Societal Roles In Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

Often society takes a front role in a person's life; molding their decisions, crafting their pivotal moments, and often becoming the driving force in their most aching difficulties in life. While it seems inevitable that society influences even the most head strong of people, it is often these people who are trumped by the power of judgements and biases. In the historical fiction novel The Kite Runner, author Khaled Hosseini utilizes contrastive societal roles in the lives of both Amir and Hassan to reveal how ultimately, the course of a person's life is marked through society’s harsh hierarchal chain. From the beginning of the novel, Hosseini makes it evident that Amir and Hassan’s ethnic and religious differences in their childhood define

While both Ali and Hassan are presented as single fathers, their life experiences shape them to have different hopes and desires from life. Baba’s wealth and superiority in society forces him to desire the same for his son. Baba’s strongest belief in life is to fight for what is right. He believes that “a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand for anything (22). Hosseini illustrates this when he defends the woman in the truck being harassed by the Russian guard. Because of this expectation, however, Amir and Baba have a distant relationship during his childhood. On the other hand, Ali simply wants a normal and peaceful life for Hassan, one he was unable to achieve. The contrasting backgrounds and statuses of both fathers makes them develop a differing view of life and what they hope to achieve from it. The contrastive fatherly figures in both boys’ lives, therefore, directly influence their personalities and morality. Baba’s domineering and cold behaviour causes the father-son duo to have a strained and distant relationship. Amir holds a demeaning attitude about Baba in his heart, even believing that “all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons” (29). The significance of winning the kite tournament in Amir’s eyes was a moment to win back Baba’s pride and joy, and “the key to Baba’s heart” (71). Amir’s obsession with winning the tournament trumps his friendship and loyalty towards Hassan. The kite tournament marks a moment of maturation in the eyes of Amir and Baba, but also leads to Amir becoming desensitized towards the gravity of the torture inflicted upon Hassan. Hosseini depicts this differing sense of achievement through both boys’ actions: Amir returns to Baba with the blue kite, “achieving” his pride and joy, and Hassan brings back the blue kite to Amir, fulfilling