Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Who was Amir in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini most like in A Thousand Splendid Suns? Tariq or Rasheed?

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, a Pashtun boy living in Kabul who loves to kite fight with Hassan, the Hazara son of Amir's father's servant. After an older bully by the name of Assef attempts to attack Amir, Hassan intervenes on Amir's behalf. Assef vows to get revenge, and he does--by beating and raping Hassan in an alleyway after one of the kite fights. Amir witnesses this event and yet does nothing to stop it. To alleviate the guilt he feels when he sees Hassan, Amir sets Hassan up to make it look like Hassan has stolen from Amir's father. 
Thus, I would argue that Amir is more like Rasheed from A Thousand Splendid Suns than Tariq. In this novel, Rasheed is a complicated figure who possesses both great love for his son and expresses great cruelty toward the women in his life. Like Amir, Rasheed commits a terrible act of deception; he sets up Laila (his future wife) by hiring a man to falsely inform her of her true love's death--a manipulative gesture which leads to their marriage. Amir does not possess the simplicity or purity of Tariq, who largely appears as a romantic figure. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?

In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...