How Does Baba Use Relationships In The Kite Runner

Forming connections and relationships with people around you is very important for development, especially with those who raised you. Without a secure attachment from one or both of your parents, it can leave you turning to other things to fill that void, like substances or unhealthy obsessions, or it can cause you to have less trust in people overall. The book Kite Runner takes place in Afghanistan, where two main social classes are known, Pashtuns and Hazaras. Pashtuns being the majority, while Hazaras are minorities that are heavily discriminated against. Two Pashtuns named Amir and his father, Baba, live with their servant Ali and his son, Hassan. Amir experiences jealousy as Baba gives Hassan more attention than him, even after his mom’s

An example of this is when Baba took Amir to Jalalabad and spent one on one time with him. In chapter 10, Amir says “We'd gone To the zoo a few days before, seen Marjan the lion, and I had hurled a pebble at The bear when no one was watching. We'd gone to Dadkhoda's Kabob House Afterward, across from Cinema Park, had lamb kabob with freshly baked naan From the tan door. Baba told me stories of his travels to India and Russia, the People he had met, like the armless, legless couple in Bombay who'd been Married forty seven years and raised eleven children. That should have been fun, Spending a day like that with Baba, hearing his stories. I finally had what I'd wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, I felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into.” (Hosseini, 2003, pg. 85) Amir describes how his relationship with Baba should be growing in a positive way now that he’s spending time with him without Hassan being there. Baba even bragged to the whole family because Amir won his kite running tournament, but the numb feeling that Amir was experiencing wasn’t going away because of the assault that he witnessed. He thought that telling the truth about what had happened was the weak thing to which wasn’t a possibility for him because he was a Pashtun, they weren’t seen as “weak”or “emotional”. Because of this, he still feels lonely, even with all of Baba’s attention on him. He uses a simile to compare his empty feelings to an “unkempt pool”, meaning he feels out of order, not good, and unfulfilled. Therefore, we can tell that Baba’s relationship with Amir needs to be repaired because Amir can’t seem to be cheered up or have any good thoughts while spending time with