The Kite Runner: Cultural Influence on Characters - Book Report/Review Example

The Kite Runner – Cultural Influence on Characters Set in the neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan districtof Kabul, The Kite Runner is a heart and soul touching story of friendship, love, betrayal, regrets and redemption. Before moving on to the topic of this paper, that is cultural influence on the characters, a condensed form of this novel is required. The books open with the protagonist of the novel, Amir, who is living in America with his wife Soraya and is not living a fulfilling life, believing that his inability to sire a child and death of his father are punishment visited upon him for his past sin, receives a call from his mentor and father’s friend, Rahim khan, calling him to Pakistan with the line “There is a way to be good again”. The book then moves back to mid – seventies where bond of friendship and love between Amir – the rich and legitimate child of the rich Emir, whom he calls Baba and Hassan – servant and friend of Amir, who is later told to be his half-brother and illegitimate child of Baba. They both are motherless and always spend most of their time together. However, an encounter with Assef, the antagonist of the story, in which Hassan stands up to defend Amir, has horrific result, shattering their friendship and beginning the journey of Amir’s guilt. To rid himself of this delinquency, Amir takes great measures to push Hassan out of his life and his wish gets fulfilled when Hassan and Ali (his non – biological father) leave of their own accord. Soon, invasion from Soviet Union the family is forced to flee to Pakistan and then to America, where he meets another Afghan refugee Soraya and marries her. The story then moves forward to current position, when Amir leaves for Pakistan to meet Rahim Khan and learns that Hassan was his step brother, who is now dead while saving his home in Kabul. However, Hassan’s son Sohrab is in an orphan and is captured by Taliban and it is Amir’s responsibility to save him and repay his debt to Hassan and get rid of the guild, when he did nothing to save Hassan from the abuse inflicted upon him by Assef. Upon reaching Afghanistan, he gets to know that the leader of Taliban is none other than Assef, who abuses Sohrab and made him a dance boy. Amir finally rescues his nephew and brings him back to America to live with them. Initially Sohrab is reserved but, flying of kite is a source to his happiness as it was to Hassan and the story ends with Amir replicate the words which Hassan said to him years ago – “For you, a thousand times over”1. The story line is very different than what is usually read, it depicts those harsh realities which people are not ready to accept and which they don’t understand until and unless they go through these scenarios. If ponder over the book deeply, one can extract numerous aspects from it, but this paper is going to be talking about the cultural influence on characters of this book, of how these characters change when placed in different community or country. Culture usually refers t the norms and values that makes up a society, community, organization and country. The culture refers to the personality of the aforementioned groups. Moreover, characteristics and disposition of individuals residing in that area also makes up a culture. One of the most unique and novel thing in this book is the picturing of Afghanistan, which is very different which people perceive through media. The Afghanistan which we met in this novel initially is on the way to development with cinema home, school, rich neighborhood, outing places and a normal routine life until, which showed its culture, until the Russians and the Taliban took over it2. Starting with the main character of this book, Amir, he is a spoiled child belonging to a very wealthy family. The culture of Afghanistan is lightly filled in him because even though he is a friend of Hassan, he is afraid of being seen with him in public for in Afghanistan the Pashtuns were the elite class and Hazara ethnic was a minority group, therefore friendship between the two groups was frowned upon. Furthermore, one of the cultural sports of Afghanistan is kite flying and Amir promises to win that tournament to make his Baba proud, portraying that the culture of his country is important to him. On the other hand, when he is settled in America he is shown as pursuing writing career, regardless of the fact that it was not perceived as manly in Afghanistan, but in America’s culture it is a respected career. Similarly, his marriage to Sorya is another proof of him being influenced by American culture as he had no qualm about marrying a girl who previously ran away with her boyfriend. Examining the second main character, Hassan, Afghani culture is heavily endorsed in him. The values and norms that make up his society are reflected in him, for example, his respect for his master/owner is exemplary. The extent to which he is faithful and obedient towards Amir is envious and that is because of the culture, which teaches valuing and respecting chief. Likewise, his love for kite flying can also be seen in the book, which is as mentioned before, an Afghani sports. Following the norms of the society and footsteps of his father, he even put his life in danger and sacrifices the core of his existence to keep his promise to his owner and defend him from enemies. The antagonist of the novel, Assef is described as an offspring of a German mother and Afghani father, who is a friend of Baba and rich too. How much he is influenced by the Afghani culture can be pictured through his despise for the minor ethnic group or the Hazara and how he beats and rapes Hassan for standing up to him on behalf of Amir. Later, when he turns into the Taliban leader and carry out all the despicable things again confirms the heavy influence he have on him of the current culture of Afghanistan. Baba, biological father of both Amir and Hassan is a wealthy Emir, who loves both of his children but favors Hassan more because he was unable to publicly call him his son and give him all the love and strength that a child wants from his father, since Hassan is his illegitimate child, which he had from a servant. As the book depicts him manly and true to his word, it is a proof of the values he held close to himself and describes his personality. His values do not permit him to speak lies or tolerate it and this he teaches to Amir too. He held tightly to this culture, which made him uneasy to appease and hard towards Amir, which in result pushed him to opt wrong ways to live up to his standards. However, when he travels to America, the culture could not get hold of him there. For example, he fights with a Chinese couple who ran store just because they asked him for his ID, which for him meant that his words are not good enough or maybe he is a liar. Coming towards Soraya, an Afghan – American, she is wife of Amir. It seems that American culture influenced her quite easily as it is in their country where having boyfriend is a girl’s right and ‘love’ marriage is something which is looked forward to, however the exact opposite is the culture of Afghan and in this novel it is told that she ran away wither her Afghan boyfriend in Virginia, prior to her marriage to Amir. In addition to this, She also accepts Sohrab as his son and tend to his necessities and pour love on him just like a mother, knowing well that the kid is a child of an illegitimate child of her father-in-law. The theme in this novel is picturing the forms of love, peer ship, regret and recovery that exists within almost each one of us and that the culture of where we are residing or living mostly mold are personality and characteristics which in future guides us to tackle different situations and scenarios according to our nature or we can say culture. Every culture has its pros and cons but it’s up to us to decide which course of action to take or which cultural factors shall influence us. These may turn out to be reliving, soul lightening or bring a sea of guilt and regret just like Amir brought upon him, himself. Besides, one of the most interesting things about this novel is that it is able to reach across, religion, racial and cultural gaps because it deals with varying kind of background and gives readers an insight in all the cultures and let them decide which cultured plays what role. Work Cited Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. (2003). Shamel, Shafiq. "Epic Poetry and The Kite Runner: Paradigms of Cultural Identity in Fiction and Afghan Society." telos 2007.138 (2007): 181-186. Read More