The Good, The Bad, The Guilty

(1)

The Good, The Bad, The Guilty

A character analysis of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner Den Goda, Den Onda, Den skyldige

En karaktärsanalys av Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner

Madelene Sjödén

Faculty of Arts and Education English Literature

Points 12/21

Original supervisor: Fredrik Svensson Nicklas Hållén

2020-08-18

(2)

Abstract

In Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner (2003) the reader follows the narrator and protagonist Amir’s as he embarks on his journey towards redemption. Amir’s need for redemption is based on the tragic childhood event where Amir’s friend and servant Hassan were assaulted by their nemesis Assef as Amir can, but fails to intervene. This event is central to the plot. The story is told through Amir's memories and contains details about his relationship to the people close to him as well as his nemesis. I will argue that Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner can be interpreted through a character analysis based on the names Hosseini chose for three of his characters and how they correlate to the portrayal of the characters, their personalities and how they mirror the actors in the Afghani civil war.

Keywords: character analysis, storytelling, redemption, ethnicity, forgiveness, atonement, Afghanistan

Sammanfattning

I Khaled Hosseinis roman The Kite Runner (2003) följer läsaren berättaren och huvudpersonen Amir på hans resan genom livet. Den tragiska händelsen där Amirs vän och tjänare Hassan blev våldtagen av deras plågoande Assef är en central del av handlingen. Handlingen skildras genom Amirs minnen och innehåller detaljer om hans relationer till de personer som står honom nära såväl som detaljer om hans fiende. Jag argumenterar för att Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner kan tolkas genom en karaktärsanalys som baseras på de namn som Hosseini valt till sina karaktärer och hur de står i relation till porträtteringen av karaktärerna och deras personligheter samt hur de speglar aktörerna i det afghanska inbördeskriget.

Nyckelord: karaktärsanalys, historieberättande, försoning, etnicitet, förlåtelse, gottgörelse, Afghanistan

(3)

As readers we are significantly influenced by the narrator of a story as the perspectives we can take on as readers are limited by what the narrator reveals and how. Hence, the description of the characters is tainted and limited with the opinions and portrayals of the narrator. In Khaled Hosseini’s New York Times bestselling novel (Wyatt, 2004) first published in 2003, The Kite Runner (2013), the narrator Amir tells a story from his memory. The plot is centred around a traumatic event in Amir’s childhood, namely the rape of his best friend Hassan which Amir considers himself to have had an indirect role in as he was witness to it and refrained from intervening and ultimately stopping it. This event is the central conflict of the story as well as the event that Amir spends the rest of his life, as he portrays it, atoning for. The three characters who will be analysed in this paper are also central to this event. Amir is the witness; Hassan is the victim and Assef the perpetrator. Mirroring the socio-political and war-torn landscape that is 1970’s Afghanistan, Amir is Pashtun born into wealth and privilege while Hassan is Hazara, a second-class citizen destined for life in servitude and unable to pursue an education. Assef is also a Pashtun, a self-righteous racist firmly believing in the segregation of Afghan society and sympathetic to the Taliban cause.

In the winter of 1975 at the age of twelve (Hosseini 1) Amir and Hassan participated in the annual and highly anticipated kite-fighting tournament in Kabul (46). The boys are winning and when their kite is the last one flying Hassan takes off trying to run down the ultimate trophy, the last fallen, blue kite (64), when Amir calls after him “Hassan! [...] Come back with it!” (63)

“For you a thousand times over!” Hassan answers (63). Hassan does not return so Amir goes looking for him and when he finally catches up with Hassan, Amir finds him in an alley along with Assef and his two friends Wali and Kamal who are trying to make Hassan give them the kite. Hassan refuses and Amir overhears Hassan saying that the kite is for Amir and Assef asks him to consider the following before he sacrifices himself for Amir:

Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? Why he only plays with you when no one else is around?

I’ll tell you why, Hazara. Because to him, you’re nothing but an ugly pet. Something he can play with when he’s bored, something he can kick when he’s angry. Don’t ever fool yourself and think you’re something more (68).

Hassan tells them that Amir and he are friends, when Assef continues “Friends? [...] You pathetic fool! Someday you’ll wake up from your little fantasy and learn just how good of a

(5)

friend he is. [...]” (86). With the blue kite in the background, Amir watches Hassan laying with

“his chest pinned to the ground” (71) when Assef “lifted his bare buttocks [...] and positioned himself behind Hassan. [...] he [Hassan] moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb” (71).

Having witnessed Assef beating another kid unconscious with his brass knuckles before (36), Amir is too afraid to intervene in the rape of Hassan. And he really wanted that blue kite, the

“key to Baba’s heart” (67). Reflecting on it later, Amir realizes that if he had said something, done something, there in the alley that day, his life “might have turned out differently” (69).

