The Kite Runner Impact On Society

In “The Kite Runner,” the main character, Amir, is a Pashtun and his best friend Hassan, who is also one of his family’s servants, is a Hazara. Amir grew up very privileged due to his family being Pashtun. Hassan, however, grew up in a family of poor, lower class servants because they are Hazara. Because of the class system in Afghanistan, none of the characters in the book were able to choose or change their social class and instead were born into one which essentially predestined their future and how they were treated by others. Amir constantly took advantage of Hassan throughout the novel because of his social class and illiteracy, neither of which he had control over. Amir saw himself as superior to Hassan because Pashtuns were seen as superior to Hazaras. This belief led to the various different responses to the Taliban’s takeover of

Best friends typically have loyalty that comes with the friendship, and Hassan was all about the loyalty, whereas Amir had trouble giving Hassan what he deserves. For instance, after Amir had won the kite race, Hassan had caught his kite to then be met by a bully, Assef, and his friends in an alley way. Amir is a bystander to what would be the raping of Hassan and Amir tells it as “I could step in to that alley, stand up for Hassan-the way he’d stood up for me…” to then finish with, “In the end, I ran.” (Hosseini 77). Amir immediately regrets his self-proclaimed cowardly decision. As Amir grows older, the circle of life catches up to him and he has the opportunity to stand up for Hassan’s son, Sohrab, against Assef. Revisiting the experience, he had of standing up for Sohrab, he admits “That was the first time I’d fought anyone.” (Hosseini 288). Amir is aware that he messed up with his opportunities with Hassan, in turn he ironically is the first to stand up for Sohrab who was up against the same person that troubles Hassan.

Amir felt this way because in the end he was a Pashtun and Hassan was a Hazzara. When guests would come over to play with Amir he would Exclude Hassan. Amir would only play with Hassan when no one else was around.

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,

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.

Though his reading makes him feel special, and causes his friends and Hassan to look up to him, it is still frowned upon by Baba, who would rather Amir be more adventurous, and pursue something more worthwhile than reading and writing. Khaled Hosseini does not only show the importance of literacy by explain the benefits that come with it, but also by showing what happens to those who are illiterate, like Hassan. Hassan’s illiteracy allows him to be taken advantage of, and Amir sees this at times. Once, when Amir is reading to Hassan and Hassan asks the meaning of the word “Imbecile”, Amir responds by saying “Let’s see. ‘Imbecile.’ It means smart, intelligent. I’ll use it in a sentence for you. ‘When it comes to words, Hassan is an imbecile’” (29). Though only a small example, this quote shows how Hassans inability to read gives other people power over him, Amir explores this more when he begins writing his first stories, and reads them to Hassan in place of the other stories. Amir will later feel guilty about pulling pranks over Hassan, but never goes back to apologize. Reading becomes part of what Amir sees as the border between Pashtuns and Hazaras, because all of the Pashtuns he knows can read, and all of the Hazaras he knows cannot. Hosseini paints the picture that literacy is only good, and without it, Hazaras and other people like Hassan

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, highlights multiple elements of division in society through the troubled lives of Amir, a youthful Pashtun adolescent, who is raised amongst a Hazara teen, Hassan, in a racially separated setting in Afghanistan. Throughout the novel, the author shows how different divisions in society can affect the course an individual’s life takes. It also looks at how Afghanistan's long past of racial estrangement makes it challenging to one’s social position in a culture such as Afghanistans. The social divisions in social class, family types and personality which the youthful characters grow up in, are recurrently acquired from their families and surrounding life figures. Such divisions affect the courses

As much as the book showed growth within Amir and how he realized his mistakes, he primarily disregards Hassan as a friend because he put Baba’s love in front of the relationship and always took into consideration his race and his social class. While Hosseini writes about Amir fulfilling his destiny and fixing his wrongdoings with Hassan, it brings up questions about how to treat each other: can you always fix mistakes later, or should you do the correct decision right

