Pride In The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

Much of Afghan society is built on the concept that a man’s image comes from his status, and that his manhood is defined by his honor and his pride, his nang and namoos. In this society, men appear to hold most of the power. This power is fragile, however, because “all a man ha[s is] his honor [and] his name” (223). Without honor, or with a tainted name, a Pashtun man is nothing. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, some characters follow this standard to a fault. General Taheri, for example, is so prideful that he remains on welfare in the US, as he believes that getting a job would be degrading to him and his position as a general in Afghanistan (176). Ironically, the women in the novel achieve true nang and namoos, while most men cannot,

even though it is not expected of them. Because of their position in society, the women do not have to worry about their public image in quite the same way as the men, so they are able to focus more on their actions and deeds. They have learned that acting right is far more important that looking right on the path to honor and pride. With this knowledge, the women in the novel teach Amir how to truly embody the principles of Pashtun manhood, nang and namoos, allowing him to become the man he has always wished to be.
Because of Sofia’s death, Amir has difficulty learning to become a true Pashtun man. Many of the problems in Amir and Baba’s relationship result directly from Sofia’s death. Amir is hurt by his father’s rejection and believes that since he “had killed [Baba’s] beloved wife, his beautiful princess,” he is taking all of the blame and punishment for that now (19). Sofia’s absence creates tension between Amir and Baba because he blames himself for not being the son Baba wants him to be. Instead, he “escape[s his] father’s aloofness in his dead mother’s books” (19). In those books, he’s looking for “escape” from being an eternal disappointment to Baba. With his reading, too, it’s clear that he’s more like his mother than his father. This fact only further separates him from his father. In addition, because of the absence of Sofia, Amir doesn’t have the opportunity to learn how to become a virtuous man. As Amir tells us, his mother is “universally regarded as one of Kabul’s most respected [...] and virtuous” women (15). Amir, however, misses out on the opportunity to witness his mother’s virtue. Also, his mother’s absence can be seen as leading directly to his father’s loss of virtue, in that he sleeps with Sanaubar, fathers Hassan, fails to atone for his wrongdoings, and takes out his guilt on Amir. Sofia’s death brings on a maelstrom of misfortune that inhibits Amir’s ability to deal with situations that require virtue, such as what happens with Hassan in the alley in the winter of 1975.
Healing some of the damage done by Sofia’s absence, Khala Jamila plays a key role in Amir’s growth by offering him unconditional love and teaching him the importance of challenging societal norms, both of which help start him on the path towards nang and namoos. When Soraya and Amir marry, Jamila immediately focuses much of her motherly love and attention on Amir. He becomes the “new delight of Khala Jamila’s life,” as she makes “no secret of how much she adores him” (177). Amir can also “do no wrong in her eyes,” so much that Amir imagines that even if he “had picked up a rifle and gone on a murdering rampage” he would still be subject to her “unblinking love” (333, 178). When Amir is saving Sohrab in Afghanistan, Khala Jamila goes about “praying and doing nazr every day” for him, worrying for him in a way only a mother can (325). This unconditional love fills the void of Baba’s death, as well as begins to heal the pain of his mother’s absence, providing a catalyst for him to give unconditional love to others, a key component of nang and namoos. Jamila also teaches Amir that he must stand up to society if he wants to do what he loves. Before she marries, Jamila is a singer, but when she does marry she is forced to stop, as “that she never never sing in public had been one of the ... condition[s]” to the marriage (177). Even when she asks to sing a single song at her daughter’s wedding, “the general gave her one of his looks, and the matter was buried” (177). Khala Jamila gives up her passion in exchange for tradition and societal norms. Observing her sacrifice, Amir sees the cost of conforming to society’s expectations and learns that if he wants to pursue his dreams, he must break the mold and find his own path. He learns that in following his passion, he is honoring himself, which then allows him to honor others.
Amir learns from his observations of Soraya, too, how to become courageous, so that he can advance in his journey to become an honorable, virtuous man.

