Tension In The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini’s first novel The Kite Runner published in 2003 is a sensational tale of Afghanistan caught in a devastating battle between opposing forces, fighting for power and authority over the land. The story of The Kite Runner is fictional, but it is rooted in real political and historical events ranging from the last days of the Afghan monarchy in the 1970s to the post-Taliban near present. In addition to its historical background, the novel is also based on Hosseini 's personal memories of growing up in the Wazir Akbar Khan section of Kabul and a subsequent migration to USA and adapting to life in California.The nightmarish saga of war torn Kabul is told in a cool and detached manner, a voice that provides a growing sense of tension and crises desperately stretched to bring to reconciliation as the story approaches its end. This tension and crises becomes a major theme of the novel. The tension that pervades throughout the novel, does not emerge from a mere juxtaposition

In a stratified society, to be poor is sin; to be powerless again is a sin. Hassan, an ethnic Hazara, is an embodiment of these sins. In fact, for Hassan to be sinless is a sin. An expatriate in his own motherland, a child of an illegal affair, in innocent, guileless and guiltless Hassan is a devotee performing all his duties to serve his master Baba and his son Amir. In order to recompense his guilt he pays heavily, in fact, pays more than a fair price, a ruthless perseverance, of bitter patience and an unswerving loyalty but never comes to terms with reconciliation, with and within the all inclusive homogeneity of a nation. Assef, the antagonist of the novel, a perverse and haughty boy reminds Hassan of his ethnic identity when he says:

“Afghan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not his Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirt our blood… Afghanistan for Pashtuns, I say’ (The Kite Runner,