Introduction: Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’ is an inspirational book which leaves a long-lasting impression on the reader. Apart from being a bestseller, it also has a poignant film based on it, made in 2007. The book is the winner of the Penguin/ Orange Reader’s Group Prize (2006 & 2007). According to the ‘Daily Telegraph’, it is ‘a devastating, masterful and painfully honest story.’ Partly autobiographical, it describes Kabul where the author spent his childhood as also his migration to the US. “It was clear that Hosseini’s Afghan-American coming of age tale had struck an emotional nerve within readers” (Hunt, 2009, p.3). The book has been translated in 40 languages and read by people around the world. It is a fascinating story of friendship …show more content…
Hassan is completely loyal and would do anything for his friend and master. Perhaps the servant mentality is responsible to some extent because friendship involves sacrifice and unhappiness on his part. Amir is also concerned for his friend but is shallow. Faced with a difficult situation, he chooses to literally run. He is more interested in winning his father’s approval and keeps quiet about something which has hurt his friend Hassan a great deal. Not only that, he consciously uproots Hassan from a protected household, little caring about his future. The relationship is troubled and flawed as Amir’s guilt forces him to betray his friend twice, first by not helping his friend and second by forcing him to go away. “The relationship between Amir and his best friend (and half-brother) Hassan represents one occurrence of ethnic division and tension within ‘The Kite Runner’” (Hunt, 2009, p.9). Amir as a privileged boy tends to exploit the friendship for his own benefit. He needs Hassan for his physical strength as also for his company but when Hassan needs him, he does not offer his support. It is a reflection of his character which is weak. In order to be in his father’s good books, he overlooks Hassan’s friendship and loyalty to
passed to them by God. The Ten Commandments were passed to the Hebrews by God,
“I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past – and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” In Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner, Amir, the young protagonist, lives a lavish lifestyle with his father, Baba. Until the Soviets invade and the Taliban become the dominant influence in Afghanistan. Amir’s sumptuous lifestyle comes to an end, and the values of not only his father but also his society begin to impact him and he realizes how much he does not belong in his own culture. Amir is taught the virtues of being a good man, however when the opportunity presents itself to demonstrate his teachings; Amir realizes how different he is from the ways of his father.
The peaceful Afghanistan that Amir was born into is no longer in existence; rival groups now fight amongst each other. “There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little children”. Throughout The Kite Runner, there is tension on account of religious, ethnic, and economic factors. Amir, a privileged Sunni, struggles to understand his relationship with his Shi’a servant, Hassan. The boys grew up together, but “in the end, [Amir] was a Pashtun and [Hassan] was a Hazara, [Amir] was a Sunni and [Hassan] was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that.
In The Kite Runner, Hassan is a servant in Amir’s family, but Amir initially sees him as a friend, and the two are inseparable. Hassan is extremely loyal to Amir, and proves time and time again to be a valuable companion, but over time their friendship deteriorates. The social differences between Hassan, who is a Hazara, and Amir, who is a privileged Pashtun, create a source of conflict within their friendship as the two can never be truly equal. Due to this inequality, Amir expects Hassan to sacrifice for him, and it is this expectation that leads Hassan to much misery. After Amir wins the kite tournament, he asks Hassan to run for him the blue kite, which Hassan does so, telling Amir “For you a thousand times over!” (Hosseini 67). Hassan, being a loyal friend of Amir’s, goes out to find
This embarrasses and frustrates Amir. This frustration is one reason for Amir to slowly but surely push Hassan out of his life. Although it is not the most obvious reason, it is an underlying one. This is a mistake on Amir’s part because Hassan does so much for Amir, being the loyal friend that he is, and for Amir to push someone of such good moral and character out of his life, is a tremendous mistake on his behalf. It is quite obvious that Hassan would give his life for Amir, but, because of where Hassan comes from, Amir struggles throughout his childhood, to find a way to accept the friendship Hassan gives him.
Despite this absence of fatherly affection, Amir has other people who care about him deeply. To Amir, Hassan is his servant first and his best friend second. Throughout Afghani culture, this superiority idea is continually upheld and reinforced. Hassan, on the other hand, sees Amir as his all knowledgeable best friend. He protects Amir against the attacks of Assef out of love and devotion. Unfortunately, Hassan’s defense only leads to Amir burrowing deeper into his natural state of cowardice.
It is difficult to face anything in the world when you cannot even face your own reality. In his book The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses kites to bring out the major themes of the novel in order to create a truly captivating story of a young boy’s quest to redeem his past mistakes. Amir is the narrator and protagonist of the story and throughout the entire novel, he faces enormous guilt following the horrible incident that happened to his closest friend, Hassan. This incident grows on Amir and fuels his quest for redemption, struggling to do whatever it takes to make up for his mistakes. In Hosseini’s novel, kites highlight aspects of Afghanistan’s ethnic caste system and emphasizes the story’s major themes of guilt, redemption and freedom.
