A very short story (with a few vocab words thrown in)

The insomniac was truly having a hard time sleeping that night. He was the embodiment of the idea that you can’t sleep well if you are criminal. Many thought he was lacking in intellectual ability, a real cretin, though this term is a bit ugly. We should perhaps chastise those who use it, though certainly the insomniac criminal deserves punishment too. It would be presumptuous of us to claim that we know more than we do know. Perhaps he isn’t a criminal. Who snickered in the back? We won’t have any laughter here. The criminal himself is like a relic from an older time: a throwback to a by-gone era, like old pottery found at an archeological site. I don’t mean to be dismissive, but he’s not a very good criminal. It’s just hard to take him seriously. His incessant stealing is a problem. It will permeate everything he does, as a terrible stench permeates the room long after the source has been removed. There is no way to reduce the offensiveness, no palliative that will make everything better. The criminal obliges us to arrest him. The ensuing trial will be very entertaining. It won’t take place in a posh atmosphere either – the courtroom is not fancy at all. But we have to be wary of the criminal. He could get away before we know it. Perhaps we’ll find him years later, withered like an old corn husk in the hot summer heat.

Kiterunner Vocabulary

Here is the vocabulary for the rest of the novel. Let's get busy!:

• Chapters Eight-Ten: pp. 70-108 lumbering, insomniac, embodiment, bazaar, drone, shrouded, withered, stench

• Chapters Eleven-Twelve: pp. 109-144 cretin, permeate, cardamom, tarpaulin, suitor, carcinoma, palliative, metastasized, chastise

• Chapters Thirteen-Sixteen: pp. 145-187 posh, ensuing, incessant, chuff, presumptuous

• Chapters Seventeen-Twenty-one: 188-238 wary, oblivion, dismissive, snickered, burlap, relic, obliges, haphazardly, hunkered

• Chapters Twenty-two to Twenty-three: tote, morbidly, calloused, hemorrhage, paunchy

• Chapters Twenty-four to Twenty-five: irrevocably, teeming, turmoil, insomniac, epiphany, eccentric

Homework for Friday

Answer the following questions on loose leaf to be turned in on Friday:

1. What is revealed about Hassan in the letters ? How do they make Amir feel?

2. Describe Farhid. How does he treat Amir and why?

Literary Elements and Devices

Take a look at this website. It's going to be crucial for the class. The site contains a run-down of the main literary elements and devices. You'll be expected to know these, to be able to identify them readily, and to understand how they fit together in a work of literature. To get the difference between literary elements and literary devices, think of it this way: literary elements are like the elements on the periodic chart -- they're the building blocks that are required to build stories; literary devices are the techniques, the ways, in other words, that authors make their points to readers, to shake them up, to wake them up, to make them want to read on.