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Jessica Richmond
Professor Gross
ENG 310EA
27 November 2007
Friendship and Equality: A Marxist Study of The Kite Runner
“But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant” (Hosseini 41). Readers of
The Kite Runner can identify this statement as a pivotal moment in the novel, affirming its class
discrimination and ethnic inequality. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, the central theme of friendship
acts as a reinforcement of the ideologies of the prevailing social order and displays the state of
struggle between classes. Throughout the novel, the main character, Amir, struggles to find a
balance between his social class and that of his servant, Hassan. While their intimacy is that
which brothers share, Amir constantly finds ways to rationalize degrading Hassan based on class
and ethnic distinctions. The friendship uncovers a freedom and oppression experienced by both
Amir and Hassan, while questioning the difference between men of different social classes and
the struggle between past practices and present ideals. It explores that which is taught and what
is experienced, with an idealistic resolution of the latter proving predominant as tolerance
prevails.
To understand the class structure in the novel, one must understand the ethnic diversity of
Afghanistan and the social order it presents. The country is divided into four distinct ethnicities:
Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek (“Hazaras” 1). The novel focuses on the differences between
two: Pashtun and Hazara. Pashtuns controlled Afghanistan since its founding in 1747 until the
1979 Soviet invasion (“Hazaras” 1). Because Pashtuns had the most control, Hazaras “have
always lived on the edge of economic survival” (“Hazaras” 1). In the late eighteenth and early
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nineteenth centuries, the Hazaras were driven to the mountains of central Afghanistan, referred
to as Hazarajat, as a result of Pashtun expansionism (“Hazaras” 1). However, some Hazaras
migrated to major towns, including Kabul, where The Kite Runner takes place. Even in major
cities, the Hazaras have always “occupied the lowest economic rungs,” as inferior to the
Pashtuns (“Hazaras” 1). The ethnic discrimination is fueled by religious and linguistic
disparities as well. Pashtuns have been prejudiced against the Hazaras because of religious
differences; the Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims, and the Hazaras are Shi’a Muslims. These factors
have contributed to the Pashtuns’ control over Afghanistan, as well as their degradation and
intolerance of the Hazaras. Today, the distinction between the two groups is still evident.
Pashtuns make up about 25 percent of the population of Afghanistan, and Hazaras make up about
5 percent (“Hazaras” 1).
Because of these inequalities, the social order of Afghanistan delegates status to
individuals based on ethnicity without any regard to individual distinction or ability. Hosseini
illustrates the society’s class system as Amir describes Hassan’s position. Amir says,
That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali and most Hazaras had been decided
the minute he had been born, perhaps even the moment he had been conceived in
Sanaubar’s unwelcoming womb-after all, what use did a servant have for the
written word? But despite his illiteracy, or maybe because of it, Hassan was
drawn to the mystery of words, seduced by a secret world forbidden to him. (28)
Like most men in Afghanistan, Hassan’s life is limited to the status that his ethnicity holds
within the society. For anyone in a society that emphasizes class based on ethnicity, there is no
possibility of transcending the system. The system of discrimination keeps the oppressed from
holding any economic status and forbids education, perpetuating itself through its youth.
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Hosseini examines these conditions of exploitation and oppression through the friendship of
Amir and Hassan.
As the novel begins, the reader encounters two boys living in Afghanistan at a time when
quality of life is dependent on the paradigms of ethnicity and religion. The distinction between
their class statuses is stated right away as Amir, the narrator, states, “I went past the rosebushes
to Baba’s mansion, Hassan to the mud shack where he had been born, where he’d lived his entire
life” (Hosseini 6). This statement is the start of the differentiation between Amir and Hassan,
and this differentiation continues throughout the novel. Amir, the son of a respected and
successful Pashtun, is born into privilege while Hassan, the Hazara servant, has little to his life
but his chores and Amir’s friendship. Amir describes the distinction between Amir and Hassan’s
social power when he reads that the Pashtuns oppressed Hazaras because Pashtuns were Sunni
Muslims, whereas Hazaras were Shi’a (Hosseini 9). This ethnic and religious oppression is
presently evident in the lives of Amir and Hassan. Amir recognizes this social structure, and
struggles with it. At times, Amir reinforces his dominance over his servant; other times, he
rejects it by considering Hassan a friend. All the while, Hassan never questions Amir, always
staying loyal and trusting of their relationship, even as Amir oppresses Hassan. In this facet,
Hassan proves to be a foil to Amir’s character, always staying loyal and decisive in his beliefs.
