The ' The Kite Runner '

Thesis: Betrayal leads to feeling of guilt which forces the person in search of redemption either directly or through indirect actions and gestures.

“’Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our wantan. They dirty our blood….

I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley of Hassan … Maybe Hassan was the price I had to ay, the lamb I had to slay to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara wasn’t he? (Hossieni 82)

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.

When they were still children Hassan and Armir were always abused by Assef. One day when Assef was about to beat them with his famous brass knuckles, Hassan showed courage and stood up for him and his friend. “ But perhaps you didn’t notice that I’m the one holding the slingshot. If you make a move, they’ll have to change your nickname from Assef ‘The Ear Eater’ to ‘One-eyed Assef’ because I have this rock pointed at your left eye’ (42). Hassan was willing to stand up for himself and his best friend even though there was a really good chance that it could end badly for the both of them but he just wanted to keep everyone safe. This comes into play later in the story, Hassan has died and Armir has learned that Hassan is actually his half brother and has had a boy named Sohrab. Armir needs to find Sohrab, and when he does he learns that he has been taken by a man, this man we learn is Assef. Assef tells Armir that he can have Sohrab if he fights him and only one of them will survive. In the beginning of the fight Armir is taking quite a beating but he feels as though he deserves it. “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace... I hadn’t been happy and I hadn’t felt better, not at all. But I did now… I felt healed. Healed at last” (289). Armir felt as if he deserved the pain because of what he put Hassan through.

The desire to feel loved and wanted by your parents can drive a person to go to extreme limits to get that love. One boy that goes to these extreme limits is Amir. All Amir wants is to have a good, strong relationship with his father. He feels the death of his mother was his fault, and he needed to make it up to his father. In doing so, Amir let’s horrible things happen to his friend Hassan. Many many years later, after fleeing to America, Amir returns to Afghanistan in search of redemption of his actions all those years ago. The theme of The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini is redemption. Through Amir’s life, that’s what he’s been doing to himself, trying to redeem himself from his acts that have brought pain

"Hassan!” I called. “Come back with it!” He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “For you, a thousand times over!” he said.

Hassan is hurt and frustrated by the way Amir treats him after the betrayal, but he never blames Amir for the way he acted. He never forgets about Amir and remains his faithful servant and loving friend until his he is killed by Taliban soldiers, even though Amir and Hassan's paths

“The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either… Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame… a boy with Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of these things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, 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.” (Housini

In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini adopts an alleviated tone and utilizes imagery, irony, and symbolism to demonstrate how a fight relieved Amir’s emotional pain. Hosseini first utilizes imagery to set the scene of the fight, starting in a room, Hosseini states “[Assef's] snarl all split-shining teeth, his bloodshot eyes rolling […] curls of shoulder length blonde hair fell on his shoulders” (Hosseini 288). This imagery creates a flashback for the reader, regarding how Assef hasn’t changed. His appearance in still just as evil as it was the day he raped Hassan. In the midst of the fight, Hosseini further provides details of the fight that are painful to read “Assef straddling my chest, his face a mask of lunacy, framed by snarls of hair swaying inches from my face”

One day Asseff rapes Hassan as an act of power, and Amir witnesses the actions but acts in a cowardly matter and simply avoids the matter by ignoring it. Amir then proceeds to cut off the relationships between himself and Hassan, “I actually aspired to cowardice, but the real reason I was running, was that Asseff was right. Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara. Wasn’t he?” Amir did it because the traditional and historical beliefs were more important than friendship. This action displays how being born in a different social class can outweigh all feelings of love and friendship with one of a different social group.

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

Amir stumbles upon an alley. In the alley, he sees the Hassan trap by three boys named Assef, Kamal, and Wali. All they asked of Hassan is to give up the blue kite. However, Hassan’s loyalty and friendship toward Amir prevented Hassan to give up the kite. As the tension built, Assef lets Hassan have the kite, but in-return he does unthinkable. Assef rapes Hassan as Amir watched unnoticeably from the alley (Hosseini 62-66). This was Amir’s chance to prove his true friendship by stepping in to save Hassan. Instead, Amir ran “because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he could do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan” (Hosseini 68). According to Amir, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 68). “He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 68).

Hassan allows Assef to rape him because Assef threatens to take away the last kite that Amir has cut to win the competition. Since he seeks Baba’s approval, he wants to present it to him to establish a better* relationship with him. Therefore, he views Hassan’s rape as a sacrifice for his desires. Directly before the incident, Amir “[catches] a glimpse” of Hassan’s face, and describes his face as holding “resignation in it” (76). He then goes on to compare his expression to the “look of a lamb” (76). In this quote, Amir is referring to the sheep that he witnesses the mullah kill on a Muslim holiday, the tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah, which he and his family celebrate every year. Amir believes that the lamb sees itself as a sacrifice, and accepts its unwanted fate, which is how he believes that Hassan feels too. Though Amir later feels immense guilt for his actions*, he is able to disregard* his regrets when he and Baba move to America to escape the Russian takeover. Amir compares America to a “river, roaring along”, and views it as being “unmindful of the past” (136). He describes forgetting his mistakes in America as entering the river, “[letting] [his] sins drown to the bottom”, and allowing, “the waters” to “carry [him] someplace far.” (136). Because of this, Amir enjoys thinking of America as a place with “no ghosts, no memories,”, and “no sins”, and relishes in his forgetful state (136). However, as one can not continue

“The relationship between Amir and Hassan. It’s so different from any relationship I’ve experienced. Amir and Hassan are as closeas a servant and master can be, yet Amir acts like Hassan, a Hazara, is beneath him. Amir never learns to assert himself against anyone else because Hassan always defends him. I think these factors play into his childhood cowardice of sacrificing Hassan. Hassan however remains loyal, forgiving, and good natured,” replied Jack. “So what do you think of their friendship?”