Dichotomy In The Kite Runner

Have you ever hated someone before? Not just a fickle, childish thing, but true hatred - the kind that drives you to murder them, to shame them, to not even see them as human anymore…? Of course not, this sort of disturbed nature isn’t something native to the human mind. And yet, it is undoubtedly present in the modern world - in particular, war-torn areas such as the Middle East. Khaled Hosseini worked his own experiences as a youth in Afghanistan into his book “The Kite Runner”. The most important of these is how society moulds and shapes people, as seen in the in the dichotomy between the lives of Amir and Assef.

Even though he is the protagonist of the book, Amir’s decisive moment is the most cowardly. The split second which defined his

From the moment he is introduced, Assef is shown to be someone who is cruel to those his culture believes as inferior. Throughout the book, Assef is shown to be a paragon of the archaic and discriminatory views of his birthplace, showing neither remorse nor even a hint of consideration for his actions. This culminates in his raping of Hassan, and his later success as a member of the Taliban, in which he uses his power to enforce his oppressive views onto the country. In essence, Assef is a character who Amir is able to stop himself from becoming: someone who has lost themselves in their culture. Hosseini makes no attempts to disguise his disdain for this fall from grace, portraying Assef a mad dog rather than a person. And he isn’t wrong to do so, as Assef shows no sense of empathy or guilt. The only difference between Assef and a beast is that the latter operates off of instinct and knows no better, whilst the former runs of culture and has the inherent ability to know better. But the question remains, is Hosseini’s character possible to exist? Can a human fall so far, lose such a high degree of humanity? The answer is yes. Right now, in the Western world, young teens are being converted to Islamic State, losing themselves in their malformed beliefs. In Australia alone, nearing 250 people have left for Syria to join with the group (McGuirk, 2015). With this, Hosseini’s