Class Differences In The Kite Runner

It raises the question of: Why is Hassan so Loyal and brave after all the pain Amir’s cowardliness has caused him? The author uses this scene to juxtapose Amir’s cowardliness with Hassan’s bravery. Hassan’s bravery could be unexpected due to the fact that he has been treated like less of a person because he was a Hazara. This mistreatment could cause people to feel insecure and insignificant, but Hassan overcame the mistreatment and became a loyal and brave person, son and friend.

While Amir is a part of the upper class, Hassan and his father are members of the lower class and are servants to Amir and his father. While Amir’s father does not treat them any differently for this, Amir does. Amir sees himself as above Hassan and his father repeatedly. Although, when Amir immigrated to America with his father, he was immediately knocked down a few pegs. Amir and his father were no longer a part of the upper class, and they had to build themselves back up.

On the other hand, his Hazara servant and childhood friend, Hassan, has always remained loyal to Amir even with his atrocious betrayal. His knowledge of Amir’s deceitful actions never impeded him from ultimately sacrificing himself for Amir’s benefit. Hassan’s compassionate and forgiving attitude added to Amir’s guilt, making it nearly impossible for him to forgive himself. Hassan’s tremendous sacrifice highlights his kind hearted nature, which eventually positively impacts Amir’s life turning him into a more appreciative person. Growing up together led Amir and Hassan to

Amir exploits Hassan’s loyalty in order to feel superior. Assef uses sexual abuse to give himself power over Hassan and Sohrab. The Taliban use religion and terror to enforce their rule over the people of Afghanistan. Although all of these people employ different means to maintain power, the root of their strength is the guilt and shame of their victims: Hassan’s need to be a good friend, Sohrab’s sinful feelings, and the people’s guilt of not adhering to their religion. The Kite Runner illustrates how power changes people and relationships, and exhibits the extremes a person will go to into order to keep a firm grasp on

Hassan, on one hand, was brave and did not fear defending people he cared about, like when he, “held the slingshot pointed directly at Assef’s face,” (42) when the bully confronted Amir in an aggressive fashion. When the tables turned and Assef proceeded to rape Hassan, Amir proved to be cowardice by running away because, “[he] was afraid of Assef and what he would do to [him],” (77). Loyalty was also one of Hassan’s prominent qualities as shown when although, “[h]e knew [Amir had] seen everything in that alley,” he was willing to rescue Amir, “once again, maybe for the last time,” (105). Contrastingly, Amir not only betrayed Hassan but attempted to have him and his father dismissed from service by lifting, “Hassan’s mattress and [planting his] new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it,” (104). Yet despite all this, the two boys still had a sincere love for one another, although it may have been temporarily painful.

Amir first realizes the depth of his cowardice as he watches Assef rape Hassan in the alley and thinks, “I could step in into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever happened to me. Or I could run” (Hosseini 77). He has an epiphany that he could choose to be brave and selfless like Hassan and step up to Assef regardless of any physical consequences. However, despite his understanding that the noble choice would be to interfere and stop Assef, Amir is unable to act on it because his fear of Assef overwhelms him. The guilt that consumes Amir in the weeks following Hassan’s rape indicates that he understands the extent of his selfish behavior and needs to resolve it before he can forgive himself.

The Kite Runner describes the life of Amir. Before the war, he lived in Kabul with his father Baba, their servant Ali and Ali’s son Hassan. Hassan and Ali are from a lower class than Amir and Baba, but Amir and Hassan are best friends regardless. In this essay the assertion ‘Amir is selfish and

The Power of People: The Lasting Influence Rahim Khan has on Amir in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini It is often the individuals taken for granted that have the most impact in the lives of others. Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner explores the profound power that lies in the hands of influential figures, and the resulting impact that they can have in terms of shaping ones identity and actions. While personally lacking rich character development, Rahim Khan’s role in the novel is significant, not only in terms of influencing Amir’s life, but also as a tool of personification used to embody the overall themes that are exemplified.

To begin, no matter what, Hassan bravely stands up for Amir. However, when the roles are reversed, Amir cannot do the same due to Hassan’s social class lurking in Amir’s mind. When Assef started to harass Hassan while simultaneously trying to evoke a response in Amir, it almost gets Amir to look beyond Hassan 's social class. “Assef narrowed his eyes. Shook his head.

The book pretends to enclose the entirety of Afghan culture and history, as seen when the main character expresses “to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a (…)”1 before describing, in two lines, his jovial friend, and servant; who, like him, never saw more of Afghanistan than the wealthy Kabul and its surroundings. Moreover, when dwelling into historical events, the books estimates it more important to further character development through fictional, story-telling events, rather than explain or detail in any way said historical events which the characters have been placed into (Russian, Taliban, and American Occupations, etc.). Thus, any competently critical reader with a sense of Afghan history, will place in doubt the portrayal of Afghanistan the novelist implicitly claims to have made; for example, some might think it a way to occidentalize Afghan culture for the masses, whilst others might deem it a brilliant way to put in question the narrator’s remarks, and thus expose the main character’s biased narration. In any case, the reading will change, and with it, the interpretation of the novel’s message. Outside the book itself, however, and within the novelist’s context, we can again find more facts that might change the readers’

As a Pashtun, he experiences the effects of social hierarchy first hand, and because discrimination is such prominent tradition in his culture, we are able to see the underlying effects it has on his life. The effects that social hierarchy has on people can be seen when Amir isolates himself from the rest of the world after he witnesses the discrimination of Hassan. Amir causes his own isolation by witnessing the rape of his friend Hassan, and failing to intervene causing Hassan to sacrifice himself

In The Kite Runner during the twentieth century, there is a great divide between the muslim citizens of Kabul. The Hazaras are considered inferior to the respectable majority of Pashtuns. Hazaras are persecuted and oppressed, simply because they are Shi’a muslims and Pashtuns are Sunni muslims. Throughout the novel, Hazaras are called various derogatory names such as “[...] mice eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys.” (Hosseini 10) Because of his cultural background, Hassan becomes a victim of racism, as he has run-ins with bullies, is raped and is constantly told that he is not nor ever will be an equal to Amir.

The main character had to manage his father’s neglect while growing up. All Amir really wants is to be “looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard” (Hosseini 65), and while this conflict shapes the way that Amir grew up, readers are exposed to the

Since Amir left, Afghanistan has becomed unrecognizable, and it is not the same place as it was before he went to America. Farid’s comment condemns Amir and the fact that he has been living a life of privilege in America while the Afghanis have struggled to survive due to wars, violence and political issues. 2. Amir and Hassan’s friendship is full of complications. Fist, Amir envies Hassan because Baba often favors him and, therefore, Amir feels underapreciated by his father.

A Marxist Analysis of The Kite Runner In Afghanistan, the Hazara people were formerly a majority ethnicity at about 67 percent of the population, however once the Pashtuns began taking political actions, the Hazaras were massacred until they only formed about 9 percent of Afghanistan’s total population today (“Afghanistan-Hazaras”). Because of their minority status, the Hazara people face much prejudice in Afghan society as shown by the book. Similarly, Afghani people compose 3 percent of America’s population, wherein they also face prejudice. In Khaled Hosseini’s