Kite Runner by J. D. Sallinger

Amir and Hassan both love each other in the book, “The Kite Runner”, even though they have two different personalities and physical characteristics. Amir is not athletic, nor does he possess the physical characteristics of his half brother, Hassan. Amir loves reading the Koran to Hassan and writing his own stories. On the other hand, Hassan is very athletic and is a servant to Amir and Baba. Hassan is illiterate during his childhood because he was never taught how to read or write, eventually that changes during his adulthood, when he writes a letter to Amir. Amir is a Pashtun or Sunni Muslim,

Are all humans capable of extreme acts of cruelty against those they love? Savagery, brutality, inhumanity and wickedness can all classify as cruelty. In areas such as Afghanistan where corrupt political groups, like the Taliban, are seizing control of the government widespread suffering is weakening the people. When in power these groups are able to exercise control in whatever way they deem necessary. Cruelty is utilized in The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, as the main characters inhabit Afghanistan during times of extreme turmoil. Throughout the story the characters suffer through and cause cruelty which affects each other and their own lives. The hardships suffered by the characters is connected to the lives of the reader by using empathy to create emotions. Cruelty can be portrayed through motifs such as rape, blood, death and executions. In literature, cruelty serves the purpose of showing how the characters function and their quest to acquire power by demeaning others.

Joseph Prince, a famous clergyman, says “ What you believe is very powerful. If you have toxic emotions of fear guilt and depression, it is because you have wrong thinking, and you have wrong thinking because of wrong”. This quote reveals your belief is powerful enough to change your perspective. Strong emotions like fear, guilt, and depression can lead someone to react or cause stress. Joseph goes on to say that your emotions can force you to make wrongdoings. These actions can haunt you forever. Author Khaled Hosseini, examines powerful emotions such as betrayal, guilt, and relief. He looks at how these emotions change your perspective. In the novel The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses the characterization of Amir to illustrate when man feels disconnected from his father, he will betray man, by having a strong sense of guilt, and he redeems himself by having a relief of pain.

Family: The theme of family is persistent throughout The Kite Runner. Amir struggles between his relationship with Baba and his brotherhood with Hassan. The brotherhood of Amir and Hassan is at the heart of The Kite Runner. It is a strong, central theme woven throughout the novel. Amir and Hassan were “kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that”(Hosseini 25). But, even though they were companions from a young age, Amir constantly tests Hassan’s loyalty and in a way, resents him. Amir explains, “I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not in the usual sense, anyhow”(Hosseini 25). Amir’s love for Hassan is selfish and full of insecurity. However, Hassan’s love for Amir is selfless. He looks up to Amir and would do anything for him. His motto seems to be, “For you a thousand times over!”(Hosseini 67). Amir and Hassan’s friendship includes jealousy and insecurity, the characteristics of brotherly love. Although their relationship becomes strained, “there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break”(Hosseini 11).Amir also finds it difficult to witness the relationship with Ali and Hassan. Baba and Amir’s poor relationship is offset by Ali and Hassan’s healthy one. Ali and his son, Hassan, have a loving, supportive relationship. It makes Baba and Amir’s relationship seem even more dysfunctional. It is

The imagery, styles and the concerns used in the novel foreshadows the rape scene that happened in the grand kite tournament of 1975 which sets a cycle of betrayal and redemption into motion, around which the story revolves. The rape scene represents the entire novel; it’s related to Amir’s life as he spends the whole novel dealing with the incident, which affects his entire life. It also symbolises the racism in Afghanistan, and how the country is dealing with such an issue, beauty of the Afghanistan is fading just like Hassan and Amir’s friendship.

‘Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.’ -Richard von Weizsaecker

In The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir is a non-athletic intellectual boy who enjoys stories and flying kites. His servant and friend Hassan has an uncanny gift for knowing where downed kites have fallen and therefore can fetch a kite quite quickly and efficiently. In the beginning of the novel, Amir thinks back on how he became such a troubled adult. Reflecting on his childhood, he contemplates how he had been scared to stand up for others. He had been the child of a wealthy man and taken what he had for granted. He had a Hazara boy that served as his best friend, figuratively and literally, yet he still delineated between the classes. One day Amir witnesses Hassan being taken advantage of in an alley following a kite flying competition. He has the opportunity to stop it, but does not. He could not accept a Hazara as his true friend, or get over the fear of embarrassment of helping a Hazara. Over the course of the novel, Amir’s Character matures greatly because of the subsequent effects of witnessing Hassan’s rape .