He sees her determination to stand up to her father for what she loves, as she exclaims, “Teaching may not pay much, but it’s what I want to do! It’s what I love” (182). Amir sees a woman stand up to her father, a strange occurrence in Afghan society, which provides him with a model of what it means to stand up for one’s his own beliefs and dreams. Later, after General Taheri calls Sohrab a ‘Hazara Boy’, Amir is able to follow this model, telling the general, “You will never again refer to [Sohrab] as ‘Hazara Boy’ in my presence. He has a name and it’s Sohrab” (361). He stands up to a powerful proponent of the status quo, rejecting the general’s discrimination towards Sohrab and making Amir’s belief that Pashtuns are no better than Hazaras very clear. Soraya also shows Amir courage in her willingness to face her past. Right before they marry, Soraya reveals the secrets of her past to Amir. Amir realizes that he is jealous of her bravery, noting, “I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with” (165). When he finally tells her of his past, years later, Amir “imagined Soraya had experienced something similar the night of our khastegari, when she’d told [him] about her past,” a sense of relief, a lifting of weight off of his shoulders (325). He learns that, through courage and the ability to face his past , he can start

to free himself from the burden of his sins and begin to focus on his future. Once he is able to face his past, he can proudly stand up for himself, his beliefs, and others.
The courage Amir learns by observing Soraya and Jamila encourages him to face his “past of unatoned sins,” but finally it is Sanaubar who provides him with a model for atonement , allowing him ultimately to achieve nang and namoos (1).

In her quest to atone for her sins, Sanaubar first returns to Kabul and faces her past head on. When she first sees Hassan, she exclaims, “I have walked long and far to see if you are as beautiful in the flesh as you are in my dreams” (210). She then admits her sins, crying out to Hassan, “Allah forgive me, I wouldn’t even hold you” (210). She asks for forgiveness from Hassan, and after a long night of deliberation, Hassan tells her that “she could cry if she wanted to but she needn’t [because] she was home now … with her family” (210). She is forgiven, but she still must make up for her actions, so when Hassan’s child, Sohrab, is born, she walks out of the hut “clutching th[e] baby like she never wanted to let go. Not this time” (211). She cares for Sohrab, the two of them becoming “inseparable” (211). She tends to Sohrab as she should have for Hassan, making up for her sins with her actions towards his son. Amir then follows her model, first returning to Afghanistan to get Sohrab, then admitting his sins, and finally completing the atonement process by bringing Sohrab home to care for him and give him a better life, beginning to do what he can to make up for betraying Hassan and driving him out of his house in Kabul. Because of the model

Sanaubar creates, he is able to fully atone for his sins, instead of attempting and failing to do so, as his father does, who seeks atonement through means that don’t impact the victim of the sin directly, instead of those that do.
Amir needs the help of the women in the novel in order to become a man who possesses true nang and namoos. As a boy, he wants to be a man like Baba, whom he perceives to be a real Pashtun man, well-respected by his community and full of honor and pride. Once he learns the true meaning of nang and namoos, however, he realizes that Baba, as well as other men, such as General Taheri, have chosen pride at the expense of honor. They forego integrity in exchange for their reputations. A real man, Amir learns, must be be willing to forfeit his reputation for his integrity and the well-being of others. Only the women of the novel are able to teach him this lesson. Without the power that men possess, they look at nang and namoos from a different angle. Their reputations are not linked to power, and in a way that powerlessness liberates them because none of them has “bragging rights” the way men do. While the men are more concerned with posturing and gaining power over others through their reputations, women concern themselves with their own purity. With this focus, they are able to hone their nang and namoos, placing honor before pride. From them, Amir finally learns that the true tenets of a Pashtun man are nang and then namoos, and that to put pride over honor is not really manly at all. In the final moments of his story, Amir finds himself, “a grown man running with a swarm of screaming children,”an image that is not particularly ‘manly,’ yet he runs without a care in the world (371).