personal deixis, signaling a reclamation of kinship and empathy previously suppressed by categorical labeling. In van Leeuwen’s terms, this marks a move from categorization (social typecasting) to individualizing nomination, where actors are identified as unique persons embedded in emotional relationships.

Through these discursive shifts, The Kite Runner demonstrates how syntactic structure, lexical choices, and deixis not only reflect but actively shape social identity and moral transformation. The protagonist’s journey toward redemption is partly a linguistic one, moving from impersonal group-based categorization toward intimate, individualized recognition of shared humanity. This transition from functionalization to personal identification signals Amir’s moral awakening and the discursive restoration of Hassan’s dignity and agency.

Table 2. Linguistic realizations of redemption in The Kite Runner.

Strategy	Textual Example	Narrative Function
Exclusion	I said nothing	Evades moral responsibility
Role Allocation	One last chance to make a decision.	Regains moral agency
Association	For you, a thousand times over.	Signals emotional redemption
Functionalization	The harelipped kite runner.	Reduces identity to a social role
Nomination	I was Pashtun, and he was Hazara.	Emphasizes ethnic and class divisions
Personalization	For you, a thousand times over. (repeated)	Moves from emotional distance to moral intimacy
Overdetermination	I was the snake in the grass…	Accumulates self-blame through metaphor
Specification	This is Sohrab.	Personalizes guilt by naming

illustrates this shift, highlighting how functional labels evolve into personal naming to mark ethical transformation.

5.9. Language, Trauma, and Redemption in Comparative Context

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner intricately explores the dynamics of guilt, moral conflict, and redemption through the linguistic representation of its protagonist, Amir. The analysis demonstrates that language in the novel functions as more than a medium of storytelling; it is the very mechanism through which Amir’s moral identity is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed. Through the deployment of discourse strategies such as exclusion, role allocation, and association, the narrative encodes Amir’s psychological transformation, illustrating how personal guilt is gradually replaced by agency and ethical accountability.

This process is emblematic of how moral identity is constructed in postcolonial trauma narratives more broadly. In such works, protagonists often navigate a complex terrain of historical violence, inherited guilt, and fractured belonging. Language, as theorized in Critical Discourse Studies (Fairclough and Wodak 1997; van Dijk 2001), becomes the site where these tensions are made visible. In The Kite Runner, Amir’s evolving selfhood is linguistically marked by shifts from passivation to activation, from impersonal references to intimate, affective speech acts. This trajectory parallels the broader socio-historical arc of postcolonial nations seeking moral restitution after years of trauma, displacement, and cultural rupture.

The use of van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model allows us to see how Amir’s moral journey is shaped by shifting narrative roles from passive witness to active redeemer. Early in the novel, Hassan is discursively backgrounded, stripped of voice and agency, while Amir’s narration omits responsibility through suppressive structures. However, as Amir reclaims his agency in rescuing Sohrab, the discourse shifts toward association and personalization, re-establishing moral proximity and ethical presence. This linguistic movement maps onto the psychological process of redemption, showing how discourse both reflects and enables moral transformation.

Redemption, as portrayed in The Kite Runner, is not a singular cathartic moment but an extended and arduous process of moral negotiation. This interpretation holds cross-cultural resonance. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), Sethe’s trauma and guilt over infanticide are mediated through fragmented language and ghostly repetition: “It was not a story to pass on.” The paradoxical phrasing enacts the impossibility of silence and the compulsion to retell, echoing Amir’s oscillation between suppression (“I said nothing”) and confession.

Similarly, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997) encodes trauma through euphemisms and nonlinear narration, as when the narrator reflects, “Things can change in a day,” masking unspeakable violence under the guise of inevitability. Both texts, like The Kite Runner, employ fragmentation, indirect reference, and shifts between impersonal and personal language to navigate guilt and societal oppression, showing how linguistic strategies mediate the confrontation with trauma.

These parallels demonstrate that while the cultural and historical contexts differ, postcolonial trauma narratives often rely on discourse to both articulate and resolve moral conflict. Redemption across cultures is frequently constructed through similar linguistic mechanisms: distancing through impersonalization, followed by reconciliation through personalization and active discourse roles. In Hosseini’s novel, these processes are embedded within Afghan-specific realities of ethnic stratification (Pashtun vs. Hazara), diasporic dislocation, and the legacy of authoritarian violence, all of which shape the linguistic texture of redemption.

The linguistic construction of guilt and redemption in The Kite Runner resonates with similar strategies in Beloved (Morrison 1987) and The God of Small Things (Roy 1997), underscoring the cross-cultural relevance of the analysis. In Beloved, Sethe’s recollection—“I will never run from another thing on this earth”—employs the future modal “will” and first-person agency to linguistically reassert control after an act of profound guilt. This mirrors Amir’s shift from passive constructions (“Things happened to Hassan”) to active, self-initiated ones (“I had one last chance to make a decision”), both signaling a reclamation of moral agency. In both narratives, the syntactic movement from agent omission to explicit first-person subject functions as a discursive re-entry into ethical responsibility, a process that van Leeuwen’s role allocation framework captures effectively.

