Male Gaze upon Gender Roles: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

Abstract

Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner is the depiction of masculine Afghan society where males bear the superior authority. In the novel, male characters like Amir, Baba, Rahim Khan and Assefare in the main roles who make discourses on gender role that masculinity is greater than femininity. As discourse is created by society with the use of language, Hosseini’s characters also make manipulative use of language to claim masculinity as the superior gender and a person must have masculine characters to be a real man. The research takes various dialogues and speeches of characters in the novel as discourse created by them, especially males, and makes precise analysis of it to investigate the intention of such characters. The novel is analysed from different theoretical perspectives but the analysis of its language through Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate the gender roles is untouched. This research makes analysis of The Kite Runner through Critical Discourse Analysis and investigates how Hosseini’s characters have manipulated the language to readdress the stereotypical gender roles, keeping masculinity at the superior position of it. Key Words: discourse, language, gender roles, naming, prioritizing, ideology, manipulation