Every detail in a novel is put there by the author for a reason. That reason could be to move the plot forward, describe the setting, or create depth to a character or a story (Peck and Coyle 117). In The Kite Runner, the author has given the characters’ names that carry a significant meaning, not uncommon in many cultures around the world. Throughout the novel, the plot is moved forward not only by its characters' words and actions, but also through the significance of the characters' names. By analysing the meaning of their names, an additional or alternative reading of the novel can be made.

Hosseini himself describes The Kite Runner as a story about the intricate nature of a father-son relationship (Sims, 2011). However, by looking beyond the surface meaning of the novel (Peck & Coyle 142) I will argue that Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner can be interpreted through a character analysis based on the names Hosseini chose for his characters and how they correlate to the portrayal of the characters, their personalities and how they mirror the actors in the Afghani civil war.

Amir – The Guilty

The narrator and protagonist Amir’s name means ‘governor’ (Oxford English Dictionary), a word with multiple meanings, which also mirrors the complexity of his character who is portrayed as having a rich inner life. The multiple meanings of Amir’s name are also displayed through Amir’s actions, thoughts, and words. Amir’s position as the narrator further solidifies the association with his name as a governor, as he essentially governs the story. It is mainly through his perspective that the story is told, and it is Amir who governs the fate of the other characters. However, Amir can only tell the story as he knows it and portray the other characters

(6)

the way he sees them. In a way, Amir uses storytelling as a tool to justify his actions as a child and clear his own guilty conscience. As Nayebpour (2018) argues, Amir “uses storytelling as a healing tool, as well as atonement, for what he considers his sin” (53). In the following part of the essay, I will show the significance of Amir’s name, the way he governs the story as well as the other characters. Furthermore, I will show how he uses storytelling as a tool to deal with his guilt.

In addition to the idea that Amir governs the story, he describes himself as being born into wealth and privilege, not uncommon for governors. He grows up in Kabul with his father Baba, a successful businessman, and their two servants Ali and Hassan. They live in a beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district (Hosseini 4), a district connected with wealth and high status. Amir’s father had married Amir’s mother, Sofia Akrami, who was a beautiful and respected woman and a descendant of the royal family (15). However, she died while giving birth to Amir, and his father never remarried (6). Amir and Baba belong to the ethnical group of Pashtuns and so did his mother. The servants, however, are Hazaras, a minority group. Their tribal system had been destroyed in the later part of the nineteenth century, and their “personal property and land were taken, as they were made slaves [...]” (Hayes 29). Although they later were freed, the “old practices of subjugation of Hazaras continued” (29). Ali takes care of the household and his son Hassan, when not helping his father with daily chores, spends his time with Amir and becomes a “brother” (Hosseini 24) to him. Although essentially raised like brothers, there is a significant difference between the two. Amir, son of Baba, the wealthy ethnic Pashtun who owns the estate where they all live, knows that he is not the social equal of Hassan.

Reflecting upon a book Amir has read, he realizes: “The book said that my people had killed the Hazaras, driven them from their lands, burned their homes, and sold their women. The book said part of the reason Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras was that Pashtuns were Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras were Shi’a. [...]” (Hosseini 9). Hassan’s mother is an ethnic Hazara, a Shi’a Muslim and Hassan will therefore always be considered a second-class citizen in society.

Because of the ethnic and religious difference between Amir and Hassan, Amir finds it very hard that Baba often favours Hassan over himself. Amir is a disappointment to his father in many ways. He reads books and poetry instead of playing soccer (19), he does not stand up for himself when he is picked on by the neighbourhood kids, he is just not the son that Baba wishes him to be (21). Hassan, on the other hand, is Amir’s opposite, and Baba treats Hassan well, buying him nice presents on his birthdays and the same fancy kite that he buys Amir.

“Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t do that. Wished he’d let me be the favorite” (48). Because

(7)

of this, a feeling of jealousy starts to grow inside Amir that is central to the plot. It becomes a competition within Amir to gain Baba’s sole love and affection. A competition that ultimately leads to Amir having Baba all to himself.

Six years after the assault on Hassan, Amir and Baba fled to the United States (US) after the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan (Dormandy, 2007). While Baba is working at a gas station (Hosseini 118), Amir is studying. After a few years Amir meets Soraya, who has her roots in Afghanistan too, and he marries her (155). For a long time, they try to get pregnant but despite numerous visits to the hospital, they remain childless. One day, Amir gets a phone call from his old friend and Baba’s business partner Rahim Khan who asks him to come to Pakistan to see him. Rahim tells him that “there is a way to be good again” (177). Amir had always suspected that Rahim Khan knew what had happened to Hassan and his own responsibility in it, and Amir understands this statement as a confirmation thereof (177). Curious to find out what Rahim wants him to do, Amir goes to Pakistan where he learns that Rahim wants him to go back to Afghanistan to save Hassan’s son Sohrab and bring him back to Pakistan. Amir wants to help, but to travel into Afghanistan, which at this point more or less belonged to the Taliban (Goodson 104), is risky business and something that Amir is having second thoughts about doing. Then Rahim Khan tells Amir something that turns his world upside down. Amir finds out that Baba had committed the biggest sin there is (Hosseini 98), he had stolen the truth from Amir. His whole life had been a lie. Rahim Khan tells Amir the truth about who Hassan’s father was, and it was Baba (206). Hassan had died without knowing, and now Amir is facing the fact that the only thing left of his brother in this world is his son Sohrab, Amir’s nephew.