This characterization becomes a criticism of the oppression because the lesser of the two men is
actually the more moral of the friends.
Amir provides a base to the friendship from the start, stating, “there was a brotherhood
between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break”
(Hosseini 11). In this statement, Amir is describing the intimacy that he shares with Hassan
because the same woman nursed them both. However, the idea that time cannot break the bond
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between the two boys is filled with more meaning. Hosseini is referencing the past, with the
Pashtuns oppressing the Hazaras for years, and also the future, when Afghanistan becomes a torn
land and provides an environment of fueled hostilities between these ethnicities. This statement
about time not being able to break the bond later becomes a contradiction by Amir, as he
constantly degrades Hassan and rationalizes doing so with ideas of social predominance and
class structures.
The start of Amir’s rationalization of demeaning Hassan can be seen when Amir refers to
his father and Hassan’s father as childhood playmates, growing up together the same way he and
Hassan did. Amir says, “But in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend. The
curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not in the usual sense,
anyhow” (Hosseini 25). This statement is a description of the values passed down through
generations and the way class systems are taught and ingrained into the youth to reinforce and
protect the existing social structure. Amir easily associates his social discrimination with that of
his father, Baba, and the relationship his father had with Hassan’s father, Ali. This relationship
provides a direct parallel to the relationship Amir experiences with Hassan. Although Ali and
Baba grew up together and have been lifelong friends, a social idea of power embedded in
Baba’s mind keeps him from acknowledging this, and this becomes the same struggle that Amir
faces. In complete contradiction to Amir’s statement that nothing could change the brotherhood
between him and Hassan, Amir goes on to say, “In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara,
I was a Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that” (Hosseini 25). This
struggle between friendship and dominance is the driving force behind Amir’s actions, and can
be traced back to the ideas of his father.
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Amir’s use of Hassan as a loyal friend at times and a disposable servant at others
according to convenience can be seen when Amir tells Hassan a story he has written. When
Hassan reacts in a way that encourages Amir and makes Amir feel good, Amir considers Hassan
a great audience, with little regard to his lack in education and social status. However, when
Hassan criticizes Amir’s story, Amir takes it very personally, immediately degrading Hassan and
making him out to be a foolish servant. Amir says, “A voice, cold and dark, suddenly whispered
in my ear, What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He’ll never be anything but a cook. How
dare he criticize you” (Hosseini 34). In this passage, the reader identifies the struggle that Amir
faces, with feelings of friendship and validation that quickly turn into discrimination and hate.
The characterization of the voice as cold and dark illustrates Amir’s recognition of the racist and
dark side of him that thinks this way, yet Amir still cannot fight the urge to give in to the racial
justifications of supremacy and disgust towards Hassan. Amir struggles between reality and the
oppression in his people’s past.
Amir also illustrates the desire to be dominant over others and possess riches in his story
about the man who cries. In Amir’s story, a man cries into a cup, and his tears become pearls.
The man is poor, yet happy; but in the discovery of his ability, he becomes so obsessed with
wealth that his greed overcomes him and he kills his beloved wife so that he may cry and
produce more pearls. The story exemplifies the idea of success and the desire for prosperity in
such a way that parallels Amir’s idea of success, without regard to those it may exploit and/or
injure. When Amir wins the kite-fighting tournament later in the novel, his path to the defeated
kite is filled with choices of loyalty and betrayal. Like the man in the story, Amir becomes so
blinded by the sight of success and superiority that he is willing to sacrifice anyone to get it.
Amir sacrifices Hassan in order to get the kite, the same way the man sacrifices his wife for the
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pearls. Like the culture that enforces the ideas of dominance of one class and ethnicity over
another, Amir reinforces his dominance over his Hazara servant, Hassan.
