Imagine millions of Afghani refugees, emaciated families, and thousands of uneducated children all desperate for help. In the war that America has waged against terror, it has left in its wake millions of peaceful, starving, and struggling civilians. Both, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini display the two different stories about the reality of living in the midst of war. Using contrasting brushstrokes, these two stories paint a vivid picture of the fragile and tumultuous society that millions of peaceful Afghani and Pakistani civilians claim as their own. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is an album of snapshots into the tumultuous culture of Soviet and Taliban struggling for …show more content…
Three Cups of Tea, is the fascinating tale of one man’s mountaineering failure, turned to a mission of peace through education. The story of Greg Mortenson, told by David Oliver Relin, begins with a failed scaling of the world’s second highest mountain, K2. Mortenson stumbles upon the tiny, impoverished Pakistani village of Korphe, where the residents nurse him back to health after weeks in high elevation. Disturbed by the lack of basic necessities, access to modern civilization, and education, Mortenson is determined to repay their kindness by building Korphe a school. Three Cups of Tea, gets its title from the practice of drinking enormous amounts of tea to conduct any sort of business in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The continuum of the story describes Mortenson’s fight against radical terrorism by building 55 schools to provide an alternative education to combat the indoctrination by madrassa (publicly funded militant jihad education) schools. Mortenson’s philosophy was to build as many schools as possible to provide a non-radical educational alternative for parents to send both boys and girls. By empowering a generation of village women through education, Mortenson believed he could change the …show more content…
The entire path of Mortenson’s life took a dramatic shift when he stumbled into Korphe. This was just one of many hardships that Mortenson persevered through, and used as an opportunity instead of a hinderance. Amazingly, Mortenson succeeded because of his numerous mistakes. An example of his mistakes, would include his numerous blunders against Pakistani custom. Throughout Mortenson’s story, he encounters numerous unique cultural precedents. He learns that in order to earn respect from those he was trying to help, he had to learn to understand their customs. Finally, in spending so much time among rural, isolated, and impoverished Pakistani villages, Mortenson discovered the way to combat terrorism. Mortenson understood that in order to pull these rural villages out of poverty, the parents needed access to education. The only remotely affordable education available to poverty-stricken farmers was madrassa. The madrassa system provided economically cheap education, but it came at a great price. Madrassa is funded by jihadi cells who use this opportunity to instill hatred and jihad into rural children who have not learned contrary. This system also encouraged excluding women from education, and freedom in general. Mortenson strongly believed that by providing a moderate and unbiased education for girls and boys was the only way to keep
Almost everyone who is fortunate enough to live in a developed country can enjoy benefits and freedom. As people who have had a happy life since day one, many may have never gave much thought on how privileged we are compared to those living in horrible conditions in developing countries. The book Under the Persimmon Tree, by Suzanne Fisher Staples, provides the reader with a new perspective of the lives of those living in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is done by exploring the lives Najmah, a teenage Afghan girl, and Nusrat, a young American-Pakistani woman. The story is about these two characters struggling to survive under the Taliban regime. As both slowly start to lose what they love most and fall into despair, the
The way our friends treat us in the face of adversity and in social situations is more revealing of a person’s character than the way they treats us when alone. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, ethnic tensions, nationality, and betrayal become the catalyst that drives and fuels Amir, Assef, and other characters to embark on their particular acts of cruelty. Serving as a way to illustrate the loss of rectitude and humanity, cruelty reveals how easily people can lose their morals in critical circumstances. Through Amir, Assef, and the Taliban’s actions, cruelty displays the truth of a person’s character, uncovering the origin of their cruelty. Amir’s cruelty spurs from his external environment and need for love from his father, choosing
Mortenson, Greg, and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print
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.
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.
