Character Analysis Of Assef In The Kite Runnerf

While the two are having fun the infamous bullies of the neighbourhood show up: Assef, Wali and Kamal. Assef has fascist features and truly believes Afghanistan is for the Pashtuns, the true Afghan race, and not for the Hazaras. He wants to punish Hassan for being a Hazara and beat Amir for being a Hazara’s friend. At this moment Amir freezes and the only thing he can think about is saying that Hassan is his servant, not his friend. He doesn’t say it but he doesn’t have the courage to stand up for him and Hassan either. Hassan however, takes his slingshot when Assef puts on his brass knuckles and fends off the bullies. Amir is aware that if Baba will know about this incident, he would have been proud of Hassan, but be ashamed of Amir for not protecting Hassan and

Assef is the antagonist in The Kite Runner. Assef was a Pashtun whose father was friends with Baba. He was very against Hazaras and Pashtuns becoming friends so he picked on and bullied Hassan and Amir for that reason. Assef had a mindset similar to Hitler’s in the sense that he wanted to eliminate a race of people: the Hazaras. Assef views the Hazara people as worthless so when he takes advantage of Hassan, he feels no guilt because he does not think of him as human. One of Assef’s friends protests that raping someone is ‘sinful’ he replies saying, “there’s nothing sinful about teaching a lesson to a disrespectful… It’s just a Hazara.”(Hosseini80). Regardless of what Assef thought, Hassan was a person, and he lost his innocence when Assef raped him. This was illustrated when Amir describes Hassan’s face when he was being advantage of as, “the look of the lamb.”(Hosseini81). Throughout the novel, he remains a character with no conscience or remorse. Assef was the type of character who needs to feel in power over and victimizes the weak links. Later on in the novel when Amir goes

Quite the antithesis of Baba, an outspoken liberal, is Assef, best described in Hosseini’s eyes as a local radical. Radical not in his strict obedience to Islamic jurisprudence, but ironically in his dedication to the perversion of it, being a part of the Taliban that “reigned over years of theft, rape, murder and torture under the pretense of abiding by Islamic Law” (Sandstrom 2). He uses religion as nothing more than a pretext for the pathological cruelty he shows to others he deems more inferior, despising minorities like

It comes up in both the beginning, when he's introduced, and at the end when that's the only way Amir recognized him. In the book Amir describes Assef, saying, "Born to a German mother and Afghan father, the blond, blue-eyed Assef towered over the other kids" (Hosseini 38). This explains that Assef was designed to stand out because, unlike all the other kids who have dark brown hair and brown eyes, Assef has the complete opposite, blond hair, and blue eyes. Later at the end of the story, Amir runs into Assef again. If it wasn't for his eye color Amir would not have recognized him, "Then he took off his sunglasses and locked his bloodshot blue eyes on mine...His name escaped my lips: 'Assef" (Hosseini 281). This confirms that Hosseini knew that in Afghanistan, it's very rare to see someone with Assefs features. So, he gave them to Assef to show how he is different from the rest of the characters because he is the

In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses the archetype the villain, which can be seen in Assef. He lacks any emotions besides anger and rage and takes pleasure out of harming other people. Assef also has many similar traits at as a psychopath and sociopath. Assef’s mindset and thinking is very similar to Hitler's, he adores a monster like him. The main goal of the villain is to make the hero's life as miserable as possible. When Assef raped Hassan, this moment completely changed Amir and Hassan's relationship and caused Amir a significant amount of guilt towards Hassan. Assef, however is not a typical villain, but is the definition of pure

The first character Assef stayed in Afghanistan and some how adapted to the new political reality, which was actually quite suitable for his aggressive and sadistic-like character to develop. As a consequence Assef grew up from a bully of younger kids into a cruel and despotic member of the regime and continued to ruin lives of other people/

In life there are people that you could judge like a book, but others are morally ambiguous where you don’t know the other side to that story.In the book The Kite Runner there are many characters that are morally ambiguous which means the appear something but there a complete opposite. The Kite runner by Khaled Hosseini is an adventure book with many different characters. Some of those character are morally ambiguous. Zaman is the chacheter I will be talking about is a middle aged man that has a family later on in the novel you get to meet him, he appears to be good. But soon to come you learn a dark thing he is doing. Although he tries to reason with his bad doing.

