Analysis And Review: The Kite Runner - Essay Example

Section/# Analysis and Review: The Kite Runner The Kite Runner presents a heart wrenching tale of familial love, betrayal, hardship, war, sexual assault, guilt, shame, personal growth, and healing. As with most human stories, this takes place through a series of challenges that arise in the life of the protagonist during the course of the experience that is detailed within the book. One of the reasons that the book itself became so wildly popular was of course due to the fact that it detailed the somewhat obscure life and difficult surroundings that typified the way that Afghans survived during the turbulent 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Moreover, the gripping narrative style and thoughtful analysis provided by the author also provides one of the litanies of reasons why the book itself became a national bestseller. As the reality of life in Afghanistan of that time, as well as currently, dictated, the level and extent to which ethnic minorities despised one another, considered one another as unclean, and discriminated against one another was one of the prime determinants that caused the high degree of social disunity that exhibited itself throughout the novel. Due to the fact that Afghanistan was and continues to be so highly tribalized, the different groups oftentimes consider one another as potential rivals or as socially unequal. Such an instance was itself exhibited in the book by the way that the Pashtun boy Amir and Hassan, his Hazara friend, interacted with one another. Their friendship was of course natural to them as they were only children and knew little of the racial separation that necessarily defined such a large part of the society; however, as the action and circumstances of the novel unfolded, the way that these young men began to view one another as a function of their society and the unique challenges which faced their own lives necessarily deviated from the child-like innocence that they originally had with respect to their early friendship. The intrigue provided with respect to the dissatisfaction that Amir’s father shows to his son as a result of the fact that the father does not believe Amir to be “manly” enough. This dissatisfaction is muted; however, it is nonetheless present throughout the entire story. Moreover, this sense and/or belief that Amir is somehow incapable of making his father truly happy with him is a pervasive subject that helps to define a great deal of the contention and action that takes place during the course of the book. Although the author specifies that Amir’s father deeply loves him, it is sometime difficult to Amir to juxtapose this fact with the sense of dissatisfaction and slight inferiority that Amir grows to feel emanating from his father’s outlook. One of the first signs of major tension arises as Assef, what can only be described as a street criminal in training, begins to harass Amir for keeping the company of his friend. This anger from Assef is of course a direct result of the fact that the previously mentioned racial tensions ran, and continue to run deep, within the tribalized society of Afghanistan. The two boys soon engage in such a heated argument over the subject that Assef threatens to attack Amir who, without the help of Hassan, would have doubtless have been beaten severely. However, true to form, Hassan intervened, fought off the attack and saved his friend from such a fate. The dynamics of familial dissatisfaction, friendship, rivalry, and racism are all compounded when Assef meets and sodomizes Hassan. Sadly, Amir witnesses the incident but is too frightened to come to the defense of his friend. In this way, the guilt that Amir feels for the incident, in the light of the way that Hassan had so bravely defeneded his own honor previously, only serves to make Amir withdraw from friendship and his family and regret the very day he was born (Aubry 29). Confronted by the guilt he feels, Amir makes the fateful decision to run Hassan out of his life by falsely accusing him as a thief. The accusation serves to make Hassan falsely confess to the crime and eventually the situation terminates in Hassan and his father leaving the family that they had for so long served. The story jumps to five years later when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan forced Amir and his father to move to nearby Pakistan and eventually to the United States as a way to escape the bloodshed and terror which was being exhibited upon the local population. While in the United States, after his fathers death and marriage to his Afghani wife he met while in California, Amir receives a call from Pakistan that tells him there is a way to be “good again” (Hosseini 315). Amir soon learns that Ali and Hassan are both no longer living; Ali killed by a Soviet land mine and Hassan killed by the Taliban. However, Khan tells Amir that Hassan’s son, Sohrab, is held in an orphanage in Afghanistan and in dire need of being rescued from the conditions that define his life. Finally taking a strength of character that he had not previously exhibited within the story, Amir sets out to Kabul in order t find Sohrab (Bruce 574). Along the way, he is greeted by the true horrors that define the Taliban rule of Afghanistan as well as having the misfortune to meet Assef; the rapist who caused all of the pain to begin with. The story relates that Sohrab is kept as a type of sex slave, forced to dress as a woman, and regularly sodomized by Assef and others. Again, prior to his plot being uncovered and being cruelly beaten by Assef, Hassan figuratively reaches out from the grave and his own son shoots Assef in the eye; thereby fulfilling the prophecy that Hassan himself had made to Assef regarding what would happen to him if he laid one hand on Amir. The remainder of the story discusses the nightmare of paperwork involved with seeking to help Sohrab to immigrate to the United States as well as seeking to penetrate the scared and broken psyche of the young man. However, rather than giving up on the task and running from a difficult situation, something that Amir had done too many times before, he persevered and worked to better the life of Sohrab (Jackson 80). In the end of the novel, the relationship between the two begins to thaw as Sohrab and Amir are able to discuss the life and experiences that have put them together over so many thousands of miles of difference. As discussed, the novel broaches the topics of guilt, familial dissatisfaction, sexual abuse, friendship, courage, racism, and salvation to name but a few. As a function of discussing each of these, the author helps to portray a reasonably complete picture of the macro situation in Afghanistan using the micro lens of analyzing but a few main character and the ancillary supporting cast. Moreover, rather than being a revealing expose on what is exactly wrong with Afghan culture, the novel more adequately relates to what is wrong with human nature. As a function of the fact that it took Amir more than 30 years to return Hassan’s friendship, loyalty, and kindness, the reader comes to understand that the way in which human nature develops, makes mistakes, learns from these, and attempts to make right upon them by forging a new path ahead is not something that is unique to any one given culture. Rather, regardless of how sick and twisted the culture of Afghanistan was under the hardships of decades of war and the rule of the Taliban, such emotions, thoughts, and designs as have been described in the novel continued to define the way that humanity interacted with one another. Works Cited AUBRY, TIMOTHY. "Afghanistan Meets The Amazon: Reading The Kite Runner In America." PMLA: Publications Of The Modern Language Association Of America 124.1 (2009): 25-43. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. Bunce, Selvi. "Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner." Language In India 11.12 (2011): 573-576. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. Hosseini, Khaled. The kite runner. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004. Jackson, Blair. "The Kite Runner." Mix 32.1 (2008): 79-87. Business Source Premier. Web. 15 Dec. 2012. Read More