Gender Roles In Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a tale revolving around the life of a young Afghani boy named Amir and his path to redemption; the reader is a constant companion to Amir’s life events, they are there to witness every major success and struggle that he has in his life. Throughout the story, Amir meets many people that have a serious impact on his life and play a large role in the development of his character; the overwhelming majority of these people however, are male. Although women don’t have many roles in The Kite Runner, the types of roles that they do play are quite significant in terms of story and character development, such as acting as a mother or guidance figure. The reason for the lack of female characters in the novel could be because Hosseini wanted to exemplify life for all women in Afghanistan; today, women in Afghanistan are almost hidden from the public eye, so therefore, Hosseini, in a way, “hid” them in the story. Women in the United States have lives that are full of freedom and opportunity: they are able to work a good job; they can support their families, and are free to act and wear what they wish. Now, Afghani women, rather than going out and looking for a job, are not allowed to work or leave their home without their husband’s or father’s permission. Women are dominated in Afghan society and in The Kite Runner, women have roles that are few and far between, however, the roles that they do have are quite important to the development of the story.

The Kite Runner, is filled with many significant characters that contribute to the development of the story in one form or another, these characters though, are mainly male. Female characters in The Kite Runner do not play as many roles as men do, but the ...

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...e novel, the reader may have noticed that there is a distinct lack of female characters: Soraya, Jamila, Sanaubar and Farzana are some of the only noted female characters in the novel. While there are only a few of them, the roles that these female characters play in the development of the story and the development of the characters such as Amir and Hassan, are of great importance. The reason why there is a lack of female characters is because of the author’s intentions to present a story that informs the reader, quite subtly, of how women are treated in Afghan society and to emphasize the recurring theme of ‘like father, like son’. In the end, all the women are crucial to the story because they provide the reader with valuable insight into another culture’s customs and society, as well as helping to prove the old adage, ‘behind every great man, is a great woman’.