The Kite Runner: Amir and his toy, Hassan

The Kite Runner, a book that has been read by many and also has had a movie made after it. Tells a story of a boy’s life in Afghanistan. In the beginning of this story we are introduced to Amir a Pashtun and Hassan a Hazara. Now these two boys are around the same age, they live on the same property, and are great friends. Although they are friends Amir does not treat Hassan the way a friend should be treated and this is due to their positions in society in Afghanistan. Amir is a Pashtun and a Pashtun in society is looked at to have a higher status when compared to a Hazara. Pahstun’s have money, have access to education and other things that should be rights for all the people living in Afghanistan at the time of this story. A Hazara on the other hand is looked down upon and a group of people who are seen as below Pashtun’s and do not have access to many things such as education and often have to work as a servant for a Pashtun, which in this case happens to be the scenario. Hassan’s father works as Amir’s servant and it may be due to their social classes that Amir treats Hassan the way he does.

Due to these social classes Amir treats Hassan poorly without Hassan even realizing most of the time due to his lack of intelligence because he does not go to school. In this story the way Amir treats Hassan will always comeback around him and most likely bring guilt back to him in the future when he is older. An example of Amir menacing with Hassan’s ignorance is when he reads a book and Hassan asks him what the word imbecile means, and so Amir explains “Imbecile.’ It means smart, intelligent. I’ll use it in a sentence for you. ‘When it comes to words, Hassan is an imbecile.” (Hosseini) Shortly after this Amir felt guilty in the way that he took advantage of Hassan’s illiteracy. Even though Amir felt guilty this still did not stop him from using his social status over Hassan to protect him as he uses Hassan wrongfully again when he encounters Assef the neighborhood bully. In this encounter Hassan stands up to Assef and when Assef asks Amir if this was his friend he doesn’t answer because he is ashamed. Once again Amir’s social status gives him too much pride to treat Hassan the Hazara as a friend.

These events with Amir treating Hassan this way does not stop here. When Hassan encounters Assef again, Hassan is taken to an alley and gets sexually assaulted by Assef. But guess who also witnessed the crime, Amir, and guess who didn’t do anything about it, Amir. All he does is think of the guilt in his head “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” (Hosseini) As we see time after time due to Amir’s shame brought onto him by society he does not act like a true friend and like the society itself he looks down upon the Hazara’s. This here is also similar to the way how some people treat other due to racism or how others treat others because they believe they are of a higher class and anyone below them are peasants. Therefore in my opinion Amir treats Hassan the way he does due to social standards that surrounds him in his society.