He has traveled to Afghanistan to save his nephew he never knew. At this point Amir knows the dangers he faces in the war riddled country but he must seek a way to forgive himself for what he did to Hassan. In his quest to make things right again, Amir confronts Assef, ““WHAT’S SO FUNNY?" Assef bellowed. Another rib snapped, this time left lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this.” (Pg. 289) This is a large turning point in the novel. Amir can finally feel like he is doing right by everyone and gaining redemption for his

Both Hassan and Sohrab have gone through abuse at the hands of Assef, but Amir ends this cycle of abuse by rescuing Sohrab when he returns to Kabul. This shows how Amir has become nobler and made the decision to do what he feels as morally correct. When he was 12, he witnessed Hassan get raped by Assef in the alleyway and he did nothing to help Hassan. He tried

Assef's appearance was also completely different from the way he was described in the book. In the book, he was described as a blond blue-eyed boy who towered over the other children, and who used his brass knuckles to gain respect and to make people afraid of him, and it was exactly this that made him seem so much more threatening than other boys. However, the Assef we met in the film was a quite ordinary Afghani boy, and though he was a bully and walk within his circles as if he owned them, he did not seem as frightening as in the book.

One day Asseff rapes Hassan as an act of power, and Amir witnesses the actions but acts in a cowardly matter and simply avoids the matter by ignoring it. Amir then proceeds to cut off the relationships between himself and Hassan, “I actually aspired to cowardice, but the real reason I was running, was that Asseff was right. Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara. Wasn’t he?” Amir did it because the traditional and historical beliefs were more important than friendship. This action displays how being born in a different social class can outweigh all feelings of love and friendship with one of a different social group.

Both of these characters are similar regarding the trait of forgiveness. Although Amir never really apologized to Hassan for all of the evil things he did to him, Amir forgave himself and truly attempted to makeup for the mistakes he had made in his childhood, by making a new life for Hassan's son, Sohrab in his adulthood. One of the attempts Amir did to makeup for the betrayal of Hassan is to take a beating from Assef. When getting beat up by Assef, Amir feels good that he is standing up for himself and Sohrab, just like Hassan stood up for him in the alleyway. Amir also redeems himself from the guilt he had felt toward Hassan. An example of Amir feeling as though he stood up for Sohrab and redeems himself from the guilt or jealousy toward Hassan is when he says,” "He got mad and hit me harder and the harder he kicked me, the harder I laughed" (Hoseini,297). Hassan forgives Amir for betraying him in the alleyway by not bringing it up to Amir and throwing it away like nothing happened. In the end, both characters found a way to forgive one another for the main conflict within story, The Kite

While Amir portrays the redemption in the novel, the character description of Assef, the town bully, displays Hosseini’s thoughts on sin. In the novel, “Amir loses Hassan (his best friend) when the boy runs off to reclaim the winning kite and is attacked and raped by Assef, the town bully” (Gale 2). The town bully, Assef, is described as brutally violent and unnecessarily

Assef bullies Hassan to show him his place as a Hazara. Assef shows many forming of bullying. At first Assef is very verbally aggressive towards Hassan. Assef tells Hassan that he is loyal to Amir who would show him no loyalty. Assef makes a bold statement describing Hassan as “A loyal Hazara, loyal as a dog.” (Hosseini 77) Assef explains to Hassan that as a Hazara he is loyal to someone that would not show the same loyalty to him in return. While Hassan is cornered by the three bullies, Amir is just watching without any plan of stepping in. Amir wants to retrieve the kite to bring it back Baba to impress Baba. He

Amir stumbles upon an alley. In the alley, he sees the Hassan trap by three boys named Assef, Kamal, and Wali. All they asked of Hassan is to give up the blue kite. However, Hassan’s loyalty and friendship toward Amir prevented Hassan to give up the kite. As the tension built, Assef lets Hassan have the kite, but in-return he does unthinkable. Assef rapes Hassan as Amir watched unnoticeably from the alley (Hosseini 62-66). This was Amir’s chance to prove his true friendship by stepping in to save Hassan. Instead, Amir ran “because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he could do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan” (Hosseini 68). According to Amir, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 68). “He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 68).