The Kite Runner : Social Injustice

Due to past events, the Afghan government is now struggling to keep up with their citizens’ problems with living there. Bombing, wars, harassment, feminism, and abuse have been some of the main topics of bad events in the last few years in Afghanistan. Dystopia is a society that can be characterized with extreme hunger, poverty, misery, and the imbalance among the people; the Taliban taking over was the cause of how Afghanistan is still dystopian today. When one analyzes Ashraf Ghani’s choice to allow the Taliban to form, and the impacts the Taliban are still having on the people, one can realize how important genres of literature can be to educate the world about this dystopian

Two main themes in the novel The Kite Runner are that of social class and gender roles. Everywhere that Amir, the main protagonist, turns, society is divided. From his earliest childhood memories to living in America, there always seems to be some sort of invisible line drawn between his people. There is separation between the Pashtuns and the Hazaras, between Americans and Afghans, between men and women, and between the Talibs and the people of Afghanistan.

Equality is something we humans crave for when we are in a time of hardship. When we are being discriminated against, we feel the utmost pain and the need for freedom. Discrimination has lingered since the beginning of time, and ending it is impracticable. A French novelist, Honore de Balzac proclaims, “Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.” Here, Balzac is acknowledging that an individual is born a free man and is just as equal as any other man. But, an individual will never be fully equal as they desire. Some parts of society will try to act superior to a certain quality of someone’s life, like their race, religion, culture, etc. This statement proves to be valid in Khaled Hosseini’s novel,

Violence, war, discrimination, and poverty: these issues have long been a part of Afghanistan’s history. Even though things in Afghanistan are getting better, war fills the country, and women and children have to learn to endure abuse, caused by men and the Taliban; they also learn to endure poverty. Considering this, it is no wonder why Afghanistan is in the terrible position it is in now. Many Afghan cities like Kabul are filled with things like violence and discrimination, and the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini takes place in Kabul. This book follows the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, as they suffer pain and discrimination received from the Taliban and their

Cruelty is something that eventually causes agony in the best of us. In The Kite Runner, the author uses cruelty in the novel to push the story and characters in a new direction. Cruelty acts as a driving force for the protagonist, Amir, and the people he interacts with. The author does this by placing the characters in unfamiliar situations and forcing them to react to those situations. Initially, Amir is placed in an unfamiliar situation when his friend, Hassan, is abused. His actions while he is in this situation set off a chain reaction forcing the characters to navigate difficult situations. Throughout these difficult situations, Amir grows emotionally as a result of the cruelty around him.

John Piper once said, “Redemption is not perfection, the redeemed must realize their mistakes.” One can see an idea similar to this in Kahled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. In the story, the author sends the message that redemption can be a lifelong pursuit, and until achieved, happiness will not be obtained.

Cruelty is an important factor in two themes in The Kite Runner. One of those themes involves experiencing pain and how that pain shapes who character will become in the future. This theme is exemplified in the alley scene when Amir witnesses his servant and friend, Hassan, being sexually assaulted by the neighborhood bully, Assef. The horrendous acts of cruelty Amir experiences that day are completely paradoxical to anything he has encountered previously in his life. Up until this point, the only cruelty Amir has had to experience is that of his relationship, or lack thereof, with his father. As the story continues, Amir considers himself to be cruel for not even attempting to help Hassan in his time of need. He even references this experience in the first paragraph of the book by saying “I became what I am today at the age of twelve… crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the

“There is a way to be good again” (2). This is the line that rolls through Amir's mind over and over throughout Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner. This is the story of a mans struggle to find redemption. The author illustrates with the story of Amir that it is not possible to make wrongs completely right again because its too late to change past. In this novel Hosseini is telling us that redemption is obtainable, and by allowing us to see Amirs thought process throughout the novel, Hosseini shows us that it guilt is the primary motivation for someone who seeks redemption. Hosseini also uses not only the main character, but other secondary characters to show how big of a part that guilt plays in the desire for redemption. In this

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

Social status allows the powerful to gain more power, while pushing the struggling deeper into a hole. Hazaras are an ultimately low class in Afghanistan with very minimal rights. In The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini the protagonist Amir is a higher level Afghan citizen who is best friends with Hassan, a lower level Hazara. Throughout the book Amit gradually begins to treat Hassan more like a Hazara is treated by the majority of the population. Assef bullies Hassan to show him his place as a minority in Afghanistan. Due to Hassan being a Hazara, Baba avoids social embarrassment by not exposing the truth of Hassan being his son. Hassan later on gets killed for being a Hazara. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini shows that an individual's social status affects their future through the way Hazaras are treated in Afghanistan.

What if there are individuals who function as if they are unsafe, constantly under the threat of racism? What if they live under continuous stress and despair after experiencing offensive racist comments being hurled at them? What if they start to hate themselves more and more each day because they were scorned by their peers for being themselves? What if you were such a person? Racism is “the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another” (ADL). Within this belief system, identified races discriminate against one another, and one ethnic group believes in its superiority to another. In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini invites readers to experience the bigoted society within

Illiteracy and poverty are highly connected. This is well known. A child who grows up impoverished in a developing country is likely to be illiterate. An illiterate and impoverished child has an incredibly low chance of succeeding as a person. If those chances weren't low enough, imagine that child is growing up being discriminated against because of his or her religious affiliation and cultural background. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the character Hassan exemplifies the poverty stricken illiterate child. He has grown up as a servant and never acquires a useable skill and never makes a live able wage. Conversely, the character Amir has had access to school, is a member of the dominant religion of Afghanistan, and is supported by a wealthy father. Because he was born into a family with money and privilege, he is likely to be a competitive member of the economy and will follow in his father's footsteps in that way. The future of each of these characters can reliably be traced back to one thing: their ethnic backgrounds.

For example, the talibans in afghanistan are using violence against other people, women who tries to speak up for themselfs are constantly getting hit. Just like in malala, malala tries to speak up for herself and gets shot by a taliban. Children is the most affected because at a young age they get to witness some of their family members getting shot by taliban just like in the novel “The Kite Runner”. Sometimes some children are used to be a soldier at a young age.

The Kite Runner is a story about what the people of Afghanistan had and have to go through in everyday life. Afghanistan is a country that is divided between political powers and has religiously idealistic views and beliefs in which results in the creation of poverty, and violence among the people. Afghanistan's culture and traditions is the main basis of the storyline as for the lives of the people who live in Kabul. The Kite runner serves as an eye-opener of a country with such great amount of political disorder. In the Kite runner we see a lot of government, political.

Individuals who are able to fight against injustices, that revolve around them, are inspiring and courageous. However, there are individuals who don’t fight the injustices in their culture, since they are frightened of the consequences. In the books Purple Hibiscus and Kite Runner it show the hardships youth face when attempting to respond or fight back to injustices. When Facing injustice it can result in hurting individuals and affecting those around them, since everyone will not have the same opinion causing arguments to rise. The biggest challenge when responding to an injustice is accepting the results, reactions, and criticism of other people, especially if they don’t have the same morals or thoughts about the injustice.