Knowing that Hassan is his brother, he takes the opportunity to go there and face his past.

Dressed in appropriate clothes and a fake beard, Amir sets out on his mission; to save Hassan's son Sohrab, his nephew. However, when he reaches Kabul, he finds that everything has changed and realizes that whatever he had pictured it would look like, was nothing compared to what he saw. “Returning to Kabul was like running into an old, forgotten friend and seeing that life hadn’t been good to him, that he’d become homeless and destitute” (Hosseini 227). Once beautiful landscapes, filled with trees and villages, were now burnt down ruins. In Kabul he saw “cratered streets” (232), and bombed buildings where no one lived anymore. The destruction, caused by the Afghan War, is massive. “[...] more than half of Afghanistan’s twenty-four thousand villages destroyed, large sections of the major cities reduced to rubble, roads turned into dirt tracks, and farms made unsafe after being sown with mines instead of seed” (Goodson 92). When Amir looked around, he saw “rubble and beggars” (Hosseini 225)

(8)

and he realized that there were nearly no men around. All he could see was women and children, sitting along the streets of Kabul in ruin. “Hardly any of them sat with an adult male - the wars had made fathers a rare commodity in Afghanistan” (226). Reflecting on this, Amir gets even more determined to get Sohrab out of Afghanistan and into safety. The Taliban drove around the streets, looking for someone to harass, and if they could not find anyone breaking any of their rules, “there is always random violence” (229). Amir’s reflection of the destruction of the Afghan society could be understood as an indirect reflection on Hassan, where Hassan serves as mirroring the country. It is however not only Hassan’s fate that Amir governs, other characters are significantly affected by Amir’s actions and perhaps most of all, Sohrab.

Amir’s character plays a significant role in the novel. Not only is he the narrator and protagonist, he is also the character who carries the fate of the other characters in his hands.

The way he is portrayed and portrays himself in the novel along with the way he acts has consequences not only for him but for the other characters. These consequences are perhaps most evident with Hassan, but they are not limited to him. This is also the case with Hassan’s son Sohrab. Although Amir leaves Afghanistan with Baba as an adolescent, he later returns as an adult with a mission to save Sohrab from a life in misery and through that, relieve himself of his guilt. Once in Kabul and having located Sohrab in the grips of Assef, the two of them find that they must work together as one in order to escape their tormentor. When Amir comes to take Sohrab from Assef, he needs to fight him first, “Of course, [...] I didn’t say you could take him for free. [...] You have to earn him” (Hosseini 263). Assef tells the guards that only one of them, Assef or Amir, is going to walk out the door, and if that is Amir, they would let him pass (263). It was Amir that walked out that door, but he was beaten almost to death. The only thing that stands between Amir and death is Sohrab. Sohrab saves Amir from Assef by using his slingshot, hitting Assef in his eye with a brass ball. The brass ball gets stuck in Assef’s eye which allows Amir and Sohrab to escape him. Sohrab saves Amir from Assef just the way Hassan used to save Amir from him in the past, with the slingshot. Reflecting upon the situation, Amir finally feels at peace (265). Despite having a broken body Amir “felt healed [...] at last”

(266). In the end, it can be argued that neither one of the two could escape Assef without help from the other. Which, in turn, when understanding the characters as a reflection of the Afghan war, can be interpreted as neither one of the Pashtuns or the Hazaras can escape the violence of the Taliban without the other. Understanding Amir as an extension of the Afghan internal conflicts, it would suggest that there is a need for unification and reconciliation between the historical enemies. Furthermore, as Fredric Jameson (2019) writes in his book Allegory and

(9)

Ideology, about “the problem of the collective needs” (198), “the collective cannot be formed, that a collective cannot achieve the living cohesion of a group however large or small, without an external enemy, an external threat” (198). The only way for Afghanistan to become whole then, would be for all its citizens to look beyond social class, ethnicity, and history and for them to fight their common enemies.

In the Kite Runner, Amir narrates the story in a way that helps him deal with the past and atone for what he did wrong. It enables him to process the way in which his actions affected other characters' lives as well as his own. Amir’s way of narrating the story helps him make sense of the past (Nayebpour 54) and it is also a way for him to portray the other characters so that they fit in with the memories he has. For as long as Amir can remember he has been deprived of his father’s love. Somehow, he feels that it is Hassan who gets Baba’s attention and who always seems to be the one who does the right things. This is communicated clearly throughout the novel in the way that Baba talks more about Hassan and concerns himself with Hassan’s wellbeing more than he does Amir’s. It is not until Amir receives a letter from Rahim Khan at the end of the novel that Amir learns that Baba was “torn between two halves”