Although Amir struggles throughout the novel, the pivotal moment in which Amir
outright states that Hassan is not a friend but a servant comes as a horrifying realization to the
reader (Hosseini 41). The declaration seems like a drastic contrast to the time Amir and Hassan
have spent together and the friendship they seem to demonstrate. The statement reinforces all of
the negative displays of status Amir has shown towards Hassan and gives the reader a feeling of
dislike towards Amir for saying this about the honest and loyal Hassan. The moment occurs
when the bully Assef confronts Amir, and Hassan and threatens them with brass knuckles. Assef
tells the two boys that they are bothersome to him, because Hassan is a Hazara and Amir plays
with him; this is a concept that disgusts Assef. Assef asks Amir how he can call a Hazara a
friend, and at this point, Amir declares to himself that Hassan is not a friend, he is a servant.
Before Amir can say anything out loud, Assef says:
You’re part of the problem, Amir. If idiots like you and your father didn’t take
these people in, we’d be rid of them by now. They’d all just go rot in Hazarajat
where they belong. You’re a disgrace to Afghanistan. (Hosseini 41)
This statement enforces the ideals of social inequality and provides more rationalization for Amir
to debase Hassan. It epitomizes the idea of class structure and ethnic intolerance as uncritically
adopted concepts that are taught and carried out by the youth, which fuels Amir’s internal
struggle.
However, even after Amir declares this in his head, he still demonstrates his lack of
understanding of the social constructs. He does this by leveling the playing field between him
and Hassan and questioning the difference between them that makes them so contrasting in
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status. Amir even acknowledges sympathy for Hassan and his position, saying, “His saying that
made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he’d accepted the fact
that he’d grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had” (Hosseini 58). This is
when the reader sympathizes with Amir by identifying him as a confused and immature boy
struggling with identity in a society of class and discrimination based on ethnicity and religion.
Amir feels bad for Hassan and his condition and sees that the class system in place imposes a
certain way of life for the proletariat and takes away the possibility and quality of life that he
understands. Yet, just like with his other realizations, Amir still struggles with the contrasting
ideas of his supremacy and equality in regard to Hassan.
The climax of the novel, during which the struggle becomes the most evident, is Assef’s
rape of Hassan. The scene is set up just after Amir has won the kite-flying tournament. Hassan
runs the kite for Amir and promises to bring back the defeated kite for him. The scene takes
place in an alley where Assef corners Hassan and the kite that Amir’s kite defeated is in the
background as a symbol of a trophy and a ticket to Ali’s affection. Assef and Hassan are
between Amir and the kite. Hassan is about to sacrifice himself for the kite at the mercy of the
bully, Assef, and his accomplices. Before Assef charges, he tells Hassan that he is only a
Hazara, and Amir regards him as an object, something he can play with when he is bored and
kick when he is angry. Assef tell Hassan, “Don’t ever fool yourself and think you’re something
more” (Hosseini 72). In his reply, Hassan demonstrates his naivety and unwavering trust in
Amir by saying, “Amir agha and I are friends” (Hosseini 72). Assef then attacks Hassan, raping
him as Amir stands only yards away peeking around the corner of the alley. In these moments,
Amir must decide who he is going to be, whether he is going to stand up for his friend whom he
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regards as a brother, or whether he is going to run away and let Hassan sacrifice himself for his
master. Amir runs and says:
I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was
running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan
was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair
price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was
just a Hazara, wasn’t he? (77)
Amir cannot find the courage to stand up for Hassan the way that Hassan stood up for him. He
saw the kite as the way to Baba’s affection and Hassan as his way to the kite. While he admits
that he could not fight, the thought that Hassan was nothing more than a Hazara, the phrasing
that he should have thwarted the thought before it became conscious is a sign that Amir knew the
rationalization had no honesty and that he was wrong in his actions. Yet, he still struggles
between these rationalizations and his true beliefs.
