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Character analysis for amir kite runner essay
Religious conflict and war
Analysis of the kite runner
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One of the best selling novels by Hosseini was called The Kite Runner. This book mostly talks about the Afghan Society in Afghanistan. This society undergoes ethnic cleansing and crisis of the war. During the 1970s Amir and Hassan represented religion, class, and ethnicity divisions. The division are the ones that changed the fate of their lives in many ways. These divisions also has impacted Amir's and Hassan's hardships in life in many ways. First of all, the first division between Amir and Hassan is religion. Religion is one of the most important divisions in this story that determines the fate of each other. Most Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims and majority of Hazaras are Shia Muslim. They both compensate beliefs of Islam, but they both practice it very differently. “God help the Hazaras now,” (Hosseini pg.116) this is something that Hassan says to Rahim Khan, this is a type of foreshadow where the Taliban will kill the Hazaras. Rahim Khan tells Hassan to move to Kabul with his family. But the Taliban arrived very quick and kills Hassan and his wife, except for their son, Sohrab. This division has a large …show more content…
Pashtuns are the majority of the population in Afghanistan, they have power in their hands. Hazaras are different though, they are subjected to racism and are minorities. One of the Hazara's position shown in the novel is relationship between their families. “He poured me a cup and added sugar, blew on it a few times.” (Hosseini pg.136) as you can tell clearly Hassan is a servant of Amir's family. This is just one sentence, there are many sentences talking about how Amir prepares for school and is ready to learn, but Hassan is helping get Amir's stuff ready for school. Hassan is even bullied and harassed by a Pashtun, named Assef. Assef is the person that rapes Hassan due to his status in Hazara. Amir's ethnic group lets him avoid persecution, while Hassan can't and
Pashtuns have more control over things, as Hosseini talked about in the novel, they had more control in their history. When Amir was describing his father as, “…a towering Pashtun specimen with a thick beard, a way ward crop of curly brown hair…” (Page 12), was way different compared to the way he described Ali, a Hazara. Amir did not realize that he was describing the Pashtuns as they were better than the Hazara’s, also when Amir mentioned Hassan he said how he did not call him his friend because Hassan was a Hazara and he was his servant. Although he did say they were like brothers because they grew up together but never did he say friends. The tragedy that happened in the novel when Hassan was rape, sometimes it can be seen as a betrayal because Amir did not help Hassan, Pashtun betraying a Hazara.
While Amir is a Sunni, his childhood friend Hassan is Shi’a, an inferior division of Islam. Simultaneously, Amir and Hassan belong to different ethnic groups-Amir is Pashtun while Hassan is Hazara. During his childhood, Amir would constantly mock Hassan’s illiteracy and poke fun at him. But, the pivotal demonstration of pressure from his surroundings that makes Amir commit his own act of cruelty is when he watches Assef rape Hassan for refusing to give him the kite that Hassan caught for Amir. To this, Amir describes the look of Hassan’s face to “a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb” (76). Throughout his upbringing, Amir constantly believed that his father blamed him for killing his mother in childbirth. To Amir, Hassan’s rape is a sacrifice that Hassan has to pay the price, the lamb to kill, in order to win his father over. To justify his refusal to intervene, Amir reminds himself that “[Hassan] was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (77). Amir’s surroundings cause him to have a negative outlook on people that his society deem lower. Amir knows he is morally wrong for not helping Hassan, but his need for his father’s love overpowers his friendship. Adding to his pressures, Amir believes that Baba prefers Hassan over him, a belief that further drives him to be cruel to Hassan. As a result, Amir’s motivation for validation and love from his father
Throughout history, the Hazaras have always been persecuted by the Pashtuns. One of the main reasons why they’re discriminated against is because most Hazaras are Shia Muslims, while most Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims. Due to a disagreement in the past, the two groups have always argued against each other. Amir is a Pashtun, and he grows up around other people who believe that the Hazaras are an inferior race. Even though, Baba tries to educate Amir to not believe in racism, Amir has a very tiny bit of ingrained racism with him.
Amir's mother passes away during his birth, and his left with the suspicion that his father blames him for her death. Amir longes for his father's attention and approval, but does not receive any affection as a son. He grows up with his Hazara best friend, Hassan. In Afghanistan culture, Hazaras are considered lower class and inferiors in society. Amir describes his friendship with Hassan saying, “then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break."
