The Kite Runner

Yesterday I finished 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini. Today I sit in a Starbucks writing a review about it. 

I feel ashamed that I could read such a heart-wrenching and emotional book sensitive for many and sleep the night like a baby. 

(This review may contain spoilers and will therefore assume that you as the reader are familiar with the various plot points and characters that will be discussed.)

Themes of religion, race, and ethnicity are expressed throughout the novel. As a Sunni Muslim, I was exposed to the harsh treatment many Shias have to face just for their religion, and in the case with Hassan, his Hazara ethnicity as well. Amir, a Sunni Pashtun, and Hassan, a Shia Hazara, represent one of the many divisions that exist in the Afghan society. Naturally, these divisions which fate bores them into pave the course of their lives. 

Amir is the privileged son of a wealthy and well-respected Pashtun man, Baba. He doesn't experience poverty or the nasty glares of others for his facial features. He doesn't have to fear what awaits him at the turn of a street corner... or alley. Amir doesn't have a strong emotional connection with his father which he blames on himself and it seems to be the only cause of worry for him in his life.. how fortunate. Amir, unlike his friend Hassan, is educated and as a child he mocks his friends ignorance.

Hassan is a loyal and forgiving friend who is the servant of Amir and his father. He serves his friend breakfast, prepares his books for school, and cleans the home. Hassan's way of life taught him from a very young age that he is meant to sacrifice himself for the sake and comfort of others. Hassan is a content person and tells Amir how grateful he feels despite having so, so much less than him. Hassan personifies 'innocence' which is crucial to development of the drama and symbolism that Assef's rape represents. 

Race and Ethnicity in the novel

Racism is portrayed quite bluntly through the novel. Assef is without a doubt the novel's most racist character and justifies his rape of Hassan because he's "just a Hazara." Just? When he joins the Taliban, he again justifies his vehement grudge against a whole ethnicity by referring to the Hazara people as garbage littering his beautiful country of Afghanistan seeing it his responsibility to "take out the garbage." 

Hosseini skillfully authors relationships between the characters to reveal the complexity of ethnic relevance in Afghanistan with a direct focus on the Pashtun and Hazara ethnic groups. Pashtuns dominate Afghanistan and have always held high positions in economic, state, military, and religious affairs. However as a minority, the Hazaras were always discriminated against and considered low class by the Pashtuns. Assef's character represents Afghan nationalism. For him, Afghanistan has always been for the Pashtuns. Out of his own volition, Assef abandons all forms of moral conduct to oppress the Hazara and cleanse his watan, country, of them. 

The instances of rape, namely that of Hassan and Sohrab by Assef, must be understood as crucial events that directly relate to the significance of race and ethnicity in Afghanistan. Besides rape being an act of physical violence committed against the victim, it is also an attack on the victim's self dignity or gheerah of man. Rape as a motif in the novel represents oppressive domination of the powerful (Pashtun) over those who are (quite literally) under them (Hazara).

Amir as a Pashtun boy fails to defend Hassan's innocence while he is being abused. The guilt he feels from this plagues and traps him in his past. Amir justifies his failure to defend Hassan by using Hassan's ethnic background as an excuse for his lack of intervention. Critics of the novel say that Amir's behavior towards Hassan cannot be rationalized therefore forever making Amir someone who is selfish and deplorable. Later when Amir learns him and Hassan were brothers his deep-rooted racism becomes something very complicated and he looks for more ways to redeem himself. When he adopts his nephew Sohrab he publicly rejects the General's (and his own implicit) racism when he announces that he can no longer refer to Sohrab as some "Hazara boy." 

This morning I read a paper written by a student, Peng, which analyzed Hassan's rape from an ethical perspective. He writes:

Hassan didn’t complain about Amir’s treachery and framing, Hassan sacrificed himself to preserve narrow and selfish Amir because he was bounded by the class and social ethics, which made him willing to bear everything in their own ethics and class environment. As a result, Hassan had never shown any dissatisfaction with this unequal status, nor had he tried to change his fate. 

Peng further elaborates on the unlucky fate of Hassan. Hassan's tragedy directly corresponds with his social status as a Hazara boy, almost as if being a Hazara is a crime and his rape a punishment for merely existing. As a victim of Afghanistan's ethnic antagonism, Hassan suffers from an experience that many other minorities have. Peng believes that Hassan's rape represents the "tragedy of Hazara and Afghan (Pashtun) society." 

DRAFT.. WIP