The Kite Runner Essay

[Matt The Rat]

If anyone'd care to have a read, and maybe a grade, it'd be much appreciated. Cheers

‘The Kite Runner shows that cultural values have the power to overcome the values held by the individual.’ Discuss.

Khaled Hosseini’s bildungsroman tale ‘The Kite Runner’ evidently shows the overwhelming powers which cultural values may have, and their strength to overcome the individual values held by a person. With the fictional memoir centred on Amir’s “past of unatoned sins”, ‘The Kite Runner’ demonstrates how cultural views may sway the true nature of an individual’s values. From recounting Hassan’s horrific rape and Amir’s ensuing guilt to the subsequent exile of Hassan and Ali, the vast influence of cultural values clearly shows its preferential social status to that of an individual’s values. The key patriarchal figure of the story, Baba, also illustrates how cultural values are often overwhelming in comparison to individual morals. Overall, the novel demonstrates how through its tumultuous time Afghanistan had succumbed to the evil status where cultural values overrode the importance of an individual’s beliefs.

The protagonist characters of Amir and Hassan, brothers with whom “a kinship exists that not even time could break”, allow the overall whelming power of cultural values over individual values to be seen. The defining event of ‘The Kite Runner’, Hassan’s merciless rape by Assef, gives rise to sequential scenarios in which the true power of cultural Afghan values surpasses that of an individual. The subservient attitude of those to their elders, “maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba”, clearly illustrates the damaging power of cultural values surpassing that of an individual’s. Amir’s relentless search for gratification from Baba leads him to sacrifice his childhood friend and in doing so destroy a part of his childhood. Springing forth from this conflict arises the self-imposed banishment of Ali and Hassan from Baba’s household. By adhering to the social standards of the time, both Ali and Hassan kept their servant status and protected the truth surrounding Amir’s guilt. In a society where a person’s “nang and namoos” defined them, both were able to once again allow their masters to supersede them. Just as Ali had done for all the years regarding Baba’s infidelity, Hassan also buried the truth and saved his friend. “He knew I betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time”. The childhood characters of Amir and Hassan both clearly illustrate the dominating power of cultural values over that of an individual.

The true father to both Amir and Hassan, Baba, also clearly illustrates the overwhelming drive of cultural values over personal morals. Baba, “a towering Pashtun specimen”, was known for his great philanthropic ways around the “not just the Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood, but all of Kabul” yet truly he hid away the darkest of secrets. Having been “tempted in seduction” by Sanubar and consequently fathering Hassan, Baba was forced to live the remainder of his life with a façade covering who he truly was. Despite having clearly told Amir to “piss on the beards of the self-righteous monkeys [mullahs]”, a grand defiance of Islam in a nation defined by Shari’ a law, and almost sacrificing his life to stop the rape of a travelling woman, Baba was not able to defy the highest of social standards and hence allowed the cultural values to power over his own. His altruistic actions were a mere smokescreen to hide his true motives regarding his deep lying guilt. The actions of Baba clearly show the defiant power of cultural values over that of an individual.

The actions of many characters in  ‘The Kite Runner’ personify the state of affairs present in Afghanistan throughout that era. Following the “bloodless coup”, which overthrew the King Zahir Shah monarchy, Afghanistan undertook revolutionary changes which would forever alter the path of the nation. Individuals and individuality became lost in a sea of turbulent and radical extremes which resulted in blind obedience and silenced opposition to the emerging Taliban regime. The ‘Hazara massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif” where “bullets let fly, free of guilt and remorse… knowing you are doing God’s work” showed the power the dictatorial Taliban establishment had developed, and by doing so crushed the values of individual citizens. Complete observance and adherence to Shari’a law, with the Taliban being its violent, non-flinching enforcer, stripped bare the rights and freedoms previously held under the monarch. Afghanistan evolved from a country which tolerated “drinking was fairly common in Kabul”, yet defiant of Islamic laws, to a dictatorship ruled in fear by “a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist; sociopath”. The violent oppression, which coupled the cultural values of the ruling power, clearly displaced the freedom of individually held values and notions. Clear parallels also exist between the “blond, blue eyed” Assef and the tyrannical Nazi dictator Hitler. Being a clear mimic of Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’, Assef shows how oppression of the Afghan people mirrors that wrought by the fascist leader of world war two. Both led parties in which cultural and social doctrine overran that of an individual. The ‘The Kite Runner’'s description of Afghanistan clearly portrays that of a nation which has fallen to the evils where social values overpower that of an individual.

Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’ shows, through a multitude of avenues, examples of how cultural values have the power to overcome those of an individual. The major protagonists of the story; Baba, Amir and Hassan, all illustrate the relative effects of the dictating cultural values and how they acted to blur their individual values. Through his use of characters, Hosseini also showed how Afghanistan had fallen into the pitfalls of such a nation in which cultural values blindly ruled over an individual’s.