(Hosseini 276), Amir and Hassan; his two sons. In fact, Amir learns through this letter that Hassan is Baba’s illegitimate son whom he could not openly love and the frustration that this created within Baba, he took out on Amir, the one in which Baba saw himself, and his guilt (277). One should however keep in mind that this letter also functions as a tool that almost justifies Amir’s emotions with regards to the injustice in the distribution of Baba’s affection;

Baba did indeed prioritize Hassan and Rahim Khan confirms this. In that way, Amir’s guilt becomes lighter when his feelings are legitimized. When Ali and Hassan leave, Amir realizes that Hassan already told Ali everything about the rape and how Amir stood by and did nothing (99). Amir feels relieved that someone finally knows who he really is and glad that he does not have to pretend anymore (99). When they leave however, Baba does something that Amir has never seen before - he cries, and with pain and fear in his voice, Baba begs Ali and his son to stay (100). When Baba drove Ali and Hassan to the bus station Amir recognized that “the life I had known since I’d been born was over. [...] I was sorry, but I didn’t cry [...]” (101). Amir was sorry for losing his friend, but relieved over the fact that he did not have to see Hassan every day and be reminded of his guilt. He was hoping that Hassan being gone would lead to a better relationship between himself and his father. After all, he is just a boy longing for his father’s love. Even if he knows that some of the things he is doing are morally wrong, he cannot help himself because to him, love is greater than loyalty.

(10)

Already as a boy, Amir escapes his father’s aloofness by reading his dead mother’s books (Hosseini 19) and in school he wins over the whole class in a game that is called “Battle of the Poems” (18). Despite Amir’s skills in poetry, Baba pays no attention to his son’s achievement, which makes Amir bury himself in his books even more. Reflecting on his father’s opinions about what he envisioned his son to be, he states that Baba believed “real men didn’t read poetry - and God forbid they should ever write it!” (19). The disappointment that Baba feels over the fact that his son did not turn out the way he hoped for does not escape Amir.

Despite his effort to satisfy Baba’s wishes for him to play soccer, or any other sport, Amir always fails to please his father. Amir takes no real interest in sports. Instead, Amir spends his allowance on books (19) and reads the stories to Hassan while they sit under the pomegranate tree (26). It was under that pomegranate tree that he for the first time made up his own story, pretending to read to Hassan from the book. Hassan overwhelms him with compliments saying that it was “the best story you’ve read me in a long time” (28). The same night, thrilled over the fact that Hassan loves his story, he writes his first short story. Enthusiastically he brings it to Baba to read, but Baba does not make any effort to do so (30). It is Baba’s business partner, Rahim Khan, who reads it and afterwards hands Amir a letter in which he writes that “God has granted you a special talent. It is now your duty to hone that talent because, a person who wastes his God-given talent is a donkey” (31). Amir does not waste his talent. After graduating from high school in the United States, Amir defies Baba’s wish for him to study medicine or law in college, and says that he will study English, and more specifically, creative writing (124). He decides that he does not want to sacrifice himself for Baba anymore, as the last time he attempted to satisfy his father by winning the kite tournament he damaged himself (125), betrayed his best friend and his life became filled with guilt. Instead, Amir reflects:

Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were burned and schools destroyed, long before mines were planted like seeds of death and children buried in rock-piled graves, Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me. A city of harelipped ghosts. America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins. If for nothing else, for that, I embraced America” (126).

In the United States, Amir can finally pursue his dream of becoming a writer and bury the memories that he carries with him from Afghanistan, most significantly his sins; the memories

(11)

of Hassan, and what he had done to him. By telling this story about his life and ultimately sharing it with the world, Amir can finally feel released from his memories and guilt.

Hassan -The Good

Throughout the novel Hassan is portrayed as a flat character having characteristics that are opposite to Amir’s. The name Hassan means good or doer of good (Almaany) and he is described by Amir as a person who is “incapable of hurting anyone” (Hosseini 10).

Furthermore, despite being subject to humiliation, injustice, and racism, Hassan remains complacent, good-natured, and meek. Hassan is introduced as the son of Ali who is Baba’s servant and thus, Hassan is a servant in the household as well. In the novel, he plays the role as Amir’s servant, friend, and later brother. Hassan and Amir do almost everything together that does not include household work, but because Hassan is a Hazara he is not allowed to go to school or participate in activities that are reserved exclusively for the Pashtuns. In other words, Hassan is inferior to Amir but trusts him, nonetheless. There is nothing that Hassan will not do for his best friend (and master) Amir. Even when Hassan is dead, he is doing good things for Amir as it can be argued that it is Hassan’s death that enables Amir to reconcile with his past, his guilt, by saving Hassan’s son Sohrab from their nemesis Assef. In the next part of the essay, I will highlight the way in which Hassan is portrayed as good, kind, and generous and how he, time and again, sacrifices himself for Amir. I will also show how Hassan, who belongs to the ethnic group of Hazaras mirrors his people in the political climate of Afghanistan.

