Conflict In The Kite Runner And Slaughterhouse-Five

Conflict is an essential focus in most stories; it provides a plot for readers to get attached to and enjoy, making the novel have some backbone and be interesting. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut both contain this idea of conflict, shaping their story to include specific ideas and themes. The Kite Runner shows struggle early on in the book, and develops its entire story around it, working with the two dominant themes of betrayal and redemption. Slaughterhouse-Five provides the idea of conflict all around the book; it is spread out and can easily be missed if not read carefully. Both of these books depict the usage of conflict through the effect it takes on the surrounding characters of the book.

The readers see that they have a unique friendship; Amir doesn’t call Hassan his friend, but always hangs out with him when they are alone. Hassan thinks of Amir as a brother, best friends who know each other in and out. The conflict of this book is that Amir witnessed Hassan getting raped, and did nothing to help him, or even told anyone to help Hassan. Hosseini uses this conflict and shows how it takes a toll on Amir and Hassan. The aftermath of Hassan’s rape was a tense relationship between Amir and Hassan; Amir started to drift away from Hassan, pretending he never witnessed Hassan's rape. “...I pretended I hadn’t heard the crack in his voice. Just like I pretended I hadn’t seen the dark stain in the seat of his pants. Or those tiny drops that fell from between his legs and stained the snow black” (Hosseini 78). Amir decides that it would be better just to ignore what happened, instead of telling Hassan’s father, or even his father. He knew this would jeopardize his relationship with Baba, and didn’t want anything to come in the way of ruining his finally good relationship. This conflict, however, continues to affect Amir as he never forgets about it; even when he comes back to Pakistan after several years, he feels guilty because of this terrible event. Hosseini channels this guilt into a fight for redemption, ending the book on a slightly

Billy Pilgrim is the classic anti-hero character; throughout the book, he is always referred to as “Billy,” which is a diminutive form of William. This even suggests that he remains like a child, and never matures into an adult. Even the town he lives in, Ilium, implies his anti-hero structure; Ilium is the ancient name for Troy, a city of defiant, courageous warriors who lost the Trojan War. Ironically, Billy is anything but a warrior. Vonnegut portrays Billy as an anti-hero to depict the conflict of man versus self; during the entirety of the story, Billy is reliving random moments in his life as he has trouble understanding World War II and the senseless murder and slaughter throughout it. He witnessed the war firsthand in the fire bombings of Dresden; this allows Billy to confront the fundamental questions of the meaning of life and death. Billy deals with so much destruction and pain in his life; he has trouble trying to figure out why all this destruction has happened. Vonnegut uses the conflict of man versus self to show how no matter how hard Billy tries, he cannot understand what has happened. This is probably why he agrees with the Tralfamadorians idea that no one actually dies; “...when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past... All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will