In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The following sample essay on In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, social class is united with ethnicity, wealth, power, and gender. Everyone in Afghanistan was being treated differently in some type of way and Amir saw this in his early childhood when he witnessed Hassan being raped. The main characters were separated by their ethnicity and religious background. Hassan was made fun because of his characteristics. Assef stated to Amir, “We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this flat-nose here” (Hosseini 2).

Baba was almost shot because he stuck up for a woman who was about to be sexually assaulted by one of the Russian soldiers. The upperclassmen, such as Baba and Amir, were seen as intelligent characters, being able to read and write and more likely to be successful in life. The lower class, such as Ali and Hassan were seen as poor characters because they lived in a small hut. All these examples of different social classes show the readers that there is a separation line between Amir and his people.

The most visible injustice is when Hassan was raped and tortured because he was a Hazara. When Amir saw Hassan being raped in an alley, he looked at him and said “he’s just a Hazara” and it showed that Amir didn’t care what happened to him. At the moment, Amir didn’t believe what he was seeing because he was so young but he later realizes that social class was a divisive system. If you were a Hazara, you were treated like a slave no matter what kind of person you were.

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Hassan was raped because of his ethnicity and he will have to live with this horrible memory forever. Amir constantly thought about the guilt of incidents that happened when he witnessed and he later tries to redeem himself by rescuing Sohrab from the orphanage when Hassan passed away. Even though he was successful towards the end, he always had this thought and guilt soared whenever he saw Hassan.

The existance of racial discrimination is all over and this problem still exists today. Racial discrimination is harmful because it teaches people to judge others based on group standards. This is also bad for society because it could cause genocides or slavery. Pashtuns and Hazaras are two different races in Afghanistan and this novel shows how it is cruel and immoral to humans and society. Afghan society is prudent because there is a race order, if you were a Hazara you were targeted. They made Hazara’s feel like they are the weakest race in Afghanistan and tried to get rid of every single one of them. Hazaras were disrespected by Afghan’s society because they were not considered the loyal Afghans.

Discrimination is major role in the novel. Amir and Hassan were raised in the same household sharing the same wet nurse. They were raised in different social classes because of their ethnicities. Amir is a wealthy Pashtun boy and he came from a rich family. Ali and Hassan were Hazaras, unable to attend school so they never learned to read or write. Amir and Baba were upper class characters who lived in a large house, while Hassan and Ali lived in a mud hut, working as Baba’s servant. Since Hassan was a Hazara, he was often discriminated and was made fun of because of his characteristics. Amir is seen racist towards Hassan because Amir has been subjected to multiple views about Hazaras in his early childhood, so it impacted the way he thought about them.

He tries to manipulate his servant because he believes that is the only way to get his father’s attention. Even though Hassan’s life with all the prejudice people have against him, he always appears happy and does not let the taunting bother him. He realizes that he comes from the lowest social class in Afghanistan, but he always protected the ones that he cared about, especially Amir. Women are being taken advantage of and have to fight to be treated equally to males. Throughout the novel, there are a few examples of women discrimination. Young girls are forced to accept their parents wishes while boys are able to freely talk about women the way they want to. An example of this is Soraya stating,

“Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a thing. Oh men, they’re just having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly everyone is taking nang.” Gender roles are affecting all the characters in some type of way. Women are given severe punishments for their actions whereas men are expected to make these kinds of actions. Since men are doing these kinds of things, it can cause emotional abuse or psychological damage because they feel the pressure to be perfect and to let things things happen. Women being discriminated and being taken advantage of can create violence since society has made them feel this way. An example of a gender role stereotype is “Every woman needed a husband. Even if he did silence the song in her” (Hosseinin 187??). This novel demonstrates how men are superior to women and gender stereotypes. Not only should women have the same rights as men, but they should receive all the respect they deserve.

Class is another conflict between Amir and Hassan. Since Amir came from a rich and wealthy family, he was more respected and more likely to be successful in life. He was able to read and write, unlike Hassan. Since he was a Hazara he was not able to get an education, but he was known for being a successful kite runner for Amir. Amir would do anything for his father’s attention and Hassan helped this happen by telling him tips so he could be the last kite. The novel emphasizes challenges that Amir and Hassan had encountered because of the social class system. Even though there was a strong bond between these two main characters, the readers can understand that it was complicated to befriend people of other classes. There was a separation between men and women, Hazaras and Pashtuns,