The Kite Runner

¶ … Kite Runner

The Role of Secrets in Khaled Hosseini's the Kite Runner

The Kite Runner, Hosseini's best selling novel, is an intricate story concerned with the way in which family and friendship relationships can be influenced by ethnicity, race or culture. At the core of the novel there is the secret and the feeling of guilt that the protagonist of the novel, Amir, keeps locked inside for his entire life: his betrayal towards his childhood friend, Hassan. Towards the end of the novel, another secret is disclosed and Amir discovers that Hassan was actually Baba's illegitimate son and therefore his half-brother. The relationship between Amir and Hassan reflects the way in which the political and the personal intertwine in the tumultuous lives of the main characters.

Thus, the political is manifest in many ways throughout the novel. First of all, Hosseini blends the riotous, historical events that followed the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan with the personal experiences of Amir's family. Born into the well-to-do family of a privileged Afghan merchant, Amir's spirit is ingrained with the principles and traditions of his own country. After the fall of the monarchy however, he and his father are forced to leave their home and everything they owned behind, and move first to Pakistan and then to California, in the United States. After his father's death, Amir will return to his native land once more to mend his past failings and to finally put his conscience at rest. Yet, beyond the outward historical and political frame of the events, there are other aspects that showcase the way in which matters of ethnicity and culture merge with the private life of the individual. Thus, the main event in the novel is certainly Amir's betrayal of his friend Hassan during a kite tournament. Amir decides to participate in the competition in order to win the great trophy and with it, the approval of his father for which he always yearns. Amir's strained relationship with his father is obviously the effect of the secret Baba keeps: Hassan, no less than Amir is his son and yet, for political and ethnic reasons he keeps this fact hidden all his life. Islamic culture condemns illegitimate relationships and the children that come from such connections, and thus Baba is forced to hide the fact that Hassan is his son and to let him be raised by Ali, his servant, instead. Therefore, while Amir is a Pashtun, Hassan belongs to the lower, discriminated ethnic minority of the Hazara. Hosseini points out how these people were marginalized, used and mistreated in society out of an ethnic prejudice.

This discrimination is obvious in the relationship between Amir and Hassan. In his ingenuity, Hassan offers his unconditional friendship to Amir and even saves him in one of the conflicts with Assef, an older boy who later becomes a bisexual molester and a terrorist. While Hassan stands up bravely for his friend, Amir fails to do the same for him and, out of cowardice, allows him to be dreadfully molested before his eyes without intervening in his defense. Hassan is thus twice discriminated: he is discriminated by Assef, the teenager with a fascist mind that perceives him as his inferior and wants to destroy him, and sadly, he is also discriminated by his friend Amir. Thus, it is plain to see that Amir's lack of reaction in front of his friend's sufferance is not determined solely by cowardice. Hassan is raped by Assef and his friend while trying to recuperate the kite flown by Amir in the tournament. Thus, Amir allows this tragic scene to happen before his eyes, while fixing the kite that will bring him closer to Baba's affection: "Hassan was standing at the blind end of the alley in defiant stance.... Behind him, sitting on piles of scrap and rubble, was the blue kite. My key to Baba's heart."(Hosseini, 83) Amir thus deserts his friend and unconsciously thinks that he has the right to use him for his personal interest since he is his social inferior. Amir's mixed feelings for Hassan are also influenced by the sense that somehow his father prefers his friend to him. It is obvious that he does not perceive his friend as his equal, and this is why it is difficult for him to admit to Hassan's nobility of heart and his many other talents: "That was the thing with Hassan. He was so goddamn pure, you always felt like a phony around him."(Hosseini, 95) Through his inactivity, Amir thus participates in the terrible and unjust discrimination against his friend.