3rd Blog Post

     The Kite Runner is a story about social class and injustice from the point of view of a fairly affluent boy named Amir living in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. It is a story about loss of innocence and it starts that is brutally honest. Amir reads to illiterate Hassan, a Hazara and a servant boy, and while he might have a cleft lip and be of a lower class they get along fairly well a pass a great deal of time together. Instead of reading stories Amir starts making them up and realizes he has a great talent despite his father’s disinterest. After the coup d’état they are harassed by the local bully Assef and Hassan uses his sling shot to help them escape a beating. They have the annual kite running contest and Hassan is the champion but Baba says that he could win and Amir suddenly hungry for first place so he can make his father proud. When he does win against Hassan, Hassan goes to retrieve the kite. Amir grows concerned when Hassan takes a long time to come back and goes to look for him. He sees Hassan get raped by the boys who had harassed them previously and does nothing. Even though Hassan crying and vulnerable they boy opt to avoid a conversation. Amir cannot live with Hassan because he is racked with guilt and does everything possible to get Hassan out of the way eventually faking a theft of his birthday gifts. When Hassan admits to the theft in spite of being innocent he sees that Hassan say Amir in the alleyway during the rape and is once again giving himself up for his friend.

     They end up becoming refugees and during their escape his father stands up for a woman’s honor when the Russian says they can only pass if he can have his way with one of the women in the vehicle. When they get to Pakistan they encounter one of the boys who raped Hassan with his father and he is weak and sickly. His father alludes to his boy being raped, the boy no longer speaks. When they are leaving Pakistan the boy dies and the father kills himself subsequently due to grief.

     Upon arriving in America they live a much less lush lifestyle, Baba now works at a gas station. They live meagerly but get by. Baba could have returned to Kabul but he chose to stay so his son could complete his education despite his dislike of Amir’s chosen major. He becomes infatuated with Genereal Taheri’s daughter, Soraya, they are also Afghani immigrants. His dad gets cancer and refuses treatment, his health declines quickly and Amir request ask General Taheri for his daughter’s hand in marriage. They get married quickly so Baba can attend the ceremony.

     Baba dies shortly after and Amir and Soraya and consider starting a family. They have difficulty conceiving a child and it strains their relationship. A friend of Baba’s calls and says he needs to come back to Kabul, that he has chance to right his wrongs. He tells Soraya he has to leave and upon arriving in the family friend explains that Hassan was his half-brother and he and his wife have been murdered so he must go to the orphanage and retrieve his son so he can be taken to a new adoptive family. He eventually agrees and on the way to the orphanage he remarks that he feels a like a tourist in his own city and is told by Farid, the man who is to take him there, that he has always been a tourist because he never experienced the struggles of Afghan people.

     That night they stay at Farid’s brothers home and are welcomed with open arms. Upon learning that the children of the home went without dinner so he could be fed Amir leaves money for the family in the same way he hid the money to frame Hassan for theft. On arriving in Kabul it has the air of a ghost town and everything is in a state of disrepair. The director of the orphanage says that he no longer has the boy because the Taliban comes and takes children and he must let them because it is the only way he can feed the others. The next day they go to see a Taliban official about the boy, Sohrab. He is brave and snarky and eventually realizes the Taliban official is Hassan’s rapist. The exchange severe and harsh words and he explains to Amir that believes he has been put on a mission by god to rid the world of impure races. Then he beats Amir to a pulp, and he is glad because he feels as he is finally gets what he deserved for letting his half-brother suffer, he can finally heal. Farid and Sohrab leave as Amir is getting beaten.

     After waking up in a hospital he reads a note left to him by his father’s friend, now deceased explaining that his father was harsh with him because he could not openly love with his illegitimate son. Soon after he realizes there was never an adoptive family waiting for Sohrab. He comforts the little boy who is upset and feels unclean after all of the molestation he endured and tells Sohrab that his father would be proud of him for saving his life and helping him get to the hospital.

     He learns from the American embassy that adoption will be messy if not impossible because it cannot be proven that the boy’s parents are dead. He tells Sohrab that he might have to go to another orphanage in order to go be adopted and he has a break down. Amir talks to Soraya who says there are ways to keep him in the country once they get him there. He goes to tell Sohrab and discovers he has attempted suicide.

     Sohrab survives and they go back to America where Soraya has a nice family dinner prepared. Eventually General Taheri is tiered of avoiding the elephant in the room and asks why he has a Hazara boy. Amir says it is his nephew and to never call him that again. After the events of September eleventh General Taheri is summoned back to Afghanistan and Amir and Soraya raise money for a hospital in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

     Despite all of the drama that occurs, the story ends on a positive note. Amir and Sohrab go kite running and he proves to be as talented as his father. When they win he goes and retrieves the kite for Hassan’s little boy.

     Often times when we think of countries in the middle east we don’t take the time to realize they are just as human as us. They are normal civilians, rich and poor, going about their lives when the Taliban took over. It is terrifying because as well adjusted and safe as we feel here we are just as capable of the exact same atrocities. And if the Taliban has the resources and power not only to put of the initial embers of a rebellion but to abduct children and brainwash then and abuse them till they either believe in their sick ideals or are too afraid to disagree you end up with entire generations who have no idea what it is like to feel safe wanted or free. It was refreshing to see a more holistic view of the culture instead of the way most Americans view them, as terrorist. Because the people there live in more terror every day of their lives than we can imagine.

     There were references to Nazi Germany throughout the novel as the people of Afghanistan had a hierarchy based upon race and the further east your ancestors were the less valued they were. The Hazara are descendants of the monguls and have prominent Asian features and are considered less cultured and intelligent despite the fact the “racially pure” people took on Hazara women as concubines frequently and while there were many Hazara children they did not have access to education. While this takes place years after World War two it is similar to how the Germans caused conflict in Japan and had them join a war that was none of their business for the sake of eugenics. What they did not get was they were not a part of the master race and should Hitler have succeeded with his plans they most likely would have been wiped out or enslaved

     Both of these novels are about the sins of the father. Both Oknonwo and Amir have the opportunity to follow their father’s footsteps and make the same mistakes and fall to the same vices or learn for their parents mistakes. Amir sees too much of his father in himself in his father and decides to change the way he lives his life while Oknonwo tries too hard to be the antithesis of his father without realizing how dangerous extremes are. They both teach us that while we have are not our parents there is more of them in us than we would like to admit. If you can try to harness the good you see in your parents it can make you great, but if you resist all that they are you are destined to end up just as awful or worse.