The Kite Runner Cultural Analysis

The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, reveals the story of Amir, an Afghan Sunni Muslim, and his venture to achieve redemption from his childhood actions that left him haunted and desperate to calm his guilty conscience. Hosseini critiques the cultural clash of the Pashtuns and the Hazaras through the friendship of Amir and Hassan, portraying that even though each boy may reside in different pillars of the socioeconomic class, they are equal. Then the author discusses the cowardice that Amir acted on that embodies the attitude towards the Hazaras by the Pashtuns. Along with that, Hosseini includes the discussion of the political climate of Afghanistan and how its past later affected its future development as a nation. Amir is able to …show more content…
In effect of his loneliness, Amir enters a friendship with his playmate and servant, Hassan whom is a Shia Muslim and a Hazara who resides in the lower class. The outcome is he peculiar friendship of Hassan and Amir. Their differences are ever prominent; regardless, they are still able to form a partnership that they both long for. The friendship is not a legitimate one for Amir, who uses Hassan for company, and is cruel towards him while Hassan protects Amir in any way possible. It is a toxic friendship. For instance, while Amir attends school, Hassan is working as a servant. When Hassan asks Amir for definitions of words unknown to him, Amir often twists them and teases Hassan, who is none the wiser, and believes he is being complemented by who thinks is his best friend. Furthermore, in an attempt to win the attention of Baba, both of the boys enter a kite tournament (a mainstream activity in their culture), and win; the consequence was the molestation of Hassan by boys of the Pashtun class who were angry by their loss. Amir can only watch for he fears that if he intervenes he will lose the prize of the tournament that will earn him his father’s endearment. Haunted by this inaction, …show more content…
Amir describes the war as, “bringing the death of the Afghanistan [he] knew and marking the start of a still ongoing era of bloodletting” (Hosseini 83). As a result, the country was in havoc and the peaceful atmosphere for the Pashtuns was destroyed. The Pashtuns and Hazaras were equal in the agony of their war-torn country. In effect of the war, Amir and Baba decide to flee Afghanistan and leave for America. Their journey was filled with the horrors of war. Amir experienced the slaughtering of men, the perversion of women, and the lasting effects of the future of children in the ravaged streets begging for anything to help them. Afghanistan was no longer a country that was once proud and rich like it’s higher class but broken and disfigured like the Hazaras. The country that was once known as the “land of a thousand cities,” was violated by the socialist regime; the Russian invasion and later, the Taliban were catalysts for a backwards society. When Amir returns back to Afghanistan later in the novel, the injustices of the war are immediate. He notices a man that is willing to sell his prosthetic leg for anything that can come his way. Furthermore, when he visits Rahim Khan he is told stories of the genocide that the Taliban has committed. Afghanistan at first welcomed the Taliban with open arms, but is thrusted further into the past due to their

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