“There is a way to be good again” (Hosseini K. 2003) a line delivered by Rahim Khan Amir’s father Baba’s closest friend, to Amir in order to encourage him to help Hassan’s son escape Afghanistan and finally free him from the guilt of his past. The quote also embodies the struggle and salvation the novel The Kite Runner attempts to bring its readers. The book taps raw human emotions about life situations that challenges a person and brings out the best and worst in him, but the book also shows the value of personal redemption.

In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, discrimination and prejudice is everywhere and nowhere. The Talibans do not seem to care who they are beating, torturing, or even executing. The novel The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini tackles the issue of ethnic discrimination in Afghanistan with an example of the relationship between Pashtuns and Hazaras. For several centuries, the Pashtun majority is treating the Hazara population as second class citizens, who are unworthy of education or decent employment because Hazaras are a minority ethnic group; this leads to many Hazaras suffering. The social and economic conditions in Afghanistan demonstrate the imbalance between the superior Sunni Muslims and the inferior Shi 'a Muslims and how people discriminate against each other because of their physical features and religious beliefs. The estrangement between the two causes many deaths. Furthermore the significant distinction between Hazaras and Pashtuns in Afghanistan is the major factor because it determines not only Amir and Hassan’s role in Afghan society but also determines how Hassan himself suffers and dies because of his religion. The physical and emotional division of prejudice between the Pashtuns and the Harzaras in the novel The Kite Runner is destructive and results in death because of the suffering the people endure.

Plot summary: Amir flashbacks to when he was twelve years old in Afghanistan. He lives with his father, Baba, and has two servants, Ali and Hassan, who are also a father and son duo. The latter two are Hazaras, Afghan’s minority, and as such, are subjected to racial slurs and cruelty. Amir and Hassan are playing when Assef, Kamal, and

The Kite Runner is a story about two friends, Amir and Hassan, growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan. Amir, who is also the narrator, grows up in a nice home with Ali and Hassan as his family’s servants. The story begins with Amir talking about “an event” that changed his life and made him the person he is today.

In my view The Kite Runner is an epic story with a personal history of what the people of Afghanistan had and have to endure in an ordinary everyday life; a country that is divided between political powers and religiously views and beliefs which instills poverty, and violence within the people and the terrorist that run their country. The story starts in the year 2001 in the month of December where the narrator, Amir, recalls occurrences that happened in 1975 when he was twelve years old and growing up in Afghanistan. Amir mentions that the events that took place back in Afghanistan made him who he is today but does not specify the events that happened. Amir later tell us that he received a phone call from Rahim Khan, who we later find out was business associate to his father, called him last summer. As Amir and Rahim hang up, he takes a walk through San Francisco, where he lives now, and notices kite flying in the sky which reminds him about his past and his friend Hassan.

Khaled Hosseini uses the relationships between characters in The Kite Runner to demonstrate inequality in the Afghan society. Hassan and Amir come from different classes of society. Amir is a “Pashtun” and Hasan is a “Hazara”. Amir and Hassan grew up in the same house and they spent a lot of their childhood together. Amir and Hassan’s fathers have been living in the same house since their childhood, but Hassan’s father does not get the same rights as Amir’s dad. Hassan and his father sleep in a small and dark room on the mattress. It can be seen from the passage that Amir says “in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend” (page 24). The author displays that even childhood or sharing the same house cannot create equality between a Pashtun and Hazara. For that reason there was not really any friendship between Baba and Hassan’s father due to their tribes.

Amir and Hassan have different social statuses from each other that affect their lives. Amir who comes from a rich Pashtun family, is the narrative in Kite Runner. He is the son of a successful businessman in Kabul. Because of his social status, he is able to go to go to school and be educated. On the opposite end of the spectrum of Amir, Hassan is a Hazara which means he comes from a much lower social status. Like his father, he is a servant for Amir’s father. Because of his social status, he is the runner during kite flying competitions. Although that may seem wrong, Hassan is successful and enjoys it. He knows exactly where the kite is going to land without watching it. Due to their social statuses both Amir and Hassan differ.

In The Kite Runner you have Amir’s early life in Afghanistan, Amir and Baba’s leaves Afghanistan to live in California, and when Amir decides to go back to Afghanistan. Amir lives with his dad, Baba, in Afghanistan. Amir comes from money, so he is fortunate and able to go to school to learn. Baba and Amir have servants, whom they call Ali and Hassan. Ali is the father of Hassan. Amir and Hassan both lost their mothers at a young age. Amir’s mother died giving birth to him and Hassan’s mother took off and left him at a young age. Amir and Hassan knows their social and religion backgrounds that outlines their identities from one another. Amir is a Pashtun and Hassan is a Hazara, they both are Muslim, but Amir is Sunni and Hassan is Shia. Pashtuns make