Kite Runner Dysfunctional Family Relationships

Baba always seemed to be ashamed to have Amir as a son and appeared to be a lot more proud of Hassan, who was just a servant. At a young age, Amir starts to believe his father blames him for his mother's death. Amir admires Baba, he craves Baba's attention even though Baba seems much more interested in Hassan. All these tensions come to a breaking point during the kite-fighting tournament. Amir sees the tournament as a way to finally win Baba's love.

Although Amir thinks his father, Baba, is angry at him for not living up to his family’s beliefs, Baba does not hate Amir. Baba just wants Amir to be a proud man, so Baba can relate to him and further extend their relationship, but Amir does not live up to his father’s specific expectations. When Baba sees that Amir is not growing up like he did he becomes disappointed in Amir. Baba does not agree with Amir’s love and passion for reading poetry and writing stories, because he believes it shows a lack of courage and this does help their relationship. Amir simply wants to make his father happy and try and live in his footsteps. In the book I believe this relationship is part of the reason why Amir didn’t help Hassan when he was being raped, because he wanted to please his father with the victory kite of the contest. If he were to help Hassan the kite would be taken by Assef, but in actual fact I believe Baba would be happier if he stood up for his friend rather than winning the tournament. Amir could have also left Hassan because he is jealous of his father and Hassan friendship.

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,

Baba would praise Hassan for his bravery which therefore caused him to compliment and give Hassan more attention than Amir. Eventually, Baba had doubt in Amir’s character, hence the conversation with Rahim Khan explaining, “ If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son” (Hosseini 24-25). For this reason, Amir said, “ Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” ( Hosseini 82). Amir allowed the rape to happen because he wanted the blue kite, which would convince Baba that he was a winner just like him, earning him Baba’s affection and approval were what he longed for. Above all, the price of the kite, as Amir states, was Hassan, and this is why Amir calls Hassan the lamb he had to slay; his jealousy over the love Baba had for Hassan caused him to risk every moral and value he held. Also, he resents his choice to be a coward when Hassan is raped which advanced to his immediate feeling

As a child, Amir constantly wants to impress Baba because he shows so little interest in him. Before the kite-fighting tournament, Baba tells Amir to win, which puts “a seed in my head...I was going to win. There was no other viable option.... Then maybe my life as a ghost in this house would finally be over”(Hosseini 56). Here, Baba has put at stake all Amir’s hopes of affection on winning the tournament. After Assef rapes Hassan, Amir decides that “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.” (77). Instead of stopping Assef from raping Hassan, he lets it happen so afterwards he can get the kite and earn Baba’s respect. This would not have happened if Baba had not pinned all Amir’s hopes for his affection on winning the tournament. Therefore, Baba is a bad father because by not showing affection to Amir, he caused Amir to have misguided morals.

Families play a large role in our world. Sometimes families keep you together but at other times they can tear you apart. The subject of family is a major theme in Khaled Hosseini's extraordinary novel, The Kite Runner and Shakespeare’s well-known tragedy, King Lear. In both of these writings, family is a constant theme that occurs throughout both works of literature. Family relationship is often expressed through the actions of the characters and by what they say. Although Shakespeare’s well-known tragedy, King Lear, has father figures, they do not act very fatherly. Khaled Hosseini’s fiction novel, The Kite Runner has better father figures. This can be proven by examining the different

Baba was usually aloof and cold when he was around Amir. Since Baba was interested in sports, he felt like Amir wasn’t his son because he was into writing and was weak. In a conversation with Rahim Khan Baba said that something was missing in Amir. He said that a boy who couldn’t stand up for himself would not stand up for anything. They don’t really have a good father and son relationship because Baba expected too much of Amir. It was that winning kite tournament that somehow bonded them together but after a while, it went back to being the “cold” treatment

The Kite Runner discloses a bad relationship between the main character, Amir, and his father, Baba. Resentment washed over Amir because he felt stuck with a father who did not care about him fully. At times, Baba made Amir feel empty and worthless. Amir was

Amir had great influences on him as a child; Baba was a brave person, generous to everyone, and should’ve influenced Amir to be the same. On the contrary, Amir was selfish and chose not to stand up for his friend, even when the situation desperately needs it. This is not because of how he grew up, of his environment. Amir’s genetics made him to be fearful and mean, as shown throughout the book. “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.” (Hosseini 54). Even though Amir had great influences growing up, Hassan took the brunt of his attacks and neglect. Near the beginning of the book, Hassan is raped in the alleys running a kite for Amir. Going after Hassan, Amir finds Hassan while this is going on but does not stop the rapist or stand up for his friend. Instead, Amir ran away and proceeded to abandon Hassan emotionally after the event. Baba was a brave man and would’ve stood up for Hassan, regardless of the danger to him, but Amir was not influenced nearly as much by his positive environment rather than his negative cowardice, or

