Book Withour Borders

Book Without Borders

Real friendships are more than a stubborn act; they are actions that surround your soul in order to uncover the truth that you're seeking in a friend. Friendship, as understood in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. Given this centrality, important questions arise concerning the justification of friendship and, in this context, whether it is permissible to exchange it when someone new comes along, as well as concerning the possibility of reconciling the demands of friendship with the demands of morality. When the past choices made by the main character, Amir, resurfaces in the present, the path to conciliation, understanding and redemption of cultures and creeds are expressed through a series of misfortunes and new beginnings.

With all the propaganda surrounding the political issues in contemporary Afghanistan, one might expect The Kite Runner to be another example of exploitation of its present state and the cultural dynamics within it, however this is not so. It can stand on its storyline alone, and does not rely on its setting and time. The story focuses more on Amir's path to manhood and the relationships and friendships he has along the way, than the political happenings in Afghanistan. When Hosseini states, “Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.(Hosseini 1)“, he is crossing universal lines of race, gender and time frames; he is redeeming the human race through an acknowledgement of their cries. The story could have easily taken place in another country during another era with the same message of struggle and sacrifice.

In a polyethnic country, conflict is inevitable with high tensions between different groups. In The Kite Runner, Hosseini's main character/ narrator, Amir is a Pashtun and Hassan, Amir's friend, is a Hazara. The Pashtuns and Hazaras are two different ethnic groups in Afghanistan with a lot of friction between them. The Kite Runner did not really stress the reasons for their disagreements; it merely stated conflict between the two groups. Hazaras misfortune came from their distinguishable appearance as they were “Chinese-like” (Hosseini 24). Their crime was they were different, nothing more and nothing less. With that said, the story could have taken place in Germany during World War