One aspect of the novel that highlights this struggle is its setting, as it takes place during four time periods, each at a different stage in Afghan history. Throughout these unstable decades, the country’s government went through continuous upheavals with each new government advocating different
With many magazines and newspapers being shut down, authors are speaking out against the government and the censorship it has established (Iran par. 5). As intellectuals are finding flaws and contradictions in the belief systems the government uses, the religious leaders grow more and more threatened and frightened of losing their power (Iran par. 5). In an attempt to outwit government officials, writers and artist will portray their intended message through a vague symbol or metaphor, as to not seem suspicious (Iran par. 9). The suffocation of intellectualism affects Marji’s life when all of the universities are shut down, the reasoning being that "The educational system and what is written in school books, at all levels, are decadent. Everything needs to be revised to ensure that our children are not led astray from the true path of Islam" (Satrapi 73). The government is trying to eliminate the skepticism floating about in more educated groups of people by teaching the next generation Islamic ideals. This indoctrination will ensure the survival of an Islamic
Greg Mortenson is a truly influential person. He has built over 120 schools in central Asia. Mortenson believes that the real long term answer to terrorism “lies in education rather than fighting” (402). He has won multiple Pakistani humanitarian awards and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize two years in a row (Mortenson and Relin, 127). Mortenson built his first school in 1994 in a Pakistani village called Korphe. Korphe is situated at the base of K2, the world’s second highest mountain. Mortenson stumbled upon this tiny village after a failed attempt to climb the peak in honor of his late sister Christa. (Mortenson and Relin, 136). Since building the school in Korphe, Mortenson has built multiple schools around Pakistan and Afghanistan. His focus is on educating girls about the world around them. By building schools in third world countries, Greg Mortenson is impeding terrorism.
In Khaled Hosseini’s novel titled “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, the concept of man’s inhumanity to man describes the ways that war has a ripple effect, such that any inhumanity carried out has consequences for many more people than are involved in that act. One can clearly see that war leads to destruction during different regimes in Afghanistan. The destructive effects of war can be seen in the death of so many people. It leads to the suffering of the younger generation and it demolishes the infrastructure of the country.
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
Modern day society has been ravaged by the damaging effects of racism, sexism, and violence. Though he did not first-handedly experience these oppressions, Khaled Hosseini, a realist author from Kabul, Afghanistan, emphasizes the troubles of society in his works. After temporarily moving from Kabul to Paris, Hosseini’s family heard about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in addition to the start of a war in their homeland. Instead of returning to the unstable conditions in Afghanistan, Hosseini moved to America. Though far away from the problems at home, Hosseini was still aware of the tyrannical rule the Taliban had over Afghanistan, and the class divide happening between the Pashtuns and Hazaras. In his world-renowned novel, The Kite
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hoesseini is a novel that does not only tell the story of two friends who are part of the Afghan society, but also how this friendship is torn apart as they are forced out of their homes and country to escape the rise of the Taliban. Baba and Amir form a stronger bond depending on the struggles; it also depicts multiple sides of humanity, and portrays the conflict between a father and a son. The relationship between Baba and his son, Amir, undergoes significant phases throughout the novel. The reader becomes aware of Amir’s desire to be noticed by his father. And Baba’s frustration with his son, and the battle they suffer trying to bond.
The book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, depicts the story of a young boy named Amir who lives in Afghanistan. Hosseini follows around Amir in his journey throughout life and how his experiences have shaped him into the person he is today. Amir experiences times of sadness, happiness and confusion. Throughout the book, we see how Amir adapts to the conflicts arising and the tragedy around him.
The books “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and “The Kite Runner” are both written by Khaled Hosseini. The setting of both of the book is in the capital of Afghanistan, which is Kabul. Both books express the themes of betrayal, discrimination, and also redemption; but both novels depict the themes and characters in different ways. Even though the main characters are very much alike.
From the shattered glass windows of Jewish shops to the poorly propped-up tents of Rwandan refugee camps, the violence perpetrated by a dominant ethnic group can destroy entire villages. Khaled Hosseini, born in Kabul, Afghanistan, experienced these ethnic tensions first hand as a young Pashtun, and the negative attitudes he witnessed against Hazaras found their way into his best-selling novel, The Kite Runner. In Hosseini’s book, published in 2003, the carving on the pomegranate tree becomes a reminder of Amir and Hassan’s friendship. Like the friendship, the carving initially brings positive memories to Amir, but as Amir selfishly suppresses his knowledge of Hassan’s rape, the carving quickly becomes a detested memory. Not until Rahim Khan encourages Amir to rescue Sohrab, Hassan’s son, does the carving represent an opportunity for Amir to redeem his broken friendship.