Belonging to the ethnic group of Hazaras, Hassan is brought up to serve the superior Pashtuns, and he does so without ever questioning his role in life. In fact, he likes where he lives (Hosseini 55) even if it is in a “mud shack” (54). This contentment is further portrayed in the first confrontation with Assef where Hassan points his slingshot at Assef. Although Hassan does that and threatens to take out Assef’s eye, he refers to Assef as “Agha” (39), which translates to ‘master’ (Oxford English Dictionary). In that sense, although Hassan is courageous enough to defend himself and Amir, he does acknowledge Assef’s social position in relation to his own. Despite this small act of rebellion, Hassan is not challenging his own position as a Hazara in Afghanistan. It could even be understood as he is in fact defending his best friend and master, Amir and that way maintaining the social structures. Additionally, the slingshot may very well be a symbol for the underdog, the one who does not have the proper weapons to

(12)

confront their enemy. Moreover, Hassan never actually fires the slingshot. It is a threat that he perhaps is not brave enough to act on.

This lack of action on Hassan’s part is not an isolated incident. Instead, it is a continuous source of frustration for Amir. For the first time after the rape, Amir asks Hassan to follow him to the pomegranate tree on the hill behind the house so he can read him one of his stories, just like he used to do before the rape. When he is about to start reading, Amir puts down his story and picks up a pomegranate and throws it at his friend. He tries to provoke Hassan so that he will hit him back, but no matter how many pomegranates Amir throws, Hassan just stands there, pale and confused without hitting Amir back. Then Hassan picks up a pomegranate, opens it and crushes it against his forehead and says “There, [...] Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?”

(Hosseini 87). This does not make Amir feel better at all. Full of guilt for not intervening in the rape, he needs Hassan to hit him back to release him from his bad conscience through either having a proper argument about it, or arguing about something irrelevant so that they could terminate their friendship. Amir craves that Hassan will do something so that he can “finally sleep at night” (86) Not having Hassan around him all the time would make it easier for Amir to forget the incident ever happened. Instead Hassan continues to be around him and continues to be so good and innocent which only makes Amir feel worse. The frustration that Amir feels after this eventually leads the plot to the event where Amir and Hassan go separate ways, forever. Hassan and his father Ali leave the household for good after Amir planted some of his birthday presents under Hassan’s mattress, accusing him of stealing them (97). Hassan knows that Amir planted the presents in his room, but he does not reveal this to Baba. Amir reflects:

“this was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me” (98). Even in his departure, Hassan finds a way to protect and serve Amir by not confronting and revealing Amir in front of Baba. That way Hassan ensures that Amir is not put on the spot or humiliated in any way.

Throughout the novel, Hassan acts the way that is expected of him as a Hazara. He knows that the Pashtuns are considered superior to him, so he treats them accordingly, but he does not hesitate to go against them if it is necessary. This, however, is something that he only does while protecting what he considers his family, especially Amir, his friend and master.

When Hassan himself ends up in trouble with someone superior he becomes submissive:

“Hassan didn’t struggle. Didn’t even whimper” (Hosseini 71). In a way, he is doing everything he can to be a good servant and friend to Amir - sacrificing himself, being good and kind, so that Amir can have his kite. The way Hassan is portrayed, as a loyal and good servant (83), mirrors the Hazaras’ role in the Afghan society, as underdogs with no prospects of being

(13)

anything else than servants to the Pashtuns. However, Hassan is not being good to Amir just because Amir is a Pashtun and he is a Hazara. Hassan sees them as a family, as one. Although different, they do share many things; their religion, Afghanistan, their country, and foremost, they share their childhood memories.

Ten years after Hassan and Ali left Baba’s house, Baba’s business partner Rahim Khan goes to Hazarajat to look for Hassan. Rahim Khan had promised Baba to take care of the house while Baba and Amir were absent (Hosseini 189), but the older Rahim Khan gets, the harder he finds it to be able to take care of everything. Furthermore, he felt lonely since everyone he knew in Kabul had been killed or had fled the country (188). He finds Hassan and his pregnant wife in their home, which was a small hut, and asks him to come with him to Kabul, to Baba’s old house and that he would pay him well (191). Hassan replies that they had “made a life for themselves there” (191) and that they want to stay. Hassan asks a lot of questions about Amir, wanting to know everything about what happened to him after they separated, and when he later learns that Baba had died, he cries the rest of the night. In the following morning, Hassan explains to Rahim Khan that they will go with him and that they will help him to “take care of the house'' (192). He further states that “[...]Agha sahib [Baba] was like my second father ” (192) which indicates that he is helping Rahim Khan with the house because he considers him, Baba, and Amir his family, not because of the fact that they possess a higher social status.

