The Kite Fighters

Park uses speech as a lens through which to view social hierarchy. Compare and contrast how the Lee brothers struggle to speak to each other after Lee Kee-sup’s capping ceremony and their interactions with the King.

How do the trials and successes of kite-making reveal characteristics of the two brothers? How would the dynamics change if their traits were reversed?

What inequalities does the novel suggest about Korean society during the Joseon period? How are these inequalities illustrated? Focus on inequalities outside the birth order between the Lee brothers. In what other ways is the society rigid in its beliefs?

What else does Young-sup’s winning prove, and to whom? Craft an epilogue to The Kite Fighters that focuses on how things change for Young-sup and Kee-sup after the competition to illustrate your argument.

Young-sup struggles with the new reverence expected of him after his brother’s capping ceremony. How does his attitude toward their new dynamic change by the end of the novel? What does it demonstrate about his relationship with Kee-sup? What does it demonstrate about the society as a whole?

How do Kee-sup’s kite decorations symbolize the kites’ respective owners? What could the colors, materials, and designs symbolize and why?

Young-sup is initially distraught when he learns that Kee-sup helped him win the wager with Kite Maker Chung. What do Kee-sup’s actions (and their father’s reactions) reveal? Why does Young-sup respond in a negative manner at first?

How does the Lee father show his affection for his sons throughout the narrative? What does his behavior during the final kite match reflect? How does he change over the course of the novel and in what ways?