The Kite Runner
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The Kite Runner
Reading for leisure provides valuable insight into the author’s imagination or prior experience giving the reader a different perspective on a certain topic or culture. In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, we are introduced into a world of privilege in Afghanistan for the main character, Amir, combated with his best friend and half brother Hassan, their lowly Hazara servant. The two boys were raised together but being a Hazara is seen as an inferior race to many of the other more privileged Afghan boys, in particular a vile aggressive boy named Assef. The novel gets its name from a leisure activity known as kite fighting in Afghanistan in which Amir takes part as the main fighter while Hassan is his kite runner. Amir loves the kite fighting tournament as it is one of the only ways he is able to make his father, Baba, proud of him. Baba is a strong, wealthy, well respected man in the community and he wishes that Amir was interested in sports and in becoming a strong, popular man rather than always reading and writing stories by himself or with Hassan. Anyway, on the day of the tournament, Hassan is running to get the last kite when he is confronted by Assef and his two friends who proceed to viciously rape Hassan in the alley. When Amir goes to look for Hassan, he sees everything but is too much of a coward to stick up for his friend even though his friend had many times before and is then forced to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. Amir gets Hassan and his father to leave their servitude and go find another job, much to the dismay of Baba, and then Baba and Amir are forced to flea to Pakistan and later California as the Russians invade Afghanistan. Amir and Baba are forced to live a poverty stricken life in California until Baba passes away and Amir marries. Then suddenly, Amir receives a letter from one of his father’s old friends asking him to return to Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan’s only child get out of the terrible life he leads due to the Taliban. Amir discovers that Hassan is actually his half brother and in an attempt to relieve the guilt he still feels for not helping Hassan on that sad day, he agrees to help Hassan’s son Sohrab despite the successful life he leads in America. When he gets to Afghanistan, Amir is forced to meet with Assef who is a leader of the Taliban and who has Sohrab under his control. A presumed fight to the death ensues where Amir is nearly beaten to death before Sohrab shoots him in the eye with his slingshot. The two are able to retreat back to America where Amir symbolically teaches the quiet Sohrab to fly kites which provides a slight glimpse of hope for the future of everyone still alive.
The Kite Runner is a perfect example of how leisure reading can give valuable insight into other cultures while enjoying the stories involved. The first half of the book gives a glimpse of how some cultures contain much more rigid class stratification based on race and the status one is born into. Hassan is born a Hazara servant and even though he is Amir’s best friends and unknown to them half brother, he still does all the things a servant is supposed to do such as cleaning and cooking while remaining a loyal friend to Amir. We see that in their culture, it is not appropriate for people of Amir’s status to associate so close with Hazara servants as Hassan is not invited to any of the parties that Amir is, and other boys, namely Assef, see them as strict inferiors. In fact, Assef goes as far as to say Hazaras should only be allowed to live in Hazarajat. Hassan replies by asking Assef to “Please leave us be, Agha” (42), a respectful word for one’s superior which leads Amir to write “I wondered briefly what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one’s place in a hierarchy”(42). I too was surprised at the Hassan’s self control and willingness to accept his position as an inferior member of society. However, I guess that shows how different cultures operate and how prevalent a social hierarchy can be. It makes me think about how American culture has a social hierarchy based on class and social status, mainly wealth, but as Nathaniel Hawthorne put it, “Families are always rising and falling in America.”
One aspect of Amir’s character I could not understand was how cowardice he truly was throughout the first half of the novel. He watched his friend get anally raped and did nothing about it except attempt to get him kicked out of their house afterwards. I cannot see how this could be viewed as anything but amoral and cowardly, which it actually is throughout the book, but it created a hatred for him that I really never full overcame. I understand he did all he could do as an adult to make up for what had happened so long ago but I never felt like it truly did since it was partly