When Amir and Baba went to the lake one day when Baba had built the orphanage, Amir exclaimed, “he asked me to fetch Hassan too, but I lied and told him Hassan had the runs” (13). This associates the power Aamir wants in order to impress his father. Furthermore it embellishes the fact that Amirs quench for power over Hassan was growing since the beginning of the book, Hassan was always, “steps in to fend them off” (22), which made Amir feel weak and powerless. This enraged the evil that was brewing inside him, and created a dynamic of always wanting more. The power that came from Baba’s approval always came so easily to Hassan, However for Amir, he always went out of his way to be vengeful towards him. Hosseini depicts this constantly throughout his life, for example when he graduated highschool in California and Baba mentioned how good it would be to have Hassan there with them in the new car they had gotten, Amir said, “a pair of steel hands closed around my windpipe at the sound of Hassan's name” (134). Hosseini wants us to see that Amir is constantly wants that power over his father’s relationship with him, but Hassan always gets in the way of that. Even when Amir was doing an act of good to save Sohrab, he “hadn’t felt happy and [he] hadn’t felt better, not at all” (289). Amir began to laugh during the time that he

Here in this essay I will discuss the complex relationship between father and son to demonstrate the need for a father figure in the novel "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. The relationship between a parent and a child is a precious and haunted bond, but is not always a love relationship, but a relationship is full of pain and longing. The relationships clearly demonstrate this need for a father figure are those between Baba and Amir, and Amir and Sohrab.

Amir has an extremely complex association with Baba, and as much as Amir loves Baba, he once in a while feels Baba completely adores him back. Amir's yearning to win Baba's warmth in this way motivates him not to stop Hassan's ambush. Baba has his own specific inconvenience taking up with Amir. He feels remorseful treating Amir well when he can't perceive Hassan as his tyke. In like manner, he is a huge test for Amir, and he can simply exhibit his worship for Hassan in a circuitous manner, by bringing Hassan along when he takes Amir out, for event, or paying for Hassan's lip surgery. Alternately with this, the most revering relationship amidst father and youngster we see is that of Hassan and Sohrab. Hassan, regardless, is executed, and toward

Throughout the novel, Amir endeavors to be approved by his father, Baba, who is admired by people in Kabul. Unfortunately, Baba believes that Amir, unlike him, is very unmanly “and [that he] never fights back. He just... drops his head ” (Hosseini 24). Since Baba wishes for a son who would stand up for himself, he can’t help but observe that Amir’s friend Hassan, as the guy who “steps in and fends the [bullies] off” (Hosseini 24) is his idea of the ideal son. Though aware of his father’s expectations, Amir is unable to change himself and instead envies Hassan and the fact that Baba treats him like his own son by“[patting]Hassan on the back. [and even putting] his arm around his shoulder [like a fatherly figure]”(Hosseini 15). Despite the manifestation of this hatred in Amir, he continues to recognize the bond that he shares with Hassan, “ brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast” (Hosseini 11) which is because both their mothers died during birth. The confusing emotions he feels for Hassan has Amir face a situation in which he acts inappropriately and allows the guilt to manifest upon him. After winning a very important kite tournament for the first time and “seeing Baba on that roof, proud of [him] at last” (Hosseini 71) Amir begins to search for Hassan who had gone to run his kite earlier. Finally, Amir finds him in a dark alley and as he “peeks around the corner” (Hosseini 75) he witnesses a sight that eradicated not only his relationship with Hassan but also Baba’s brotherly relationship with Ali, Hassan’s father. Peeking through the corner of the alley, like a bystander, he watches his one and only friend getting raped. The guilt that came upon him was for two reason; one, his lack of courage to stand up to

Baba’s influence on Amir can be described in two words, tough love. Baba desperately wants Amir to resemble him in everything he does and do things how he would, but Amir struggles to meet these standards. Baba is reminded by Rahim that he does not get to choose the man that Amir will become, “‘Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with favorite colors”’ (21). It hurts Amir that he does not get Baba’s compassion and love but he stays true to himself and does not change for him. Even though Amir stayed true to himself he would still do what he could to earn Baba’s love. When he won the kite flying tournament Baba shows Amir that love because he did something they can both relate to, sports. It seemed Amir would do anything to be recognized by Baba but Baba did not care about Amir’s thoughts on himself. Baba even said to Rahim “If [he] hadn’t seen the doctor pull [Amir] out of [his] wife with [his] own eyes, [he’d] never believe [Amir’s his] son” (23). This obviously would be heart wrenching to hear and hurt Amir deeply, but he did not let that make him stop trying. The two clearly had a rocky relationship.

It is said that a father and son’s bond is unbreakable, that one’s father is his first hero. Small moments between a father and his son can not only shape their character, but also their relationship. This is also portrayed throughout the novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, where the miscommunications and bonds between a father and his son and how this can change one’s character completely. Hosseini uses this novel to further demonstrate that even though a relationship between a father and his son may start off rough, through time and progression, the broken bond between a father and a son may be able to be recovered. This is demonstrated when Baba and Amir are not able to connect and have the father-son bond they need, when this bond is finally gained, and when Baba passes away.