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The Kite Runner Cultural Analysis

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The kite Runner is a story written by Khaled Hosseini, it follows the life of Amir. A life which changes with the political situation which occurred in the 1970s in contemporary Afghanistan. A country which has been broken through invasion and internal tension. The life of Amir mirrors that of his own countries instability and chaos. As a young 17 year old Persian student, reading this for the first time about a country which shares a border with my own, I was challenged by many of the events depicted by the author Khaled Hosseini. The scene where Hassan is raped by an older male, Asef, is graphic and disturbing. It challenges my understanding and ideas of Muslim culture. Amir’s life is occupied with revealing hardships which tend to shadow …show more content…

From a young child being brought up as a Muslim, my ideas of Muslim culture is that one should be disciplined, patient and forgiving. However, witnessing Asef committing a sexual act on a younger boy as punishment for his wrong doing goes against teachings which I have been exposed to and made the experience of reading the text quite confronting. Considering the boy committing such an act was Muslim, it caused confusion as he was doing everything against Islam. The same goes for the acts conducted by Hassan such as, not saving his friend from going through such an experience. These acts go against the principles of Islam and the general ideas I have composed through the …show more content…

Amir is brought up in Kabul, Afghanistan where he spends time flying his kites with his friend, later known to be his brother, Hassan. Amir, is known as a Hazara, Persian speaking ethnicity in Afghanistan. For this reason he is oppressed by Asef and his “friends” whom are Tajiks, main ethnic group of Afghanistan. Amir witnesses his friend being raped by Asef, his home invaded by the soviets when they invade and evades Afghanistan for safety purposes. He is depicted in his older life, living in America with his father whom develops cancer of the lungs and later dies. These scenes depicted are just a few of the many struggles and experiences which Amir goes through. In many of these scenes I would question my own actions under such circumstances and in many cases compare his life to my own, in some scenes I was astonished with how he was able to deal with such situations. In-fact, it made me reflect on my own life and depict my own experiences and life hardships. His life made me appreciate my own and how fortunate I have been to not go through such

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The author provides the reader with mixed feeling about Amir. In his childhood in Kabul Amir comes off as heartless person. He is this because he has done evil stuff in his life. In the beginning of the story something bad happens to Hassan, Amir says,¨In the end, I ran.

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Sasha Romanski Ms. Masoodi/Ms. Petrelli English 1 Honors 14 April 2023 KR Literary Analysis Amir earns redemption in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner when shows great determination and bravery when going to rescue his nephew. The novel is about a boy named Amir who lives in Kabul with his wealthy father.

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Amir is a rich afghanistan boy and he has a hazara servant named hassan but he treats him more like a friend then a servant. Amir had the choice of saving hassan when he was in trouble but instead he ran. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, teaches the reader that betrayal will happen but there will be time to redeem yourself. When amir watches hassan get raped and then runs instead of helping. But later he saves hassan's son from assef, the same guy that hurt hassan.

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Inevitably, these resulting stereotypes and biases now influence the way that many Muslims typically act and feel about themselves in the 21st century. Moreover, in the literary works of Persepolis and Disgraced, Marji, an Iranian Muslim, and Amir, a Pakistani Muslim, both initially attempt

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However, Amir’s past constantly haunts him and shows him that his childhood choices affect his adult life. Amir is a Pashtun, the dominant upper class of Afghanistan, while Hassan is a Hazara, the niche of the lower class. Despite this, the two boys could not be any closer; they fed from the same breast, took their first steps, and said their first words together. However, Amir always felt envious towards Hassan because too often Hassan received more affection from Baba.

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This affects Amir’s life by making him angrier at Hassan on a deeper level, which makes him feel worse about himself subconsciously. As Amir continues to remain in a constant state of guilt, he yearns to find a way to redeem himself. This is why after living in America for many years, getting married, and becoming a published author, he decided to go back to Afghanistan. His initial reason for traveling back to his homeland is to see an old friend of his dad who he was extremely close with in his childhood. When he arrives there, he finds out that Hassan and his wife have died by the hands of the Taliban and left behind their son Sohrab.

