Abstract
The term “Pashtun” is an ethnonym, idealized for its association with bravery,
dignity, love of honour, and hospitality. However, the term began to lose its ideal
shades after 9/11. The cause has its connection with violence, misogynist attitude,
suicide, and terrorism erroneously attributed to it in the print and non-print media
of the West. This paper is an attempt to analyze the pictures as presented in the
works of three literary writers: Rudyard Kipling, Ghani Khan and Khaled Hosseini.
Both Kipling and Khan are drawn to the positive aspects of the ethnonym with
their focus on the concepts of heroism, hospitality, sense of honour, dignity, and
other socially productive constructs. However, the picture in Hosseini’s novels:
The Kite Runner (2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (2005), And the Mountains
Echoed (2014) is dark and discouraging, prompting one to study both as social or
environmental constructs that change their meanings under the influence of the
forces controlled by the media, politics, and socio-economic conditions. The focal
objective of the research is to strike a balance between the pre and- post
9/11 scenarios, in search of reinventing a new and objective image, one may say.
