Loyalty In The Kite Runner

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Imagine being so loyal to somebody who you're willing to do anything for, just to have them betray you. In the novel The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini, there are many significant relationships developed in the text that lead into betrayal in some way shape or form. Hosseini portrays loyalty and betrayal throughout the novel to spotlight ones morals impacted by society's rules through ethnic division and tension. This is displayed very strongly between Hassan and Amir, but also appears between Baba and Ali, and the guilt filled relationship between Baba and Amir.

A significant relationship in the text is one between Amir and Hassan, a Pashtun and Hazara, a Sunni and a Shiia. Hassan is the most loyal character in the novel as he is …show more content…
Baba being upset with the death of his wife from giving birth to Amir, decided to sleep with Saunabar, Ali's wife, and got her pregnant. Growing up Baba and Ali were like brothers and for Baba to go and cross his "brother" like that is very wrong. Ali was sterile so he knew that Hassan could not have been his child, but to work for Baba all that time, being so loyal and trustworthy to him and then have Baba get your wife pregnant would be very frustrating. Although Baba betrayed Ali, he decided to stay around and raise the small Hazara boy on his own because Saunabar took off when Hassan was born. This was hard on Amir to find out that not only had he betrayed his friend by allowing him to be raped, but his brother as well, wondering "How had Baba brought himself to look Ali in the eye? How had Ali lived in that house, day in and day out, knowing he had been dishonored by his master in the single worst way" sitting there in disbelief of what his father had done. Ali was loyal even after Baba had betrayed him but in the certain situation, Ali wasn't the only one that Baba had betrayed. He hid the fact he was Hassan's father for many years because a Pashtun Muslim could never sleep with a Hazara Muslim, this was against the Afghans beliefs and rules. This is significant in the text because it shows the idea of nature versus nurture as although Amir and Hassan shared the same …show more content…
Although they fit "like father, like son" very well personality wise, they are two very different people. Amir is willing to do anything to impress his father but Baba blamed Amir for the death of his wife while she was giving birth to Amir. They do not talk about this and Baba also does not like that Amir is not athletic, or into the same business as himself. No matter how hard Amir tries, nothing seems to work as Baba is very hard to communicate with and looks at Amir as a disappointment to the male stereotype in Afghanistan. Baba does not act as a father figure at all to Amir, until they move to America when Baba starts to accept Amir more for who he actually is rather than who he wants him to be. At one point in the novel Baba sits Amir on his lap and tells him that there is only one sin in life and that is theft. Killing a man would steal the right from his wife of having his husband, the right for his kids to have a father. This is something that Baba strongly believed and it is something that Amir remembered about Baba. Amir did not know however, that Baba had sinned by lying about Amir having a half brother. This made Amir very upset as he thought "I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst kind, because the things he'd stolen had been sacred: from me the right to know I had a brother." As the respected man Baba was, Amir was very
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