Pashtuns In The Kite Runner

It is notable that the highest class of people in Afghanistan in the novel are the Pashtuns as they are also the least likely to be treated poorly and live in the harsh reality of Afghan poverty. Hosseini deliberately describes the Pashtuns in an exaggerated way “my Baba [who] had the most beautiful house in Wazir Akbar Khan”. This hubris about the lifestyle the Pashtuns are accustomed to is short lived as they are forced to flee the Soviet army and arrive in America with very little. It is notable that although a racial divide causes the Pashtuns to treat the Hazara as second-class citizens, in 1979 the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan led to many of the citizens fleeing to the more peaceful Pakistan, and they all had to flee from a threat as one unit. The racial divide was pushed aside momentarily so

Moreover the metaphor of Baba, “the hurricane”, is condensed to nothing when they move to America. While Amir seems to thrive in his new home. Baba, who was a powerful, treasured member of society back in Afghanistan can now do very little to provide for himself and his son. Although his reputation still stands to some in the community he dies a lonely and poor man, shown when Hosseini writes “there is no pain tonight… Baba never woke up”. Hosseini may have been aiming to include the possible truth about Afghanistan based on his personal knowledge of the problems they faced during this time.

In a similar way to the Hazara people in The Kite Runner, the black slaves in Heart of Darkness are mistreated despite their apparent innocence. Although both are mistreated the racial divide in ‘Heart of Darkness’ is a lot more pronounced than in The Kite Runner shown through Conrad’s description of the black slaves becoming “a pose of contorted collapse… a massacre of pestilence”. The visceral language used emphasises the