Examples Of Good And Evil In The Kite Runner

Throughout the whole book, Amir has been vying for love from his father, often against Hassan, and feels powerless when he does not get it; this causes him to attempt to assert power in other aspects of his life, usually over Hassan. Amir feels as if Baba does not love him, and feels powerless to fix it; he says, “I always felt like Baba hated me a little, And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all” (Hosseini 19). He believes there is nothing he can do to make his father love him; after all, he cannot change the past, and he cannot change himself substantially. This feeling of powerlessness affects him in such a way that he feels the need to compensate for this loss of power elsewhere in his life. He would exploit the kindness and forgiveness Hassan always showed him, and would try and prove his superiority and worth in that relationship. Amir once asked if Hassan would eat dirt if he asked him to, and afterwards said, “I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn’t know some big word. But there was something fascinating--albeit in a sick way--about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass,” (Hosseini 54). Amir is filling the power gap he feels in his life with power over Hassan, and is trying to show Hassan how much control he has over him. Hassan, Amir’s servant and a genuinely kind person, is in a vulnerable position against Amir,

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

“ Assef unbuttoned his winter coat,took it off,folded it slowly.--- I opened my mouth, almost said something .Almost.The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had.But I didn’t. I just watched.” When witnessing first hand Hasan get rape Amir decides to ultimately be a bystander. Amir comes from the ethnic group of Pashtun and Hassan comes from the ethnic group of Hazara they are both viewed and treated very differently due to their economical stance.Being from two different social classes Amir decides to be a bystander due to the fact that he fears getting hurt, he wants to get Baba’s approval and the way he wants to be viewed by others.

When they were still children Hassan and Armir were always abused by Assef. One day when Assef was about to beat them with his famous brass knuckles, Hassan showed courage and stood up for him and his friend. “ But perhaps you didn’t notice that I’m the one holding the slingshot. If you make a move, they’ll have to change your nickname from Assef ‘The Ear Eater’ to ‘One-eyed Assef’ because I have this rock pointed at your left eye’ (42). Hassan was willing to stand up for himself and his best friend even though there was a really good chance that it could end badly for the both of them but he just wanted to keep everyone safe. This comes into play later in the story, Hassan has died and Armir has learned that Hassan is actually his half brother and has had a boy named Sohrab. Armir needs to find Sohrab, and when he does he learns that he has been taken by a man, this man we learn is Assef. Assef tells Armir that he can have Sohrab if he fights him and only one of them will survive. In the beginning of the fight Armir is taking quite a beating but he feels as though he deserves it. “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace... I hadn’t been happy and I hadn’t felt better, not at all. But I did now… I felt healed. Healed at last” (289). Armir felt as if he deserved the pain because of what he put Hassan through.

The second member of the middle generation Hassan also grew into an adult in Afghanistan. Although, his situation was completely different from the one that Assef had. All his life Hassan was pushed around and humiliated by others due to the fact that he is one of the Hazara descendants, who in Afghanistan are treated like none-humans. The constant fright helped him to become a strong man able to defend himself. However, in the end he was not able to defend himself and was killed

Moral ambiguity in the novel The Kite Runner is a concept Khaled Hosseini, the author, exercises plenty of times throughout the novel, but the few characters that are frequently accounted for being ambiguous are obvious, for instance, Amir and Baba. The Kite Runner is a novel written to express the lives of other people in separate countries. As life advances for the two characters, Hassan and Amir, trauma causes them to get wound up in a landslide of events leading to agitation, redemption, and Amir questioning if his entire life is a lie. In this novel ambiguity means the reader is not sure how the character is supposed to act which causes the reader to question the characters morals. Hassan, for the most part, is a static character who is neither viewed as vague, nor ambiguous in this narrative. Hassan is mainly known for his kind-hearted selflessness and always doing as Amir asks him; however, the reason behind this trait is never stated. Hassan is ambiguous, and that trait is essential for the development of the story, anything stating something different might be a misinterpretation.

