the kite runner social class essay

The Kite Runner

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The movements of history are constantly interfering with the private lives of characters in The Kite Runner . The Soviet War in Afghanistan interrupts Amir ’s peaceful, privileged life and forces him and Baba to flee to America. After the fall of the USSR, Afghanistan continues to be ravaged by violence, and when Amir does finally return to find Sohrab , the Taliban regime rules the country with violent religious laws. It is the Taliban that give Assef an outlet for his sadistic tendencies, and it is this political state that facilitates Amir’s final meeting with Assef and his redemptive beating.

Hosseini also critiques the sexism and racism of Afghan society throughout the book. Ali and Hassan are Hazaras, an ethnic group that most Afghans (who are Pashtun) consider inferior, though Hosseini makes it clear that Hassan is Amir’s equal and in many ways morally and intellectually superior. When Amir starts courting Soraya , both Hosseini and Soraya comment on the double standard that Afghan society holds for women and men. Men are forgiven for being promiscuous or flirting, but women will be shamed and gossiped about for life.

Politics and Society ThemeTracker

Politics and Society Quotes in The Kite Runner

The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either… Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame… a boy with Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of these things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that.

“But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? Why he only plays with you when no one else is around? I’ll tell you why, Hazara. Because to him, you’re nothing but an ugly pet…”

“Amir agha and I are friends,” Hassan said.

In the end, I ran.

I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me… I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?

In the morning, Jalaluddin… would probably think we’d gone out for a stroll or a drive. We hadn’t told him. You couldn’t trust anyone in Kabul anymore – for a fee or under threat, people told on each other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, servant on master, friend on friend.

Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were burned and schools destroyed… Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me. A city of harelipped ghosts. America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.

As I drove, I wondered why I was different. Maybe it was because I had been raised by men; I hadn’t grown up around women and had never been exposed firsthand to the double standard with which Afghan society sometimes treated them… But I think a big part of the reason I didn’t care about Soraya’s past was that I had one of my own. I knew all about regret.

“The war is over, Hassan,” I said. “There’s going to be peace, Inshallah , and happiness and calm. No more rockets, no more killing, no more funerals!” But he just turned off the radio and asked if he could get me anything before he went to bed. A few weeks later, the Taliban banned kite fighting. And two years later, in 1998, they massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif.

He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap sack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. “That’s the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.”

“How much more do you need to see? Let me save you the trouble: Nothing that you remember has survived. Best to forget.” “I don’t want to forget anymore,” I said.

• The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

• Literature Notes
• Themes in The Kite Runner
• The Kite Runner at a Glance
• Book Summary
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Character Analysis
• Character Map
• About The Kite Runner
• Khaled Hosseini Biography
• Critical Essays
• Symbols in The Kite Runner
• Full Glossary for The Kite Runner
• Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Themes in The Kite Runner

Betrayal and Redemption

Betrayal, which can be considered a form of sin, is enduring and ends up being cyclical in The Kite Runner. For most of the novel, Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it. But doing this clearly does nothing toward redeeming himself, and thus his guilt endures. That is why he still cringes every time Hassan's name is mentioned. When Amir finds out about Baba's betrayal of Ali (and subsequent betrayal of Hassan), he realizes that everything he thought he knew and understood about his father was false. And Amir himself feels betrayed. But Baba has been dead for fifteen years, and there is nothing he can do about the situation. Neither feelings of betrayal nor punishment are enough to redeem Amir. Rescuing Sohrab from Assef is not enough either. Only when Amir decides to take Sohrab to the United States and provide his nephew a chance at happiness and prosperity that was denied to his half-brother does Amir take the necessary steps toward atonement and redemption.

Forgiveness

Ideas about forgiveness permeate The Kite Runner . Hassan's actions demonstrate that he forgives Amir's betrayal, although Amir needs to spend practically the entire novel to learn about the nature of forgiveness. Baba's treatment of Hassan is his attempt at gaining public forgiveness for what he has not even publicly admitted to have done. Yet the person who speaks most poignantly about the nature of forgiveness is Rahim Khan. In his letter, he asks Amir to forgive him for keeping Baba's secret but also writes explicitly "God will forgive." Rahim Khan is confident that God will forgive all transgressions, and he encourages Amir to do so, too. Rahim Khan understands that it is God who readily forgives those who ask for forgiveness, but it is people who have a hard time forgiving. Thus, the only way complete forgiveness can occur is when one forgives oneself, and that will only occur when one has truly attempted to atone for the mistakes that one has made.

Every relationship in The Kite Runner is strained at one point or another, thus providing multiple examples of the complexity of various types of love. Hassan's love for Amir is selfless, while Amir's for Hassan is mostly selfish. The two relationships thus demonstrate — albeit unknowingly to the characters — the nature of brotherly love, a love that includes jealousy and insecurity. Ali, Baba, the General, Hassan, Rahim Khan, and even Amir demonstrate varying degrees of paternal love, each having expectations for his child and providing physical and/or emotional support. Amir and Soraya illustrate romantic love, and their relationship plays an important part in Amir's character development. Hassan's character comes closest to demonstrating selfless love towards all others, and the other characters are able to learn from his example. Most of the characters are living a life that includes a personal quest for love. And most of them realize that both forgiveness and love of self are necessary before you are able to love another.

Social Class and Ethnic Tensions

The socioeconomic conditions in Afghanistan demonstrate the disparity between the majority (Sunni Muslims) and the minority (Shi'a Muslims) and how people discriminate against each other based on physical features and religious beliefs. The socioeconomic differences are also explored in the United States, as Baba and many other immigrants give up lives of relative prosperity and security for manual labor and little pay. In addition to the differences between Muslim sects, The Kite Runner also alludes to the differences between European and Western Christian cultures on the one hand, and the culture of the Middle East on the other. And the conservative Taliban, which outlaws many customs and traditions, also demonstrates the differences within the same religious groups.

The Immigrant Experience

The Kite Runner effectively demonstrates that the difficulty of the immigrant experience begins when one attempts to leave his homeland. Baba and Amir are among many Afghans who struggle to leave — under cover of night, unsure of the next passage, taking calculated risks. Obviously, some immigrants die before they even reach their new homes. In addition to the difficulties of their lives in a new country, the immigrants also have to deal with the perception of them among those who stayed behind. Amir realizes this when he returns to Afghanistan. Finally, the adjustment to a new country is not just about learning a new language; it is about maintaining traditions and some semblance of your own culture. Baba loses his status and still has his old world prejudices, thus demonstrating the precarious balance between old and new. Soraya and her mother also demonstrate the difficult role women have balancing the expectations of an old world culture with the new world in which they are living.

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