![]() In addition to the issues affecting his personal life, Amir must also contend with the instability of the Afghan political system in the 1970s. Many of the ruling-class elite in Afghanistan view the world as black and white, yet Amir identifies many shades of gray. And Amir's father, Baba, who does not consistently adhere to the tenets of his culture, confuses rather than clarifies things for young Amir. Hassan and his father, Ali, are servants, yet at times, Amir's relationship with them is more like that of family members. One of the biggest struggles for Amir is learning to navigate the complex socioeconomic culture he faces, growing up in Afghanistan as a member of the privileged class yet not feeling like a privileged member of his own family. Along the way, readers are able to experience growing up in Afghanistan in a single-parent home, a situation that bears remarkable similarities to many contemporary households. In addition to typical childhood experiences, Amir struggles with forging a closer relationship with his father, Baba with determining the exact nature of his relationship with Hassan, his Shi'a Muslim servant and eventually with finding a way to atone for pre-adolescent decisions that have lasting repercussions. An adult Amir opens the novel in the present-day United States with a vague reference to one of these events, and then the novel flashes back to Amir's childhood in Afghanistan. Amir tells his story to a reader who has no knowledge of any of this beforehand, and his choice to regress in time and give the back story of each character does two things: it provides critical information about the character’s history, and it also reinforces the thematic idea that the past defines the present.The Kite Runner is the story of Amir, a Sunni Muslim, who struggles to find his place in the world because of the aftereffects and fallout from a series of traumatic childhood events. When he meets Rahim Khan in Pakistan, Rahim Khan starts his own story by going back in time and telling Amir what Hassan’s life has been like. Shortly after that, he jumps back yet again, this time to Baba’s and Ali’s childhood. The novel begins with him living in San Francisco, for instance, then immediately jumps back to his childhood in Kabul. ![]() Instead he repeatedly moves the story back in time to give a history of what he is talking about. Regressing in TimeĪmir does not exactly have flashbacks, which would suddenly put him back in the midst of an earlier event. In each instance, the irony stems from Amir recognizing the unintended consequences of his actions or desires. Amir is emotionally healed by taking the beating Assef gives him. Another significant irony is the fact that Assef, who raped Hassan and caused Amir’s guilt, becomes the way for Amir to atone. Amir wants to share the best of Baba’s traits, but instead what they share is the betrayal of their best friends. There is a further irony in the fact that Amir only realizes how much he resembles Baba when he discovers that Baba conceived Hassan with Sanaubar, Ali’s wife. Amir ultimately wants to be happy, but instead he earns himself an overwhelming sense of guilt. But by not stopping Assef and the others, Amir becomes exactly the sort of coward Baba worried Amir would become, and unwittingly allows Baba’s son-and his own brother-to be raped, as he does not yet know that Baba is Hassan’s father. Amir doesn’t intervene because he wants Baba’s approval, which he knows he can earn by bringing home the kite and proving that he, like Baba, is a winner. The novel’s greatest irony, and its most tragic, centers on Amir’s choice not to stop Hassan’s rape. He even describes how Rahim Khan tells him when is still a child that he has grasped irony in his writing. The adult Amir clearly recognizes the ironies in his own story. Read more about the motif of sexual violence in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Rape in this sense represents complete physical and mental domination of those who don’t have power by those who do, and the victims of rape that we see in the novel, most notably Hassan and Sohrab, always suffer lasting emotional trauma. It is not just physically violent, but it is also an attack on the victim’s emotions and dignity. As a motif, rape is important for multiple reasons. Other instances of rape include Baba stopping the rape of the woman in the truck with them as they flee Kabul, and the rape of Kamal that Kamal’s father implies. In each case, rape is a critical element in the novel’s plot. Hassan’s rape is the source of Amir’s guilt, which motivates his search for redemption, while stopping Sohrab’s rape becomes Amir’s way of redeeming himself. The most significant instances of rape are Assef’s rape of Hassan and his later rape of Sohrab.
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