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Hassan’s characteristics from Amir’s childhood days are easily visible in Sohrab during Amir’s adult life because of the way they protect others and stand up for what they think is right no matter how grave the danger. Additionally, there is circulation between Hassan and Amir that Hosseini portrays through both characters’ physical attributes, actions, and phrases that connect the two on an emotional level. Both boys are extremely close over the course of their early years, and Hassan used to have a harelip until it was surgically fixed. All of Amir’s childhood memories are filled with the memory of Hassan, whose importance was explained by Amir at the start of the story, in which he described, “Nevermind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile” (Hosseini, 2003, p. 25).

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Mostly, I wondered what had happened to him that day in the winter of 1975, after I left him in the alley, alone and broken, at the mercy of Assef and his friends." (Hosseini 1). This demonstrates that Amir is still affected by the betrayal and that his past still concerns him because it has remained a part of him over time. Despite having a difficult upbringing, Amir still feels a great connection to his childhood house because the emotional bonds he made there were robust and hard to break. Amir grows closer to his home as he learns to accept his past, live with his past, and find forgiveness rather than trying to forget it.

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Hosseini begins his novel in the present, with Amir answering a phone call from the past, before throwing the reader into the midst of what brought Amir to that ringing line. The story follows Amir growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan, first touching on his interactions with his father, Baba, as well as their servants, Ali and his son Hassan. After demonstrating the relationships among these four, as well as the community in which they live as a whole, Hosseini mentions kite running, and how it led to Amir witnessing Hassan’s rape in an alley by Assef, while doing nothing to stop it. Overcome with guilt, Amir forces Hassan and Ali out of his home by framing Hassan for theft, until eventually the war itself forces Baba and Amir to leave for Pakistan, fleeing the Soviets. The story jumps forward again, to the pair

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Khaled Hosseini’s award-winning book The Kite Runner recalls the story of a boy named Amir and how he survived the horrors of Afghanistan. The story starts off in 1975 during a time of peace where Amir and his father, Baba, are one of the richest people in all of Kabul. Amir struggles with the fact that he is nothing like his father and thinks his father hates him because his mother died when giving birth to Amir. Amir’s only friend is Hassan who is a servant in their house. Amir will never admit to being friends with Hassan, despite always hanging out with him.

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1757 Words | 8 Pages

Amir makes a realization at the end of the novel saying, “There is only what you do and don't do.” This realization makes the reader think of how far Amir has come, from perceiving himself as shy and weak to now standing up to Assef and saving Sohrab. When people see him stand up to Assef they now perceive him as a whole new person who has changed for the good. Amir's next point, he presents is his journey back to Afghanistan which shows his personal growth from leaving a war-torn country and now coming back stronger than ever. By coming back to the country where he was perceived with guilt and shame shows that he is now the man that can stand up for anything like Baba spoke on.

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Amir acts as the narrator and protagonist of the novel written by Khaled Hosseini. Although he deviates from being an affectionate character at the beginning of the novel, throughout the story the reader gains more insight on his compassionate side. He expresses his conflicting feelings regarding his father, Baba, along with his childhood playmate, Hassan. Amir recognizes Hassan’s lower place in society and becomes jealous of the way Baba treats Hassan. Amir is a conflicted character because of his clashes between his emotions and his rational.

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He resists for Amir whom he loves with his whole heart. Amir witnesses this struggle, but he does nothing; he runs away since “he was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 77). Amir has always believed, deep down, that his father favored Hassan, a Hazara, the dirt of Afghan society, over him, his own son. Seeing Hassan reduced to that level of baseness is perversely satisfying for him.

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823 Words | 4 Pages

In the Kite Runner, Afghanistan is divided into Pashtuns and Hazaras. Pashtuns are the Sunni Muslim while the Hazaras are Shia Muslim. According to the book, Shai 's are minorities and they don’t have the freedom and ability to express their feelings and voices. At the beginning of chapter four, Amir unceremoniously began a diatribe against Hazaras. Amir states as a child he never viewed of Hassan

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The events, both good and bad, that happen to these boys shape them into the men they are now. Amir lives in Afghanistan with his father and their servants, Ali, and his son Hassan. Amir and Hassan grow up together and become best friends. The boys like to play outside. Sometimes, they get bullied by another boy by the name of Assef.

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