Similarly, in The God of Small Things, the repetition in “Things can change in a day” encapsulates the compression of trauma into a single transformative moment. The nominalization “things” abstracts the cause, echoing Amir’s early avoidance strategies, where agency is suppressed through vague referents. Yet, like Hosseini’s protagonist, Roy’s characters eventually re-personalize trauma, shifting toward specific naming and relational deixis that re-establish human connection. This parallels the move from functionalization (“the harelipped kite runner”) to identification (“Hassan, my brother”), signaling a linguistic dismantling of social distance in favor of intimacy and reconciliation.

By integrating these intertextual comparisons, the study not only situates The Kite Runner within a broader postcolonial trauma discourse but also demonstrates how linguistic strategies of exclusion, association, and reallocation of agency operate across diverse cultural contexts. This comparative lens strengthens the claim that redemption in literature is not merely thematic but linguistically enacted, with CDA providing a replicable methodology for analyzing such transformations across texts.

6. Pedagogical and Practical Implications

The findings of this study offer valuable pedagogical insights, particularly for educators and curriculum designers in literature, language, and cultural studies. By highlighting how discourse shapes moral identity, social hierarchies, and personal transformation, this analysis encourages a more critical engagement with literary texts in classroom settings. Integrating Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) into literature instruction can help students move beyond surface-level interpretations and instead examine how language reflects societal ideologies and power dynamics. These linguistic insights are not only valuable for scholarship but also have clear classroom applications, providing tools for learners to critically engage with the moral and ideological dimensions of storytelling.

Practical Classroom Activity: One way to apply these findings is through a focused lesson on van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model. For instance, students could be presented with the passage “I watched Hassan get raped. I said nothing” and asked to identify strategies of exclusion and role allocation. A follow-up task might involve rewriting the passage to explicitly name the perpetrator or change the distribution of agency. This activity demonstrates how subtle shifts in linguistic representation can alter the moral weight of a narrative, fostering awareness of how language constructs power and responsibility.

High School vs. Undergraduate Application: At the high school level, simplified worksheets or guided prompts can help students answer basic questions such as “Who acts in this sentence?” or “Who is missing from the action?” This approach builds foundational skills in recognizing silence, omission, and bias in texts. At the undergraduate level, learners can engage in a more complex comparative analysis, examining excerpts from The Kite Runner, Beloved, and The God of Small Things to explore how language encodes trauma and redemption across different cultural contexts. This task encourages higher-order thinking and cross-textual connections, developing both critical literacy and intercultural empathy.

By embedding discourse analysis activities into literature classrooms, educators can encourage students to see texts not just as stories to be consumed but as socio-linguistic constructions that reflect and shape human experiences of guilt, trauma, and ethical transformation. This pedagogical approach bridges literary interpretation and linguistic inquiry, equipping learners with analytical tools to interrogate how language mediates power, morality, and identity in fiction.

7. Conclusions

This study extends existing scholarship on The Kite Runner by shifting the focus from thematic interpretations of guilt and redemption to a linguistic analysis of how redemption is constructed through discourse. Applying van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model within a Critical Discourse Studies framework, the analysis shows how strategies such as exclusion, role allocation, personalization, and functionalization linguistically map Amir’s progression from silence and complicity to moral agency and ethical accountability.

By foregrounding the syntactic and discursive mechanisms that shape Amir’s transformation, this research adds nuance to trauma narrative studies, demonstrating that redemption in postcolonial literature is not only a psychological or cultural phenomenon but also a linguistic achievement, enacted through agency distribution, verb choices, and shifts in narrative perspective. The findings illustrate how language encodes power dynamics, social hierarchies, and moral struggle, contributing to broader conversations on identity and reconciliation in postcolonial trauma fiction. From Giroux’s (2001) perspective, The Kite Runner operates as a site of cultural pedagogy, challenging dominant ideologies and fostering critical awareness of ethnic hierarchies and historical injustices.

Furthermore, this study offers pedagogical implications, providing a framework for teaching literature through discourse analysis. It demonstrates how van Leeuwen’s model can equip students with tools to critically examine how language constructs morality, guilt, and redemption in fictional texts, enabling deeper engagement with literature across cultural contexts.

Ultimately, this research underscores the value of combining linguistics and literary analysis to illuminate the ethical dimensions of storytelling, positioning discourse not merely as a medium of narration but as a key driver of moral transformation in The Kite Runner and similar postcolonial works.