The Kite Runner: The Portrait Of Amir

 The kite runner is a novel written by the Afghan author Khaled Husseini. Husseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan on 4th March 1965. He is an afghan novelist and physician. The novel is about Amir being a young immigrant who settles in the USA. A friend of his father, Rahim Khan calls him and reminds him that “there is a way to be good again” by recusing his nephew, Sohrab. From then on many thoughts come up in his mind about his past.

Amir was born in Afghanistan into a Pashtun ethnic group. He grew up in a splendid area of the capital of Afghanistan. His father was a famous and respected man in the city, but Amir worked hard to live up to his father’s guidelines and always craved his affection and attention. Ali and his son Hassan (the most loyal friend of Amir), were both faithful servants of the father and Amir but were of the minority Hazara ethnic group who weren’t highly respected in the country. Hassan was a boy who constantly protected Amir, in any situation. But when he got assaulted, Amir was there, but he could do anything for him because he was scared to rescue him, and from then on, he has been plagued by guilt and never had the same smile on his face.

In the book, Amir realizes that he is a coward. He says, ‘I had one last opportunity to stick up for Hassan, the way he had stuck up for me all those times in the past and accept whatever happened to me. Or I could run. In the end, Amir determines to be a coward and not hold up for Hassan because he is frightened of what Assef does to him if he interrupts. Furthermore, Amir didn’t still understand that this would be his turning position in his life.

The thesis statement that will be analyzed in this essay is about the protagonist’s behavior in the context of the political events that occur in Afghanistan and shape the lives of the character.

Politics has a major impact on the story of this book because Amir’s father had a good job with a high position in the government and that was the reason why Amir was privileged for having a better life than Hassan. Amir’s father had a status in his neighborhood community. But everything changed when the Soviet Union invaded the country. Amir’s father was against the Soviet invasion and hated communists. The invasion shape Amir’s differently. Amir states, ‘Because suddenly Afghanistan changed forever. Amir hears shots and implies pieces of the following events by hinting that everything is moving to change permanently. As this is a recap, he knows, in hindsight, that this was one of the particular events that Afghanistan was the way he remembers it to be when he was a kid.

Amir together with his father left his beloved country and left his past life behind and immigrated to another country. On their way to Pakistan Amir and his father experienced a bad situation. For instance, it was the first time they sat in the oil tracker because they had to hide from the border police officer. After Pakistan, they immigrated to the USA. Amir’s father chooses the US because he was against communists and so was the country. I think when Amir immigrated to America, he started to have a different life compare to what he had in his home country because the two countries have different cultures, languages, political views etcetera. Everything was new for him and he started to live a new life. This political event changed everything in Amir and his father’s life.

Amir’s father’s political view and the soviet invasion changed everything. Amir’s behavior changed as he experienced new things in the new country. He lived in a traditional society and then moved to develop the place. If his father was not against the Soviet invasion, he could still have a good job in his country and Amir could probably live the same life.

This event changed everything in this novel. From the beginning, we see the civil state of Kabul throughout the majesty, the starting of the self-government, and later see as the Communist attack and infighting among competing Afghan societies destroy the nation. Those incidents have a deal in commanding the novel’s plot and have meaningful influences on the experiences of the characters.