Bullies In The Kite Runner

Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the son of a wealthy and highly respected businessman in Kabul, Afghanistan. Published in 2003 by Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner has won two awards, The Borders Original Voice Award and the San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year Award within the same year. The book is set in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul where Amir lives with his father, Baba and their two Hazara (a minority group in Afghanistan) servants Ali and Hassan. In the first few chapters, we are introduced to a group of boys that assume the role of “neighbourhood bullies” Wali, Kamal and most importantly Assef. However, as the book progresses the characters, most specifically Amir, Hassan and Assef begin to face life-changing

Amir is the main character introduced at the beginning of the novel. Although he is not affected by the political events in Afghanistan as much as the other characters in this essay, he is still exposed to changes that alter his life. An example of this is March 1981, when Amir and Baba leave Kabul during the night after being under the Soviet's control for 5 years. They do this because they don't feel safe in Kabul anymore, this can be supported by the text, “You couldn’t trust anyone in Kabul anymore—for a few or under threat, people told on each other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, servant on master, friend on friend” (Hosseini, 112). After leaving Kabul, they flee to Pakistan, then to America where Amir resides for the rest of the story. Later in the book, in 2001, Rahim Khan calls Amir and requests that Amir comes to see him in Pakistan. However, Amir was hesitant to visit due to Afghanistan being infiltrated by the Taliban soon after the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan. Amir ends up going to see Rahim Khan and once he gets there he admits, “‘I feel like a tourist in my own country,’ I said, taking in a

Ali, Hassan’s father and Hassan decide to go live with family in Hazarajat, a village primarily inhabited by Hazara. At the beginning of the story, Hassan is mocked by Assef because of his ethnicity which is considered a lower class compared to Pashtuns in Afghanistan. When Assef refers to Hassan he never uses his name, instead, he uses terms like Hazara and insults like “flat-nose”. The racism against Hazara continues throughout the whole book however it gets progressively worse once the Taliban assume power in the country. In 1998, two years after the Taliban infiltrated the country they went into Mazar-i-Sharif and slaughtered the Hazara that lived there. After that Hassan returns to the family home in order to help Rahim Khan maintain upkeep. Later on, Hassan writes about how he and his wife were in the bazaar buying produce when Farzana raised her voice to talk to the vendor who was half-deaf. Once a Taliban official hears this he beats Farzana as Hassan watches and can do nothing to protect her. Lastly, Hassan’s death. Rahim Khan falls ill and must travel to Peshawar to get medical attention while Hassan and his family watch over the house. However, the Taliban gets word that a family of Hazaras is living in a higher-end home and accuse him of lying about looking over the home. The Taliban demands that Hassan leaves the home immediately but when Hassan