The kite runner: social impact on the perception of friendships

Friendships The basis of human interaction. The fusion of two individuals who share secrets, desires and passions. The term is loosely defined at best and can never be given a particular set of attributes or requirements to qualify as a genuine friendship. The variations are numerous and can range from superficial conversations to deep neuro-connections and ultimately love. In the case of Amir and Hassan in Khalid Hosseni’s novel The Kite Runner, the connection between a Pashtun and a Hazara is described from both sides and shows how the perception of a friendship varies from pole to pole. Hosseni hides and reveals information to the reader until the very end, when we learn that Amir and Hassan connect on a much deeper level than was initially assumed, as the two children were born to the same father and were half-siblings. Many conditions limited the extent to which the “socially legitimate half”, as Amir put it upon realizing his connection to Hassan in reference to himself, could carry this relationship, and deadly control of the social divide prevented Amir, a Pashtun, from he even referred to Hassan, a hazara, as a friend.

“In the end, I was Pashtun and he was Hazara. I was Sunni and he was Shiite, and nothing was going to change that. Nothing.” A fact stated by Amir at the beginning of the Novel. Despite the fact that Amir and Hassan played together, ate together and even lived through family events, social prejudice once again demonstrated that it had the power to influence even the most intimate decisions, even if the affected is an Afghan child. However, Amir shows some courage in the face of intense racial diversity as he continues: “But we were children, who had learned to crawl together. And no history, ethnicity, society or religion was going to change that either.” Amir knew he was socially superior to his servant, but he also recognized his presence as a faithful companion, a release for normal interaction that he could count on. However, racial separation is racial separation, Amir could never refer to a Hazara as a “friend”. He would always be a servant to his family, a social inferior. The association with a Hazara could be compared to the adversity that a Hispanic would face when interacting with an African American in the 1960s.

However, Hassan’s opinion is written by a different author. One who faces direct racial discrimination and has nothing to lose. Hassan’s only friend in the world is Amir. The only one with whom he can talk constantly and with whom he sees regularly. This dependency takes Hassan’s interpretation of friendship in another direction. He proves his loyalty to Amir on several occasions: the first example is verbal and only one page in the novel. When asked “What if I tell you to eat dirt?” For Amir, Hassan’s face hardens and he responds resolutely, “For you, a thousand times.” This quote becomes a recurring theme used as an illustration of Hassan’s commitment to friendship. Later in the novel, Baba tells us, “I see them. When I look out the window, I see Amir’s toys being taken away. He just takes them. Then Hassan will come and fight them for him.” Not only does this reveal something about Hassan in the sense that he is a very good friend to Amir, but it also foreshadows the true relationship between Amir and Hassan, as Baba shows concern for his two sons and his fear that he “half socially legitimate “will become a coward.

The turning point in the novel shows the convergence of 3 fronts: Amir’s need to impress his father, Hassan’s need to fulfill his responsibility to Amir as a friend and servant, and Baba’s need to see his father triumph. “socially legitimate” child. This event is the kite flying tournament. As Amir says as a narrator: “He doesn’t appreciate the world of literature and I can’t appreciate the world of football, so it was very difficult for us to find common ground.” The annual kite flying tournament among the neighborhood kids was an opportunity for Amir to finally make his father proud of him. Dozens of children would gather in the streets and fly their kites in hopes of breaking the strings of their competition and enjoying the attention of their friends and family. This was Amir’s best chance of gaining something for his father, and he would let nothing stand in the way of that attention, not even the possibility of losing his closest companion.

After several hours and most of the day, Amir and Hassan’s kite was in the last two remaining competitors. The other was a fierce blue kite, which had already claimed more than 10 victims up to this point in the competition. In the end, Amir succeeded, cutting through the opposition and sending the kite spinning skyward. Hassan immediately fled to run for the kite, so that Amir could take his game head home with Baba. The haunting melody of “for you, a thousand times over” seems to reverberate across the pages of the book, as Hassan’s loyalty compared to Amir’s is shown in stark contrast as the sun began to descend in the Afghan sky, and Hassan he hadn’t done it yet. come back with the kite. Amir finally leaves to hunt down his partner.

