The Child's Perspective in To Kill a Mockingbird and The Kite Runner

Abstract

This thesis will explore how adult fiction invites empathy in the reader and lets the reader experience and learn through reading. I will look at how adult fiction narrated through the child’s perspective invites the reader to an empathetic reflection. By using The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I will identify how narrative techniques are used in order to promote empathy. Novels influenced by the child’s perspective might encourage an empathetic reflection of unfamiliar social conflicts and promote an understanding of otherness and other cultures. Chapter 1 will look at narration in To Kill a Mockingbird, and how the narrator takes advantage of the space between the narrating self and the experiencing self. The child focalizer is limited in terms of knowledge and does not understand all aspects of the society she is set within. The reader is allowed to partake in Scout’s developmental process as she learns to see past prejudices and understands how social code is constructed. The access to Scout’s mind might encourage an empathetic reflection of this process. Chapter 2 will examine how the narrator in The Kite Runner functions as an important element in how the novel invites to an empathetic reflection of Amir’s relationship to his father and the Afghan society presented in the novel. Furthermore, the relationship between Pashtuns and Hazaras is portrayed through the narrative perspective, and the dynamics in the relationship between Amir and Hassan reflects the conflict between moral responsibility and social code. By looking at narrative techniques in the novel it is possible to understand how the child’s perspective promotes empathy.