However, he refuses to move into the big house with Rahim Khan. Instead he and his wife move into the same hut where he was born. In that same hut, Hassan's wife later gives birth to their son Sohrab (195). Hassan helps Rahim Khan with the house and the garden because he wants it to look good the day that Amir returns (193), but at this time, Hassan is unaware of the fact that Baba was his father and that he and Amir are brothers. Sadly, Hassan and his wife die, executed by the Taliban outside the house when Hassan tries to protect it from the Taliban (202 203), before he has the chance to find out. When Amir meets Rahim Khan in Pakistan, Rahim hands over a letter to Amir, written by Hassan, and together with the letter is a polaroid photo of Hassan and Sohrab. Amir recognizes Hassan at once and reflects that there was something about the way Hassan was looking, how he stands, and most importantly how he smiles that makes Amir think that this was a man who thought “the world had been good to him” (199).

Despite Amir’s reflection on Hassan, Hassan fears that the Taliban will change the future of the Hazaras as he says to Rahim Khan that “God help the Hazaras now [...]” (197) after hearing about how the Taliban had rolled into Kabul. In Hassan’s perspective, life might have been

(14)

good to him, but the Taliban was going to end that, not only for him but for his family, and for the Afghan people.

Assef- The Bad

Every story needs its ‘bad’ guy, and in this novel the ‘bad’ guy is represented by Assef. He is portrayed as a bad and evil character by Amir and hence, he becomes a rather flat character.

Assef means forgiveness (Hamariweb) and although Assef takes on the character of Amir and Hassan’s enemy, he becomes the means by which Amir finally redeems and forgives himself in the novel. However, Assef’s forgiveness always has a price. In the beginning of the novel, Assef is portrayed as a young adolescent who puts fear in the neighbourhood kids with his

“stainless-steel brass knuckles” (Hosseini 35). Whatever Assef says, can be considered law and if someone does not follow the law, he and his “obeying friends” (36) will be happy to give you a lesson with those brass knuckles (36). In addition to being a mean person, Assef is Pashtun and hence enjoys a high social position of power. This power is further solidified through his actions of terrorizing the neighbourhood. Assef explicitly expresses that “Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It has always been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans [...]” (Hosseini 38). This shows that Assef already as an adolescent believes that Afghanistan belongs to the Pashtuns alone, leaving no room for the minority tribes, like the Hazaras. The older Assef gets, the more passionate he becomes dealing with the cleansing of what he calls

“the garbage” (261), the Hazaras. He brags about how he participated in the massacre at Mazar- i-Sharif (261) where the Taliban killed 2500-3000 Hazaras in 1998 (Jefferess 391). He is so passionate in this “ethnic cleansing” (Hosseini 261) of Afghanistan that he eventually becomes an exalted member of the Taliban. In this last part of the essay, I will show how Assef uses his social status to legitimize his obsession to clean Afghanistan from the minority tribes, especially the Hazaras, and how he uses forgiveness as a tool to get what he wants. Furthermore, I will show how Assef becomes a character who possibly unites the other characters and thus the Pashtuns and the Hazaras to defeat a common enemy.

By the late 1990s, the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni Islamist organization which had emerged as a faction from the mujahideen during the Afghan-Soviet war had essentially taken over most of Afghanistan (Goodson 104). The destruction of Afghanistan both pre- and post- Taliban makes itself present in the novel. Amir describes a society where the people of

(15)

Afghanistan live under constant threat of bombings, gunfire, and explosions for years. Amir explains that the Afghans were “tired of watching Gulbuddin [...] and his cohorts firing on anything that moved. The Alliance did more damage to Kabul than the Shorawi [Farsi term for the Soviets]” (Hosseini 185). When the Taliban took over power and kicked the Alliance out, the Afghan people saw them as heroes and danced in the streets (184). They hoped for “peace at last” (185). However, the people of Afghanistan soon realized that the threat they had lived under was going to be replaced by another, more oppressive power, the Taliban.

During Assef’s first confrontation with Amir and Hassan, he states that Amir and his father are a “disgrace to Afghanistan” (Hosseini 39) for taking in the Hazaras. If not for people like them, Afghanistan would be “rid of them by now” (39). This statement further intensifies the situation and it becomes more hostile since Assef and his two partners in crime are initially looking for a fight. Prevenient as he is, Hassan takes up his slingshot loaded with a rock, and aims it directly towards Assef’s face (39). Hassan is scared, but still unwilling to let Assef start a fight with them so he says”[...] If you make a move, they’ll have to change your nickname from Assef ‘the Ear Eater’ to ‘One-Eyed Assef ‘ [...]” (39-40). Assef is humiliated, and worse, he is humiliated by a Hazara. Assef lowers his raised fist and tells Hassan that there is something that he should know about him “I’m a very patient person. This doesn’t end today, believe me”

(40). It did not end that day either. In the alley, on the day of the kite tournament, Assef forgives Hassan for the incident with the slingshot (68), but the price Hassan has to pay for forgiveness is high. He turns up losing his friend and brother Amir, as well as his prospects of a ‘good life’.

Assef’s higher social position is further solidified on the day of the kite tournament.

Amir and Hassan share a kite although Hassan was the kite runner and Amir the kite flyer.