Amir finds Hassan cornered in an alley, the same alley in which he had reflected at the beginning of the book with his father’s friend, Rahim Kahn, on the phone: “I have been spying in that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” Surrounding Hassan were two thugs and the dreaded Assef and his two companions. Assef was infamous among the boys of the city for his brutality with his metal fists, as well as for his unwavering racial discrimination against the Hazaras. Earlier in the book, Amir and Hassan were confronted by Assef, who planned to beat Amir senseless for even socializing with a “Hazara Babalu”, as Assef put it. Quick in action, Hassan grabbed his slingshot and pointed at Assef’s eye saying “If you don’t leave us alone, they’ll recognize you by a new title: One-Eyed Assef.” Assef and his goons backed off, promising they would get revenge one way or another. Now, here in this alley, it was the fulfillment of that unholy prophecy.

Hassan resolutely stood between Assef and the blue kite that had just flown for Amir. Assef casually offered a proposal: “Today is your lucky day, babalu, because all you need to get out of here without a scratch is that blue kite.” In an ordinary relationship or friendship, I am sure most people would sacrifice the kite and return to the safety of their home. Unfortunately for Hassan, he was not in a normal friendship. Amir was Hassan’s only friend in the world, and that blue kite acted as a physical representation of his commitment to friendship. If he gave up the kite, in Hassan’s eyes, he was giving up his only friendship.

So instead of submitting to Assef and his cronies, he acted as the sacrificial lamb needed to tighten the bond between his half-brother and his father. Assef used tactics even more sinister and ungodly than his traditional style of hitting the hell out of whoever he bullied: he anally raped Hassan. And Amir ran away. He turned his back on his closest companion, his half brother, and, whether he wanted to admit it or not, his friend. After all the times Hassan had stood up for Amir in the past, everything they had been through, Amir couldn’t face injustice and at least suffer with his friend. The scars etched that day would not heal.

Jumping forward in the book, we find Amir, a college graduate in America, where he had fled after the invasion of Afghanistan made the country too dangerous to inhabit. He and Hassan hadn’t spoken more than two sentences at a time, and Amir had arranged to steal some of their birthday presents, to make it look like Hassan had stolen them. Amir could no longer meet Hassan’s eyes and had to push him away. Although Baba responded to this incident with forgiveness: “Hassan, I forgive you,” Ali and Hassan recognized that they could no longer live under that roof. Baba had to watch his son go. Walk out the door and never come back. As Amir said: “Then I saw Baba do something that I had never seen him do in his life: he cried.” Amir, intentionally or not, had caused a division between a father and his son. His half brother and his father. This was a bond that would not be repaired after being severed.

Amir and Baba lived in a substandard apartment in San Francisco, in an area where many Afghans had fled. Baba would soon contract cancer and die, seeing that his wife married a beautiful and faithful woman just before he left. He and his wife Soraya were finally able to settle down, and Amir was able to begin his career as a professional writer. All the pieces were coming together when the phone rang and Rahim Kahn’s voice came through the earpiece. This is where we start the book. Rahim Kahn was dying and wanted to see Amir before he left. As Rahim Kahn was one of Amir’s closest people, he made that trip to his former country, convinced that “there is a way to be good again.”

Rahim Kahn told Amir upon arrival that he needed to find a little Hazara boy, who was Hassan’s son, and save him from the violence that now engulfed Afghanistan. He proceeded to explain how the boy, Sohrab, was Hassan’s son, and how Hassan was in fact Amir’s half-brother. Amir’s search eventually leads him to a soccer game.

At the soccer game, a man in white goes out at halftime to stone to death a couple for committing adultery. Apparently this is the man who was currently in Sohrab’s custody. Hassan and Amir’s friendship was now so ingrained that Amir could no longer forget the past and move on. He had to rescue Hassan’s living incarnation and in doing so, reclaim his tainted past.

The two meet, and the man in white immediately recognizes Amir, who in turn realizes that the man in white, a leader of the Taliban, was his old childhood enemy, Assef. The realization came as soon as Assef referred to Hassan’s son as a “slanted-eyed babalu.” Sohrab is presented in vibrant clothing and made to dance. The reader can infer that terrible things happened to this boy during his stay with Assef, be it rape, forceful physical attack, psychological trauma, or all of these. Amir manages to secure the boy, but only after Assef beat him to pulp. In fact, the only way he managed to get out alive was through Sohrab’s cunning use of his sling, as he gouged out Assef’s eye with a bronze ball. Life would be difficult for Sohrab, Amir, and Soraya, but finally Amir was able to put an end to his horrible past and “make it right again” between Baba, Hassan, and himself. Friendship always manages to shine, regardless of how long it takes.