Hassan had it tougher than Amir at the very beginning, he was born into a difficult life by being raised by a Hazara servant. Which as a result, he learns that it is his duty to sacrifice himself for others. For instance, he wakes up every morning to get Amir ready for school while he is held back doing housework, and even tells Amir he is happy with what he has, although he clearly sees what he lacks himself. On other several different accounts he was taking advantage of his selflessness from being raped for the sake of keeping Amir’s winning kite in tack, which he knew meant a great deal to him. Yardley reviews Hosseini’s second book where it is about “the story of these two women, which reaches its climax in an act of extraordinary generosity and self-sacrifice (3)” Hosseini adopted the theme of sacrifice in both of his novels, where a character voluntarily sacrifices something so dear to them, in Hassan’s cases his innocence. By Hassan having the crucial trait of being selfless, it is the motor to all the event that foreshadow. Perhaps if Hassan was not as selfless, Amir and Assef would have not taken advantage of

Hassan's love and kindness are easily overseen by Amir and doesn't take it into consideration. Amir knows Hassan would do anything for him “a thousand times over.” Amir would read to Hassan and when Hassan asked what a word meant he would lie and call this a “harmless prank.” Although Amir knew what he was doing and would feel guilty so he would try to repay Hassan with a broken toy or an old shirt. This shows Amir's abuse of power over Hassan. Amir Pulls “jokes” on Hassan when Hassan only shows love, then tries to make up for it with materialistic items. The effects Amir has to deal with from abusing his power is guilt and knowing he stole knowledge from someone who deserved nothing less. Also what Baba says is the greatest sin. Then in the novel, we see, Assef rapes Hassan and Sohrab we see his abuse of power. Assef wanted to show his dominance both physically and mentally because Hassan and Sohrab. Assef also idolizes Hitler's idea of racial cleansing and does not like that Hassan and Sohrab are Hazara. Hassan and Sohrab are left with feeling dirty and worthless from assefs abuse of

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.

Their happy-go-lucky relationship works out very well in the beginning of the book, and, even though Hassan does not play with Amir when his other friends come over, the duo still form a very deep relationship with each other. I would say the peak of this portion of their relationship is displayed when Hassan stands up for and protects Amir from Assef and his deadly brass knuckles by threatening to shoot Assef's left eye out with a rock. When Hassan threatens to permanently cripple another human's eyesight in order to save Amir from being beaten, I think it is pretty clear that he made a very risky decision purely out of concern for his closest and only friend's safety. Assef had two friends who I believe could have easily beaten both Hassan and Amir if Hassan shot Assef. In fact, the author even writes that Hassan "was scared, he was scared plenty," showing that Hassan did understand the danger he was in if Assef made a move. This is significant and shows how much the two boys really did understand each other because, after Assef let them go home without injury, Amir says that "Neither one of us said much of anything as we walked home." Can you believe that?! Hassan just saved Amir from certain serious physical injury or worse, and Amir says absolutely nothing to him about it! It is as if the two understand each other in such a profound way that they do not need

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

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

Evil is the sense of gaining power over others and doing harmful things to them. We are a little malicious inside, because we all get angry at one time or another. Although throughout our lives social pressures, people, and events will shape weather that evil subsidies or grows. The Kite Runner is a depiction of bad that not everyone sees. Assef is the obvious villain in this book but Amir's experiences and decisions caused him to be corrupted by his mistakes as well. He made the decision not to help Hassan when he was being raped, and from then on he inflicted physical and mental abuse onto him. Amir drove Hassan out of his home and was constantly trying to gain power over him throughout their lives together. In the end he did things to benefit him, which caused a divide between his good actions turning into ones that benefit his bad ones. Considering this, as a society we may not be able to avoid the Evils embedded into our environments, but we can at least be honest and open, and not suppress our desires and feelings towards one

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).

Hassan allows Assef to rape him because Assef threatens to take away the last kite that Amir has cut to win the competition. Since he seeks Baba’s approval, he wants to present it to him to establish a better* relationship with him. Therefore, he views Hassan’s rape as a sacrifice for his desires. Directly before the incident, Amir “[catches] a glimpse” of Hassan’s face, and describes his face as holding “resignation in it” (76). He then goes on to compare his expression to the “look of a lamb” (76). In this quote, Amir is referring to the sheep that he witnesses the mullah kill on a Muslim holiday, the tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah, which he and his family celebrate every year. Amir believes that the lamb sees itself as a sacrifice, and accepts its unwanted fate, which is how he believes that Hassan feels too. Though Amir later feels immense guilt for his actions*, he is able to disregard* his regrets when he and Baba move to America to escape the Russian takeover. Amir compares America to a “river, roaring along”, and views it as being “unmindful of the past” (136). He describes forgetting his mistakes in America as entering the river, “[letting] [his] sins drown to the bottom”, and allowing, “the waters” to “carry [him] someplace far.” (136). Because of this, Amir enjoys thinking of America as a place with “no ghosts, no memories,”, and “no sins”, and relishes in his forgetful state (136). However, as one can not continue