When their kite was the final one flying in the sky, they initiated the completion of the tournament by running down and getting hold of the last kite - the ultimate trophy. Hassan takes off to pick up the last kite that Amir cut and meets Assef and his two sidekicks, Wali and Kamal in a dark alleyway. To get revenge for the slingshot threat from earlier, Assef decides to humiliate Hassan in the ultimate way. Despite his participation in the act, Wali’s excuse for not raping Hassan is that his father says, “it’s sinful” (70).

Hassan lay with his chest pinned to the ground. Kamal and Wali each gripped an arm, twisted and bent at the elbow so that Hassan’s hands were pressed to his back. Assef was standing over them, the heel of his snow boots crushing the back of Hassan’s neck.

(16)

[...] He [Assef] turned to Kamal. “What about you?” “I…well…” [Kamal said] “It’s just a Hazara,” Assef said. But Kamal kept looking away (Hosseini 71).

Assef’s comments suggest that Hassan’s ethnic identity is what Assef uses to dehumanize him.

Assef and Hassan are from two different social groups where the ruling class in this case are the Pasthuns to which Assef belongs. Assef essentially owns Hassan and is free to do with him what he wishes, as Hassan is not regarded as a human in that way. Assef uses Hassan in a brutal and reckless way, treating him as if he were a thing, an animal. His actions, raping Hassan, can, according to Khan & Qureshi, be interpreted as racism by “the elites or dominant groups” (155) by “dominating, dehumanizing […] weaker social groups” (155). Jim Wafer further describes that

the reason Arab cultures have so much difficulty dealing with sex between males is that a man’s masculinity is compromised by taking the passive role in sexual relations; and for an Arab male to have his masculinity doubted is a supreme affront. The opposite side of this coin is that the image of the active partner is coloured by the role of homosexual assault in traditional societies with frozen codes of honour. Because some Muslim males penetrate other males less for sexual gratification than to humiliate perceived opponents, the active role in homosexual relations is widely associated with brutal aggression (Wafer 91).

This brutal aggression Assef demonstrates while assaulting Hassan is something that grows stronger the older he gets. When Amir, as an adult, comes to search for Hassan’s son Sohrab and finds him in Assef’s grip, it is evident that Assef is perpetrating his social power to keep Sohrab as a prisoner. However, Sohrab is key to Amir and Sohrab’s escape from Assef when Sohrab manages to hit Assef in the eye with his slingshot "OUT! GET IT OUT!" he screamed.

[…] "I took a final look over my shoulder. The guards were huddled over Assef, doing something to his face. Then I understood: The brass ball was still stuck in his empty eye socket"

(Hosseini 267). Assef finally becomes ‘One-Eyed Assef’ just like Hassan once said. An interesting observation can be made in connection to the one-eyedness of Assef. In the Hadiths one can read about the coming of an antichrist, “Al-Masih ad-Dajjal”, who will be easy to spot by his swollen, hurt eye, which will protrude like a grape (Sahih al-Bukhari 7407). Therefore, drawing on religious stories, Assef is made out to be a representation of the antichrist, the devil.

Once they escape Assef, Sohrab tells Amir that he misses his family but that he is glad that they cannot see him because he feels “so dirty and full of sin. [...] Those men - [...] - they did

(17)

things...the bad man and the other two...they did things...did things to me” (Hosseini 293). In other words, the humiliation and dehumanization that Sohrab experiences in the hands of Assef shames him to the point that he wants to keep himself hidden from those who know him best.

Furthermore, the broken and inhumane relationship between the Hazaras and Pashtuns can be seen in how Assef talks of Sohrab in the same manner he used to refer to Hassan: “Hazara boy”

(257). The seriousness of this slur is enhanced by the fact that Assef brags about the ethnic cleansing of the Hazaras he participated in the massacre in Mazar (261).

After centuries of little foreign intrusion and through heavy internal conflict, “the Pashtun tribes finally emerged as the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan” (Goodson 29).

They created national borders which increasingly excluded the minority tribes from power (29).

These elements of ethnic nationalism and ethnic exclusionism (Khan 161) are represented through the character of Assef, who is a Pashtun. He approaches Hassan and Amir, directing his comments to Hassan and states that

We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.” […] “Afghanistan for Pashtuns, I say.

That’s my vision.” […] “Too late for Hitler,” […] “But not for us.” […] “I’ll ask the president to do what the king didn’t have the quwat to do. To rid Afghanistan of all the dirty, kasseef Hazaras. (Hosseini 38)

Assef is portrayed as a rather flat character due to his lack of evolving. Despite this, I will argue that without him there would not be a story at all. In that sense, Assef fills the function of the antagonist and becomes the source of the need for Amir to redeem his guilt and make good to Hassan. In that way, Assef fills an important role in the novel and moves it forward by continuing to be the villain. Indirectly, Assef becomes the reason for Amir to evolve as a character. Additionally, bringing Amir and Sohrab together can be understood as an encouragement for reconciliation between the Hazaras and the Pashtuns perhaps suggesting that the Pashtuns must stop seeing the Hazaras as less than, and start seeing them as equals.