When Amir was looking for Hassan after the kite flying contest he is talking to someone asking if they had seen him. He refers to Hassan as “our servant’s son” (69). He and Hassan are best friends at home through their entire childhoods. Despite this, he still does not even refer to him as a friend to society; to the people around him Hassan is just his servant. Then later in the novel after he has witnessed Hassan getting raped, he does not want Hassan to be living with them anymore. He asks Baba “have you ever thought about getting new servants?” (89). He tries to exile his best friend for no reason at all even though they have been through everything together. This is the foundation of Amir showing this theme of exile towards Hassan, and it only gets worse. Hassan begins to notice what Amir is doing and tells him “I don’t know what i’ve done, Amir agah I wish you’d tell me. I don’t know why we don’t play anymore” (88). He ignores Hassan and shuts him out into exile even though all he has done is be loyal to Amir. Soon after Amir wants to completely exile Hassan and get him out of his home for good. Amir decides to frame him so he “lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted [his] new watch and handful of Afghani bills under it” (104). Amir lets Hassan take the blame for this act completely and exiles him out of his life forever. Hassan even writes to him but Amir does not respond. Amir exiles Hassan and shows the theme of exile through his actions toward Hassan throughout the

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a remarkable coming-of-age novel describing and revealing the thoughts and actions of Amir, a compunctious adult in the United States and his memories of his affluent childhood in the unstable political environment of Afghanistan. The novel showcases the simplistic yet powerful ability of guilt to influence decisions and cause conflict which arises between Amir’s childhood friend and half-brother, Hassan; Amir’s father, Baba; and importantly, himself. Difference in class The quest to become “good again” causes a reflection in Amir to atone for his sins and transform into the person of which he chooses to be.

This is shown when Amir describes Hassan or other “normal people” in his life. Despite their ethnic differences, Amir and Hassan “fed from the same breasts”, took their “first steps on the same lawn”, and it’s learned later in the novel that they are half brothers (11). Countless hours of their childhood consisted of them playing pretend, flying kites, reading stories, and just talking with one another. This definitely falls in the parameters of friendship, but Amir “never thought of Hassan and [him] as friends” (25). In moments of chaos, Amir finds Hassan expendable in order to protect himself and his desires. When Hassan refused to give up a kite that Amir desperately wanted, Hassan was attacked and raped while Amir hid. Although Hassan was taking the beating for him, Amir thought that “he was just a Hazara” so there is no need to go out into harm’s way (77). This way of thinking can be traced back to the large majority of the people surrounding Amir viewed Hazaras as subhuman. Amir described a boy named Omar as “a pretty good guy” but refers to Hassan as “your hazara” and insults his “tight little eyes” (68). This perception of Omar being a good guy despite his degrading comments towards Hassan shows how much Pashtuns had influenced Amir. A Marxist, however, would say that Amir supported the dominant ideology thus keeping the bourgeoisie at the top.

Amir didn’t call Hassan his friend, throughout the whole book, the main reason for this was that Hassan was a Hazara. The Hazaras are the second class and they must serve to the higher class, like Hassan does to Amir’s family. Instead of strengthen their friendship, he listens to the soldiers and school friends, who continually remind him that Hassan is a servant and that he is not equal to them. When Hassan and Amir where young children they were close friends but slowly things started to change. The afternoons Amir wasn’t at school he and Hassan, read him stories or flew kites, and they were like two brothers. But peer pressure and jealousy stopped Amir from seeing Hassan as a true friend. After Hassan was raped by Assef Amir could no

Hassan is a victim of discrimination, bigotry, and class structure in Afghan society. Hassan and Ali are members of the Hazaras, a minority group of Afghanis. Amir and his father are Pashtuns, the majority, who believes they are a better class than the Hazara. Religion was all that separated Amir and Hassan, as did tribe and class. Amir learned from his father that the Harara tribe to which Ali and Hassan belonged, were inferior people. Because of this bigotry and basic class structure, Hazaras are often victims of physical, emotional and psychological abuse. Thus when a crisis comes and Hassan is being attack, Amir not only doesn't come to Hassan's aid, but also allows him to be brutally abused. Morality lacks because of this class structure, which allows people to be treated as second-class citizens. Considerations towards morality and religion helps the reader to broaden there understanding of the novel and it would be impossible to appreciated the book lacking them.

Throughout The Kite Runner, cultural influences in Amir’s life subconsciously result in the main character’s sudden mistreatment towards Hassan. People become influenced, unknowingly, by their surroundings, which affects friendships, livelihood, and sometimes results in betrayal. Throughout the novel, Hosseini hints at betrayal, especially when Amir orders Hassan to “eat dirt” and uses the analogy that “he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass” (Hosseini 54). Amir’s statement portrays Amir as the typical Pashtun and Hassan as the typical