Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

An important stepping stone in every child's life is when a child makes a vow to be best friends forever with another child. Many girls cement this promise by buying a necklace with half hearts on them, while boys may carve their names into trees, but either way this promise is very important for children to prove that they have someone who they can trust. In Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel The Kite Runner, two boys, Hassan and Amir, have a friendship that is not as typical as most children's. Although they do carve into a tree that they are the "sultans of Kabul" (Hosseini 27), their friendship is weak and one sided. These boys grew up in Kabul, and although their childhood friendship may have seemed like something out of a book, complete with pomegranate trees and story telling, it was dark and emotionally wearing. A main reason for this was because of the one subtle difference between these boys, omitting the differences in character; Hassan is a Hazara and Amir is a Pashtun. For this reason the Afghan society has classified Hassan as a lower human being and he, along with his father, is in servitude towards Amir and his family. Amirs lack of self-confidence throughout the novel hinders his ablity to have a true friendship with Hassan. Amir ruins the chance for friendship between himself and Hassan because he is jealous of Hassan, he thinks of Hassan as a lower human, and because of his bitter resentment.

An underlying cause of the problems Amir has with his friendship pertaining to Hassan is that he is jealous of Hassan; this jealousy causes him to test Hassan, and to take advantage of Hassan's unwavering loyalty. Amir constantly ridicules and tests Hassan; this is just to prove that Hassan is lower than he is. Amir confirms this by humiliating Hassan to himself, by taking advantage of Hassan illiteracy to amuse himself: "Well, everyone in my school knows what it means,' I said. "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). Amir is not accomplishing anything by teasing Hassan except that he is establishing that he is smarter. Amir feels that he has to prove, even to himself that he is smarter than Hassan', he lacks acceptance from his father, so he feels that he needs to tease Hassan in order to accept himself.