You Can Read TWO Books? The Kite Runner (Don't Go Down That Alley!)

Khaled Hosseini’s first novel “The Kite Runner” is a best selling modern piece of literature for many reasons, its a very emotional story, filled with powerful themes and characters, however I believe its greatest achievement is how it smoothly incorporates Middle- Eastern culture into the narrative. This really makes the setting and the whole overall story feel exotic and yet at the same time extremely believable, as well as something completely fresh from what the reader might be used to. This window into another culture’s background makes the story very easy to be interpreted anthropologically over the other 3 social sciences. This is done by explaining racial differences, incorporating dialect, switching to America and then also switching to Pakistan.

First, to summarize the plot, it deals with main protagonist Amir remembering his past in Kabul as a child, and his relationship with his best friend and later revealed to be brother Hassan, as well has his shaky relationship with his father. These events led to a climax where at the Kite Running festival, Amir betrays Hassan by leaving him alone to face the bullies, ultimately getting raped! Amir’s guilt overwhelms him and follows him for the rest of his life. The two friends part on horrible terms very shortly afterwards as Amir and Baba flee the country when the Russians take over. Amir rebuilds his life in America, but is eventually drawn back with a chance to redeem himself.

One of the cultural aspects that stood out to me at the start of the novel, in the flashback was how Amir was a Pashtun and Hassan was a Hazara. This put the two boys in a fairly awkward relationship from the off set, as even though they were best friends, socially they were separated, so much so that Hassan and his father Ali were Amir and Baba’s servants. How can you truly be best friends with someone society is telling you to look down upon. Amir learns that “the Hazara people were descended from Moguls, owing to their flattened, "Chinese-like" facial features. The Hazaras were brutally oppressed throughout their history for being Shi'a instead of Sunni Muslim. His own people, the Pashtun, oppressed the Hazaras.” This reminds me of our in class discussions about race, and how in the end there truly is no race, as the classifications are man-made. If there were really no Pashtun’s and no Hazara’s, perhaps the two main characters could have been closer, and the tragedy been adverted. One of the story is friendship/brotherhood, however until racial prejudices and stereotypes are completely torn down from society then this is impossible. It would be similar to a white person being a friends with a black person, during the period of segregation in the United States.

Another part of the story that really brings out the cultural aspect of the story is how Hosseini incorporates real words from the character’s language into the story. This subtle touch of interweaving the language really adds to the cultural immersion. For example “We sat at a picnic table on banks of the lake, just Baba and me, eating boiled eggs with “kofta” sandwiches - meatballs and pickles wrapped in “naan”.” With this technique, you can learn so much even during parts that aren’t too key to the plot. This sentence was very basic, only a small part of Amir explaining how he wishes to be closer to Baba, however two new words were learned. Eventually through repetition, many words used don’t always need to be explained, they become almost like English words. Truly the only way to fully understand a culture is to experience it, however when an Anthropologist does go to visit a different culture one of the crucial things they learn quickly is the language, so they can communicate with the locals. Learning just a few words is enough for us, as readers to feel like we are part of the culture as well.

As I mentioned in the last paragraph, a central conflict early on, is Amir, desperately wishing for the respect and love of his father. This is what leads him to doing whatever it takes to win the Kite Running tournament and factors greatly in his decision to do nothing while Hassan is raped. However what is interesting here is how this conflict isn’t really unique to people from Afghanistan, it is universal to all of us. We always strive to impress our parents, and make them feel proud of us, especially at that young ages. They are our role models, and trying to live up to their expectations is how the family institution works.

When Amir moves to America, we learn about the small Afghanistan community that always shops at the same flee market. This is important to the story as it is where Amir meets his future wife, however it is also very realistic. Often when a group of immigrants come to a new country they stick together, forming their own sub communities such as Chinatown in Toronto. Sometimes when too many come to a certain area, the normal residents move to a different area. This happens a lot in London, England. Some other points of interest were how Baba struggled taking on simpler jobs in America, after being in a much higher position in Kabul, and how he slowly deteriorated. A cool idea had to do with how Baba was normally so trusting, in Kabul a stick could be used to carve notches representing items purchased from a vendor, whereas in America the store keeper wouldn’t sell him anything without asking for ID. Another thing I found important was how Baba found the idea of America really liberating because he knew his son could grow up in freedom and someday become successful, however Amir found it freeing because he could now be less reminded of his Guilt over Hassan. Baba’s thoughts mirror that of all immigrants though, trying to work their way to the American dream, now free from many hardships in their homeland. I think having a country so close to us or our own country for that matter, feel this important to people is really gratifying.

Another major culture shock is when Amir finally goes back to Pakistan to find Hassan’s son. Amir sees tonnes of beggars dieing on the streets and also witnesses many atrocities committed by the Taliban. This is a point of interest for the novel, as after 9-11 the Taliban became a huge issue, however not a lot of people really understood them. They took back the country from the Russians, however their rule brought about a large number of human rights violations especially towards women. When studying this novel in Mrs Sirianni’s super amazing class, we watched a documentary about this. The women are not supposed to leave the house without a man, aren’t allowed to be educated also aren’t even supposed to show any skin or their face! All these things are truly horrible, and I think are explained further in “A Thousand Splendid Sons” which I hope to read someday. Amir witnesses a “stoning” which is a barbaric form of execution, where the one sentenced has rocks thrown at their head until finally they die. I cannot even fathom how painful that would be. Another really shocking thing was how the orphanage children were really starved and abused, however the head of the orphanage was losing far more, just to keep them alive. This was significant to the story as Sohrab’s reaction to going back lead to the heart stopping climax, that seriously upset me.

It is easy to see how all of this turmoil and devastation led to western countries wanting to step in and fight the Taliban. Nonetheless, when Amir wanted to simply adopt Sohrab and get the hell out of there, he was faced with a whole mess of restrictions. This lead to Sohrab finally panicking and trying to kill himself, which in turn kills the reader as I mentioned above. Even though it doesn’t seem completely practical, perhaps western countries allowing refuge to these people is a greater feat then any other.

Since “the Kite Runner” is such an incredibly rich novel, filled with so much information I would also like to briefly describe some of the psychological issues that I could have discussed. The book could have completely been analysed this way, however since I did that for “1984” I wanted to do something new. Amir’s character is completely motivated by his guilt for the grand majority of the story. Seeing how much it hurts him and how far it makes him go is a really good moral message, not betraying your friends. This is why it is such an exceptional quest for redemption. His whole journey can be summed up in the phrase "There is a way to be good again" - page 2 (shows how far I got in the book!) Another thing is how when Sohrab tries to kill himself, the novel demonstrated how his personal anguish led to extreme depression and suicidal thoughts. Thankfully in Canada we have different medications for mental illness, and depression can be considered to be one.

In conclusion, “The Kite Runner” is a really amazing novel, for incorporating so many brilliant ideas, which such a detailed and rich outlook on contemporary Middle Eastern culture. This is why Anthropology can evaluate the novel so well. Through analysing the novels various settings, races and dialect, a lot can be learned.