At times Amir had trouble realizing that they were best friends because Hassan was a Hazara, he was of Asian descent and of the Shiite tribe, he resembles his ancestors, the Mongols. Amir is a Pashtun, of the Sunni tribe, a majority group in Afghanistan. Hassan was loyal and showed endless amounts of respect and praise to Amir. Though Hassan knew what Amir had witnessed and done to him, he covered up for him. He did not ever let Amir get into trouble with Baba, his father. Hassan was also the half brother of Amir, neither knew until Rahim Khan, a friend of Baba’s informed Amir. He and Hassan had a connection, both as friends but also as brothers.
The Kite Runner, is the first novel written by Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner is set in Afghanistan before the war in the city of Kabul, and then eventually in America. The novel relays the struggles of Amir (A young Shi’ boy), Hassan (a young Hazera servant boy) and Baba (Amir’s father) as they are growing up in an ever-changing Afghanistan. The young boys face difficult challenges most adults will never have to experience. Amir, Hassan, and even Baba must overcome cruelty in every aspect of their lives.
...h him; another part to this is because he believes Hassan is just a dirty Hazara boy. “I'd chase the car, screaming for it to stop. I'd pull Hassan out of the backseat and tell him I was sorry, so sorry, my tears mixing with rainwater. We'd hug in the downpour (Hosseini 109).” After Amir causes Hassan to leave, he laments about letting, more like making, his best friend leave him. He sees the dirty Hazara boy as his best friend at that moment. In both of these stories, the main character realizes how similar they are to the other social or religious group.
Hassan is a Hazara boy, this being an ethnic group that is looked down upon by Pashtun citizens of Kabul. “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.” (Hosseini 25). Throughout his childhood, Amir is put down regularly by neighborhood kids for befriending Hassan because of his ethnic background. Amir realizes that no matter what he may do, or no matter how Hassan may try to alter the situation, Hassan would always be too different for people to accept.
Amir, the main character and narrator in the Kite Runner, belongs to a wealthy family in which his father is a powerful businessman. Amir is also a part of the dominant Pashtun ethnic group and Sunni religious group. Amir in the Kite Runner tells the story of his friendship with Hassan. Hassan and his father, Ali, are Amir’s servants. Hassan on the contrary is a low-caste ethnic Hazara and belongs to the minority Shi’it religious faith. This provides many of the Afghan’s who are different such as Sunni’s, who make up 85% of the Muslim faith, to persecute people like Hassan for their religion.
The world-renowned novel, The Kite Runner was written by Afghanistan born American novelist Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini was born into a Shia Muslim family in Kabul that later in life decided to move to Paris. Hosseini was unable to return to Kabul due to the Taliban take over, this cause the Hosseini family to seek political asylum in America. The actions that Hosseini witnessed of his beloved home country influenced his novel with the themes of guilt and redemption. “The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.” – Victor Hugo. In The Kite Runner the theme of guilt and redemption is shown through the character development of the protagonist Amir. Hosseini used Amir’s guilt of his past to grow the impression that with regret lies a hope for redemption.
An aspect crucial to understanding The Kite Runner is the Pashtuns contemptuous treatment towards the Hazaras based upon the immense social differences between these two ethnic groups. Hassan, one of the
And what does Hassan do? He picks up a pomegranate, but instead of hurling it in Amir’s direction, he smashes it on himself and says, “are you satisfied?” (..). There is this constant pressure on Hassan and Amir’s relationship. The Afghan society would not approve of such “friendship.”
In both of his novels, Hosseini has both protagonists and antagonists originating from Afghanistan. He depicts the flaws of the broad generalizations many people believe due to a lack of information or insight into the concerning situations occurring in Afghanistan. As awareness about the indecencies taking place in Afghanistan increases, hopefully more individuals will take action to aide those being oppressed and help solve the turmoil occurring due to the presence of the Taliban. Works Cited Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner.
There are many oversimplifications and stereotypes, even if they may be from a reality-based ideology. The ethnic group of the Hazara and the Pashtun is not entirely developed. Amir was always referred to as a Pashtun but the background of the Pashtun isn't fully touched upon. The narrator only focuses on the Mongolian-like physical features of the Hazara's, and because of this diversity, they are considered a more lowly class than Pashtuns.
Throughout his childhood, Amir conforms to society and treats his Hazara servants poorly, but he questions the morality of such treatment. When Amir’s childhood bully, Assef, confronts him, Amir thinks to himself that Hassan works only as a servant for him, and that they have no friendship. Afterward, he thinks, “Why did I only play with Hassan when no one else was around?” (41). Hosseini uses a series of rhetorical questions to accentuate how Amir questions his beliefs about his relationship with Hassan....