The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” A gripping and enthralling book about betrayal and self-redemption, The Kite Runner had me hooked from the first page. Khaled Hosseini, the author, was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Kite Runner is the first book this author wrote, it was published in 2003. It also received many awards, one of them being the “Literature to Life Award.” In respect to the authors homeland, this is a novel about Afghanistan and the trials and tribulations a nation, and its people go through. The Kite Runner takes on a broad theme of life, love, humanity, courage, and brotherhood. It begins in early Afghanistan, around the 1970’s, before the Russian military invaded and the formation of the monarchy. The political development of Afghanistan is the backdrop of the story, however, culture and pre-war Afghanistan are one of the main focal points in the story. Against a long trail of national despair, Hosseini is able to compose a universal story of redemption and betrayal that far exceeds its setting.

As the novel begins, protagonist, Amir, the son of a wealthy merchant, is approaching manhood. His friend and servant, Hassan, is from the socially inferior group the Hazara tribe and Shi’a sect of Islam. This foreshadows the tension that will remain the center of the story. Amir and his father, are apart of the Pashtun tribe and Sunni branch of Islam. Amir, Hassan and both their fathers live together in the wealthy section of Kabul. The Hazaras act as servants to the Pashtuns, however, are treated like family which clashes with what’s socially accepted.

While Amir and Hassan played together and were friends, the difference in social ranking between them gave their relationship a wary tension. Amir’s father, also called “Baba”, treats Hassan like a second son. This causes awe and hate to spring up within Amir for his father. Similarly, Amir is secretly jealous  of Hassan’s courage and ability to hold Baba’s love. The author is able to capture this complicated family dynamic very vividly. On numerous occasions, Hassan defends Amir against bullies. One winter day in the mid 1970’s, Amir’s neighborhood had their annual kite tournament. Amir’s spinelessness reaches its highest point when he sees a group of bullies overwhelm Hassan and threaten to rape him. Instead of helping his friend in need, Amir runs away.

There are very few characters in fiction that are as revolting as Amir. Khaled Hosseini is able to take on hatred, envy, and rivalry so much that the reader will feel a lack of empathy towards Amir and his situation. As the Russian invasion begins, Amir and his father leave Afghanistan and settle in the United States. In their stay in the U.S. the roles become reversed. The once independent and prosperous Baba, can only find a measly job at a gas station while Amir easily blends in and becomes an English Major, which later turns to a successful writer. Although life seems to be going great for Amir, the betrayal still weighs heavily on him for the next 20 or so years.

Throughout the novel, there have been many moments when things went dark. When a call from an old friend is presented before us, the theme of redemption is revealed. Rahim Khan, an old family friend, called him from Pakistan telling him that “There is a way to be good again.” Amir takes this chance to go to back and make right all the wrongs he committed. During his return,  Amir is confronted with doing the honorable thing and saving Hassan’s orphaned child or returning home empty handed. After his decision to save Sohrab, the orphaned child, Amir encounters a former nemesis, who is now apart of the Taliban. The story takes on a dark path as Hosseini describes how Sohrab was being sexually harassed by a large group of men that belonged to the Taliban, among them is Amir’s nemesis. After a long and painful confrontation, Amir succeeds in liberating Sohrab and bringing him to America to live with him. While this may seem like a good thing, Sohrab yearns for his old life, which Amir is unable to provide.

World History, although most commonly believed is only about things that happened in the past, is more than just stories of deceased people. I believe that world history is the study of things that affect the world and the future. In this school year, we have learned so much. As a class we explored many different topics, one that most interested me was the when we learned about social change. Through many different topics, we have studied how social change happens when people make a difference, or when they’re sick of what’s happening.

In the beginning of the school year we learned about the Age of Exploration. We began the unit by studying the Age of Exploration. As we were focusing on the Spaniards and how they were conquering different parts of the world. However controversial it may be, the Spaniards wanted a social change. Cortez and his men wanted to eradicate the “wrong ways” of the Aztecs, so they stood and decided to make a change. Although it was immoral and very fast paced, they made a social change. In class, we did a trial where the class was divided into different groups. We discussed as a whole and then the deliberations started. It was a very interesting jury, and one of the most engaging ones we had all year.

The religion unit is also something that supports the social change. In this unit, we explored many different religions and saw how they changed people who followed them. We did a benchmark in which we had to compare two or more religions. The religions I focused on were Judaism and Hinduism. I also studied how these two view the apocalypse and the hereafter. By doing research on these two religions, I was able to get a better understanding of them.

Another example of how social change makes a difference is during the revolution unit. Everyone in the class was expected to make a Digital Revolution Guidebook that compared two different revolutions. For my project, I did extensive research on both the revolution in Egypt and Cuba. Although the outcomes for these two revolutions are different, they both started with a similar cause. The people of Egypt were tired of having to follow a government that only seemed to bring them harm. The Cuban people were first against the ruling of Fidel Castro, however they received much more benefits than past leaders.

This leads to the final thing we learned about this year, colonialism. We explored the ideas of how colonialism can affect a group of people. For this benchmark I decided to focus on South Africa and how colonialism had affected their culture. This can be tied in with social change because of how the country was affected. Most people believe that with colonialism comes the change of an entire nation, however, the people of South Africa did not let that happen. They accepted bits and pieces of the change, but not the entirety of it.