Relationship Between Amir And Hassan

Between chapters seven and eight Amir and Hassan’s relationship drastically changes, mostly on both sides. In chapter seven, it is clear that Hassan is entirely devoted to Amir and told Amir he would eat dirt for him “if you asked”(54). While Hassan seems to have undying loyalty to Amir, shown through his defending of Amir against the neighborhood bullies amongst other things, Amir doesn’t give Hassan the same respect. Amir is in a one-sided battle against Hassan for Baba’s affection. Amir craves his father’s attention so much that he has grown to resent Hassan when Baba gives him attention instead or sees them as equal. For example, every year Hassan and Amir are given identical kites from Baba for the kite tournament. Amir desperately wants to be seen as better than Hassan in Baba’s eyes, as that is how he sees himself.

Because of this jealousy, Amir is often cruel to Hassan which in his eyes are “jokes”. For instance, one time Amir was reading Hassan a story and suddenly began to make it up instead of telling the real story, simply because Hassan couldn’t read the page and understand the difference; Amir found this funny. Amir also cruelly pokes fun at how Hassan doesn’t understand the definitions of words, and Amir will ask him what a word means knowing he doesn’t know the answer, just so he can laugh at him. While both Hassan and Amir consider each other brothers in some capacity, only Hassan considers Amir his friend. When Amir and Hassan are being bullied by Assef, he asks Amir how he can call Hassan his friend. Amir then almost yells that he’s “not my friend!” and only his “servant”(41). This drastically contrasts to when the boys are being bullied by Assef a second time, and Hassan outwardly proclaims that he and Amir are