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Fear In Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

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Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, a San Francisco chronicle best book of the year, gives the feel of love, honor, guilt, fear and redemption throughout the entire book. With all these emotions, fear is heavily mentioned, from the early childhood of Hassan to the rescue of his nephew. Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat (Dict.com) Assef is a person of fear. The taliban is an organization of fear. In the book, Assef and the Taliban constantly have power to enforce fear within the eyes of the people. These fears are a few of the many that only one can understand from reading the book. Assef is the antagonist, a person who actively oppresses fear …show more content…

“There was a leader. A great leader. A man with a vision” (39). Hitler was a man of fear, just like Assef. Later in the story, Assef traps Hassan in the back of an alleyway and rapes him. Assef had the chance to beat him up like he said he was going to but didn't, he used rape as a power tactic to enforce fear instead. Assef now has complete control over Hassan. He used fear to take over Hassan. Assef believed that rape would be more lasting than just another beating, and he was right. The rape changed many things after. He used fear to put himself at the top, making sure everyone was below him and they were looking up at him. Assefs rape also put fear into his followers eyes, seeing that he wasn't scared to do something so horrific to Hassan, worried them that he might do the same to them. His parents were also victims of his dominating ways. During a party Assef and his parents came walking in, assef in front. When talking to other adults, Assef was the leader, and his parents were like his children, instead of the other way around. “He led them towards us, like he brought them here” (95). Some theories have crossed the air that assef even abused his parents. With no one stopping him at home, he feels

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“Assef gritted his teeth. ‘Put it down, you motherless Hazara.’ Please leave us be, Agha’ Hassan said’” (Hosseini, 41). This scene is an example of how daring Hassan is because he is threatening someone who could easily hurt him, but he’s doing it because he feels as if he has no choice, and he believes he needs to protect not only himself but his friend, Amir.

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According to Assef, his ways of thinking was always to eliminate the Hazaras. To him, Hazaras were the Jews of Germany when Hitler had been a ruler. Without considering him, he raped Hassan as a child. His act of cruelty didn’t only affect Hassan but it affected his relationship with Amir. Assef continued his Hazara executions and got rid of most.

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My curiosity of fear originates from today society, words we would hear within the book are all too similar to things we hear now. In modern society, we hear it every day happening both in Australia and the US, the phrase “We are in danger of being swamped by Muslims’ similar to the society of Salem, the town

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Amir first realizes the depth of his cowardice as he watches Assef rape Hassan in the alley and thinks, “I could step in into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever happened to me. Or I could run” (Hosseini 77). He has an epiphany that he could choose to be brave and selfless like Hassan and step up to Assef regardless of any physical consequences. However, despite his understanding that the noble choice would be to interfere and stop Assef, Amir is unable to act on it because his fear of Assef overwhelms him. The guilt that consumes Amir in the weeks following Hassan’s rape indicates that he understands the extent of his selfish behavior and needs to resolve it before he can forgive himself.

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While being beaten up by Assef, Amir feels at peace. He feels this ways because he feels that as he is taking the hits from Assef, it shows that he would do anything for Hassan. He is redeeming himself in a way that he is standing up not only for Hassan but also for Sohrab. Amir also stands up for his family, redeeming himself. " Hassan is dead now.

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Throughout the Kite Runner, the violent scenes mark a turning point in the book. In one of the first violent scenes of the book, when Assef is chasing Hassan and Mair, Hassan sticks up for Amir and threatens to take out Assef’s eye if he does not leave them alone. When reflecting on the incident, Amir writes, “Hassan had pulled the wide elastic band all the way back. In the cup was a rock the size of a walnut.

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It is also the fear instilled in him that drives him to obey Abner. The third person limited omniscient point of view of Sartoris Snopes conveys the

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He would do anything for Hassan to make up for his childhood. After finding Sohrab, Amir comes face to face with Assef, Hassan 's rapist. “Another rib snapped, this time lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in the corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this…

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Amir exploits Hassan’s loyalty in order to feel superior. Assef uses sexual abuse to give himself power over Hassan and Sohrab. The Taliban use religion and terror to enforce their rule over the people of Afghanistan. Although all of these people employ different means to maintain power, the root of their strength is the guilt and shame of their victims: Hassan’s need to be a good friend, Sohrab’s sinful feelings, and the people’s guilt of not adhering to their religion. The Kite Runner illustrates how power changes people and relationships, and exhibits the extremes a person will go to into order to keep a firm grasp on

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In the novel, Hosseini uses Amir’s internal conflict highlights how unresolved guilt and fear can negatively impact one’s life. Hassan’s rape initiates the internal conflict in Amir that lasts the rest of his young adult life. Assef rapes Hassan after the kite running competition prompting Amir to run away in terror and fear. After the incident, Amir celebrates the victory of

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For example, before Amir goes to save Hassan’s son, Rahim Khan, a friend of Amir and his father, call’s Amir to come to Afghanistan and then said “there is a way to be good again”(2). This is saying that if Amir goes to Afghanistan for Rahim Khan, he will be good again. Amir proves this is incorrect by going to Afghanistan, getting the boy and coming back, but in the end the guilt sticks with him. Another thing critics may say is Amir was not wrong in being a “coward” on the day of Hassan’s rape and beating. For example “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world.

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In The Kite Runner, the author tells a story of the close friendship of two boys who come from different social classes, Amir being the wealthy boy and Hassan the servant. It takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1978, a time where the separation of Hazara Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims took place. A part in the book where we witness betrayal of their friendship and this division of culture is after the yearly kite tournament where Hassan goes after the kite Amir won and promises to bring it back to him. During his search for the kite, Hassan encounters Assef and his friends, who constantly bullied Amir, threatened Hassan to give up the kite or pay the price. Being that Hassan was loyal and wanted to keep his promise to Amir, he decided to pay the price which was rape.

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Internal conflict relies on the struggles within a person that are based on interpersonal impulses. In literary works, internal conflict can focus mainly on the psychological struggle of a character, whose solution creates the suspense of the story’s plot itself. This concept is quite vital throughout the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan-born American novelist and medical doctor. In the book, Amir, the protagonist, is constantly battling himself and his own skewed logic as to what it means to redeem oneself. Redemption, defined as a person saving himself from any sin, error or evil, comes out through Amir’s strange notions about how he can forgive himself for wrongdoings, mainly with the alley rape of his father’s young servant.

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Amir is taught by Baba that “there is only one sin…theft” as he is indoctrinated by an exceedingly simplistic of sin. Hosseini portrays Hassan as “the all-sacrificing”, a model of morality and righteousness and a child who “never denied me (Amir) anything”. The authors emphasis on Hassan’s moral righteousness further emphasises Amir’s betrayal. Amir remarks at the event as “something I could stand up for” or “I could run.”, the brevity of the sentence reflecting the fragmentation of the protagonist’s mind. Amir is flawed, sinful greed dominates his conscience as he considers “Hassan was the price I had to pay” merely justifying “He was just a Hazara”, a thought the older narrator later laments “I was a coward”.

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