Furthermore, referring back to what Fredric Jameson (2019) writes about the collective needs (198), Rahim Khan’s suggestion for Amir to “do good” is understood as an attempt to consolidate between Amir and Sohrab (and Hassan by extension) but to extend it even further following the line of thought expressed by Jameson about the collective and interpreting Amir and Hassan as extensions of the civil war, the Pashtuns and the Hazaras.

(18)

Conclusion

To conclude, in this essay I have interpreted The Kite Runner through a character analysis based on the names Hosseini chose for three central characters and that these names correlate to the portrayal of the characters, their personalities and how they mirror the actors in the Afghani civil war. I chose to look at Amir, Hassan, and Assef as they are central to the event that sparks Amir's storytelling. My analysis has argued that the storytelling is fuelled by Amir’s need for atonement and emotional healing. Amir literally translates to “governor” (Oxford English Dictionary) and I have in this essay presented a few ways in which Amir’s character is portrayed as governing. Amir is the narrator and thus the governor of the story, he governs the fates of the other characters as well as his own. One of the characters that Amir governs perhaps more than any other is Hassan, his servant friend and at first unbeknownst to him, biological half- brother. Hassan is portrayed as a flat character with really only one main characteristic, he is good which is also the meaning of his name (Almaany). Despite continuously being mistreated and betrayed he still stands up for, protects, and loves Amir. Through his son, Hassan ultimately becomes the salvation for Amir and an opportunity to atone for his previous wrongdoings. One of the worst sins Amir has committed according to himself (98) was not intervening when Hassan was raped by Assef, the antagonist and a character that Amir portrays as evil and violent.

Despite Assef’s role as the villain, Assef does enable Amir to forgive himself and forgiveness is also the meaning of the name Assef (Hamariweb). Assef evolves from racist and violent Pashtun to a fully feathered Taliban which as suggested in the introduction, shows that a character’s role in the novel is multi-layered. Looking at the novel through this lens, Amir can be understood as an extension and representation of the Afghan internal ethnic conflicts from a Pashtun perspective, while Hassan represents the Hazaras and Assef the Taliban. By conducting a character analysis of three of the characters in the novel; Amir, Hassan, and Assef, I have shown that their names carry significant meaning to the plot, their characterisation, and their relationships. Furthermore, I have shown that these characters mirror the parties in the political landscape of Afghanistan.

(19)

Works cited

Primary:

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Bloomsbury. 2013 Secondary:

Almaany. Hassan(نسح). https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en/%D8%AD%D8%B3%D9%86/

Accessed 27 May 2020.

Dormandy, Xenia. “Afghanistan’s Proxy War.” 6 Feb. 2007, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/afghanistans- proxy-war Accessed 26 May 2020

Goodson, Larry P. Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban. University of Washington Press, 2001.

Hamariweb. Asif.https://hamariweb.com/names/muslim/arabic/boy/asif-meaning_2350 Accessed 17 August 2020.

Hayes, Judi S. In Search of The Kite Runner. Chalice Press, 2006 Jameson, Fredric. Allegory and Ideology. Verso, 2019.

Jefferess, David. To be good (again): The Kite Runner as allegory of global ethics. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 45:4, 389-400, 2009. DOI: 10.1080/17449850903273572

Khan, Rab Nawaz, and Qureshi, Abdul Waheed. “A Study of Ethnicism in Afghanistan in Light of The Kite Runner”. The Dialogue. Vol. 14, Issue 4, 2019. pp. 154-163.

Nayebpour, Karam. “The Uses of Storytelling in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner”.

Hacettepe University Journal of Faculty of Letters. Vol. 35, Number 1, June 2018. pp. 52-60. doi:10.32600/huefd.434221.

(20)

Oxford English Dictionary. Aga. https://www-oed-com.bibproxy.kau.se/view/Entry/3731 Accessed 25 May 2020.

Oxford English Dictionary. Amir. https://www-oed-

com.bibproxy.kau.se/view/Entry/61191?redirectedFrom=amir#eid Accessed 27 May 2020.

Peck, John, Martin Coyle. Literary Terms and Criticism. Palgrave, 2002

Sahih al-Bukhari. Sahih Muslim. Trans. Sunnah.com. Book 97, Hadith 36, Vol. 9, Book 93, Hadith 504. https://sunnah.com/bukhari/97/36 Accessed 27 May 2020

Sims, Tony. “GeekDad Interview: Khaled Hosseini, Author of The Kite Runner.” Wired, 30 Sep. 2011, https://www.wired.com/2011/09/geekdad-interview-khaled-hosseini- author-of-the-kite-runner Accessed 26 May 2020

Wafer, Jim. “Muhammad and Male Homosexuality” In Islamic Homosexualities. Culture, History, and Literature. Edited by Murray, Stephen O. and Roscoe, Will. New York University Press, 1997, 87-96.

Wyatt, Edward. “Wrenching Tale by an Afghan Immigrant Strikes.” The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/books/wrenching-tale-by-an- afghan-immigrant-strikes-a-chord.html Accessed 25 May 2020

The Good, The Bad, The Guilty