Spinelessness In The Kite Runner

Amir questions his relationship with Hassan and says, “I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that” (Hosseini 25). This is the first occurrence in the novel of Amir acknowledging that him and Hassan are different. Amir is superior to Hassan in the eyes of Afghani culture. Later Amir almost says to Assef, “But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant!” (Hosseini 41). Amir later questions what he says, and does not understand what he really thinks Hassan is to him. Another example of Amir realizing his superiority is when he was not not beaten by a teacher like the other students. Amir says, “But my father was rich and everyone knew him, so I was spared the metal rod treatment” (Hosseini 90). Amir recognizes his father’s wealth and realizes he receives special treatment because of it. This thought of being superior is inevitably capable of being installed in a child’s brain that they are above others and deserve special

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,

One of the major differences between Amir and Baba is that Baba is seen as courageous, while Amir is more cowardly. Amir always seems to let hassan stand up for him, instead of standing up for himself. “‘Self-defense has nothing to do with meanness. You know what always happens when the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fends them off.’” When Amir sees that Hassan is being attacked, he has to make a decision on whether or not to save him. “I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past – and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” He was too scared to stand up for his closest friend. When Baba and Amir were escaping from Afghanistan, they were stopped by some russian soldiers and Baba was faced with a similar choice. “But the Russian soldier shouted something that made the other

His selfish bias making it impossible for Amir to begin earning redemption. This is again proven when he returns to Pakistan to visit Rahim Khan. Rahim Khan pleads with him to try and get Amir to rescue Sohrab, his nephew, from Kabul, but Amir refuses: “‘you know,’ Rahim Khan said, “one time, when you weren’t around, your father and I were talking. And you know how he always worried about you in those days. I remember he said to me, ‘Rahim, a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man you can’t stand up to anything’ I wonder, is that what you’ve become?’ I dropped my eyes. […] Finally, I settled for this: ‘Maybe Baba was right’” (Hosseini, 221). When given the choice to defend his honour and go rescue a young boy, or insult himself and look at the world through a negative lense, Amir chooses to adopt an incredibly negative persona, as per his past. He chooses to refuse the opportunity to experience empathy and relate to Rahim Khan’s desperation and pain, and instead drives a wedge between their relationship. Pushing himself further away from the redemption he craves so desperately. As a fear of empathy inhibits one’s ability to find redemption and uphold healthy relationships.

Through Amir's need to please his father, he in turn ends up disregarding those around him. This is shown when Amir

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Amir was the son of a wealthy social worker. He was brought up with the son of his servant, and perhaps his only best friend, Hassan. Amir had a rocky relation with his father. At times, it seemed as his father loved him but those moments didn’t lasted forever. He thinks Baba (his father) wishes Amir were more like him, and that Baba holds him responsible for killing his mother, who died during his birth. Despite being best friends, Amir thinks that Hassan is beneath him because he belonged to an inferior cast. He used to mock him jokingly or tried to outsmart him. In all fairness, it was Amir’s cowardly nature that

The Kite Runner is a powerful book contrasting selfishness and selflessness. The book follows the life of Amir, a character who experiences guilt and tragedy throughout his life. While growing up in Kabul, Amir witnesses the imperfect and prejudice society in his country. Within an imperfect society, there are many who are self-invested, and among those, there are those who are selfless. Characters Amir and Hassan possess selfish and selfless traits. The traits that these characters possess are influenced by fear, victimization, and loyalty, ultimately leading them to inaction and action.

Every danger in the world needs a hero to fight against it. Even though ideas and interpretations of heroism have shifted throughout the years (from Greek heroes like Odysseus with his wit to Superman with his extraordinary powers), being a hero tends to include altruism, dedication to what is right, and defiance against what is wrong. And even though many heroes are celebrated and have been carved into history, many others have not. Ordinary people can be heroes, which is portrayed in Kite Runner by Hosseini. Amir, the main character, shows the exact opposite traits of how the other heroes around him act. The Kite Runner defines heroism with defiance and sacrifice, while the protagonist fails to meet these qualities and consequently tears his family apart.

Amir is often threatened by Hassan which Hassan is oblivious to, resulting in Amir feeling jealous and misusing his authority over Hassan, ‘though I stopped reading those when I saw he was far better at solving them than I was’, implying that Amir can’t handle an ‘inferior’ person exceeding him in any way. This jealousy develops into abuse towards Hassan when Amir uses his intelligence to make a fool of Hassan who is illiterate, ‘”When it comes to words, Hassan is an imbecile.” “Aaah” he said, nodding’. However, Amir would then feel ‘guilty’ for this and would give him an old shirt or a broken toy, ‘I would tell myself that was amends enough for a harmless prank’ displaying Amir’s malicious behaviour towards Hassan.

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

Though Hassan was his best friend, Amir feelt that Hassan, a Hazara servant, was beneath him. He passively attacked Hassan by mocking and taunting him. Amir never learned how to affirm himself against anyone because Hassan always defended him. All of these factors lead to Amir not being able to stand up for Hassan when he needed him most.

The Kite Runner, a novel written by Khaled Hosseini, focuses on Amir’s journey in life, both physically and emotionally. During Amir’s childhood Afghanistan became very unsafe. He and his father, Baba, fled from the city of Kabul to Pakistan and then made their way to America in hope of a better life for Amir. "For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, it was a place to mourn his." The need for Amir to "become good again" is embedded in the idea of a physical for redemption of his dignity.

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

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

Amir, representing the Pashtuns and high-society Afghanis, allows himself to degrade Hassan, the face of the mere Hazaras of the lowest class rank. Through the eyes of Amir, it seems as though Baba preoccupies himself passing time with his comrade Rahim Khan; when he sporadically attempts to involve Amir in his life, Baba always suggests that Hassan accompany them in their daily adventures leaving Amir questioning why his father tries desperately to avoid alone time and bonding moments with his son. The initial occurrences in which Amir witnesses Baba's immediate affection for Hassan drive Amir's negative mental attitude and envy towards his only companion Hassan.