The hardships that life reveals can either affect a person in a negative or positive way. They can strengthen or weaken the development of one’s character. Khaled Hosseni’s The Kite Runner is a novel that tells the story of two boys – Amir and Hassan, his childhood friend and servant– who spend their lives attempting to overcome their obstacles. These obstacles create experiences that will shape them for the rest of their lives. Firstly, Hassan and Amir share similar hardships, however Hassan learns and grows from them, and Amir lingers over the negativity, allowing it to destroy his life instead of moving forward. Secondly, Amir is always rescued, which allows him to feel a sense of entitlement, while Hassan fights his own battles, resulting in a greater amount of inner strength. Lastly, as Amir and Hassan become adults in opposite ends of the world, they battle hardships that are very different. The differences within their adulthood continue to show who is the more honourable character. Ultimately, in Khaled Hosseni's The Kite Runner, Hassan is a stronger character than Amir, despite the fact that they both battle similar hardships.
War establishes many controversial issues and problems within society and can often expose an individual to many economic and sociopolitical hardships; thus creating an altercation in the way they view life. Amir, from the novel The Kite Runner and the novel’s author Khaled Hosseini, both saw the harsh treatment toward the people of Afghanistan through a series of wars, invasions, and the active power of a Pashtun movement known as the Taliban. Amir, much like Hosseini, lived a luxurious and wealthy life in Kabul. He is well educated and immerses himself in reading and writing. After transitioning from a life in Afghanistan to a life in the United States, both Hosseini and Amir faced obstacles in order to assimilate to American society. In The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist Amir parallels the experiences and hardships that Hosseini endured in his own lifetime.
Betrayal, redemption, and forgiveness are all major themes in The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. The novel also focuses around the theme of a broken relationship between father and son as well as facing difficult situations from ones past. Amir and Hassan are best friends with two completely different personalities. Each character in the novel faces their own hardships and eventually learns to overcome those difficulties. Beginning with betrayal then the characters have to make their way to gaining redemption and forgiveness from others, as well as their self, is carried on throughout the novel. It is a continuous story of the relationships between Amir and his father Baba and facing their challenges from the past every day of their present.
Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, grew up in prejudiced Afghanistan during the 1960’s as a middle-class Pashtun living with Hazaras working for his family. His move to America after the Communist Coup proved difficult for his family, especially his father. In his novel, Hosseini writes through a young boy, Amir, very similar to himself, who grows up with his father and two Hazara servants in Afghanistan at the time of the Taliban attacks. Both Amir and his father, Baba, treat their servants, Hassan and Ali, like family. Society, however, does not approve of such relationships between Pashtuns and Hazaras. As Amir hides and watches horrified, another Pashtun boy rapes Hassan. This leads to the continuation of Amir’s internal conflict about the treatment of Hazaras by the public, and also makes him feel guilty and self-conscious throughout his entire life. In addition, Amir strives for affection and attention from his rather indifferent father. Amir’s outward conformity to societal values in his relationships with both Hassan and Baba, as a result of his inner struggle and guilt, contribute greatly to the significance of The Kite Runner.
In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the author follows the development of protagonist Amir through a life filled with sorrow, regret, and violence. Amir encounters numerous obstacles on his path to adulthood, facing a new test at every twist and turn. Amir embarks on the long journey known as life as a cowardly, weak young man with a twisted set of ideals, slowly but surely evolving into a man worthy of the name. Amir is one of the lucky few who can go through such a shattered life and come out the other side a better man, a man who stands up for himself and those who cannot, willing to put his life on the line for the people he loves.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a novel based in Afghanistan that shows the betrayal between two boys with two different social backgrounds. Four years later “The Kite Runner” was filmed by David Benioff, which shows the meaningful message that the book delivers in a movie. Throughout the book and movie, Amir the protagonist must live the rest of his life with guilt from his childhood. Although the movie gave the same meaningful message that the book delivered, the book was further developed, which had more detail and kept the readers wanting more. Ultimately these details that were present in the novel gave the readers a better understanding of the characters, which led to the relationships
Because of Amir’s extreme desire to receive the attention and affection from Baba, he begins to subconsciously sacrifice his relationship with Hassan in order to fulfill his interests. However, as Amir continuously matures and begins to recognize his initial ignorant, detrimental actions towards Hassan, he no longer “worships” his father like he did in the past. This causes him to ensure a sense of independence because of his ability to quickly adapt to a completely new, unfamiliar environment and remain adamant on pursuing their own aspirations. When individuals highly idolize and worship the successes that their loved ones have achieved, their in-suppressible desire to emulate the achievements of others causes them to inevitably experience difficult circumstances that challenge their morality and principles. In The Kite Runner, Amir has always displayed overflowing affections for Baba due to his prideful feelings of being the son of a wealthy, prominent father.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a heart breaking novel. It features events that bring tears to the eyes of its readers, as well as a look into the world outside our own. This book deals with tragic adult themes such as racism and child rape. The story takes place in two different countries, Afghanistan, and later the United States. The novel is in the point of view of the main character Amir and it begins as he recalls events from his childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan in a time on the brink of civil war, when the Afghanistan king is overthrown.