Rahim Khan also displays the deeply engrained ethnic prejudice to which the majority of
people uncritically subscribe. During Amir’s birthday celebration, Rahim Khan tells Amir about
how when he was young he almost married a Hazara woman, the daughter of one of his
neighbor’s servants. However, when Rahim Khan’s father found out, he sent the girl and her
family to Hazarajat. Rahim Khan tells Amir “In the end, the world always wins” (99). Then
Rahim Khan goes on to say that one cannot order someone to do something one day and call
them family the next. It was impossible for Rahim Khan’s family to accept this Hazara as an
equal, and so they were all better off this way. This contributes to Amir’s ideas of position in
society, and the idea of ethnic discrimination as unending. However, for Amir, the end of the
struggle proves this to be untrue, because Amir is able to rise above this idea of inequality as
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perpetual to display tolerance and equality towards Sohrab, specifically in the sense that Sohrab
could be called his servant one day and his nephew the next.
Amir’s struggle is paralleled with his father’s again after the rape scene and Amir’s
birthday. When Amir hides his watch and some money under Hassan’s mattress, Hassan
confesses to it, once again sacrificing himself for Amir. Hassan does this as a friend, but the idea
that he is Amir’s servant and should do that for him is an underlying thought of Amir and the
reader. After Baba forgives Hassan for the act he did not commit, Ali says that he and Hassan
must leave. In doing so, Baba becomes very emotional and pleads with them not to go. He says,
“You’re the brother I never had, Ali, you know that. Please don’t do this” (Hosseini 106). This
once again sets Amir up for confusion, as he begins to see that he and Hassan know they are just
like brothers, without it being said, the same way Baba and Ali know. This contributes to Amir’s
struggle, but also provides a resolution to it, determining that no matter what has been said and
done, the two share a relationship as equals.
Another one of the most critical moments in the novel is the point at which Amir learns
Hassan is his brother. This point is a staple in the Marxist criticism, because it demonstrates how
the prevailing social order, in this case, the Pashtuns over the Hazaras, dominates the lesser and
uses them for their own wants, without regard to humanistic principles. The power is based
solely on ethnic and religious differences, and the inequality perpetuates itself by producing
disguises so that the system may continue. In this case, Baba impregnated his servant’s wife,
Sanaubar, after his wife, Amir’s mother, died. Because it was not respectable for Baba to have
sex with Sanaubar, a Hazara, and because she became pregnant, she left so that the incident
could be concealed. Baba exploited Sanaubar, impregnated her, and disposed of her. Baba then
had his Hazara servant, Ali, who was also his childhood friend and Sanaubar’s husband, care for
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his illegitimate son, Hassan. Baba reinforces this notion of ethnic inequality by doing so, and
Amir realizes this.
In this realization, Amir also says,
Like father, like son. Baba and I were more alike that I’d ever known. We had
both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us. And with that
came this realization: That Rahim Khan had summoned me here to atone not just
for my sins but for Baba’s too. (226)
Amir recognizes that although growing up, he may have acted as a friend to Hassan at times, and
at other times acted like an oppressor; however, at this moment, Amir can clearly see the myths
of their friendship that he perpetuated by acting as a superior and then as an equal inconsistently.
These forces contribute to Amir’s awareness and transformation.
This bond of blood between two men of different ethnic and religious backgrounds
completely changes Amir’s viewpoint and perhaps even resolves the struggle for him. It is at
this point that Amir looks back on his life and his relationships with Hassan and Baba, and
understands what was there all along. Now to make up for his and Baba’s actions, Amir decides
that he will rescue Sohrab, his nephew. This is his heroic way to make up for the intolerance he
subscribed to in his culture: the discrimination that he now sees as unjust and unwarranted. So
Amir decides to take the dangerous journey back to Afghanistan to confront his past and find
redemption in saving Sohrab.
Once back in Afghanistan, Amir must face Assef, who is keeping Sohrab as a slave.
Assef stands as a symbol of the discrimination and oppression by the Pashtuns. Amir defeats
Assef, and the defeat parallels Amir’s internal defeat over the discriminatory thinking that caused
him to act the way he did towards Hassan. Amir even goes on to ask Sohrab to forgive him for
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the regrets he has accumulated in his life, mostly for succumbing to the thoughts of supremacy
over another human. Amir undergoes a further transformation in doing so. In an attempt to
grant Amir redemption for his past actions, Hosseini has Sohrab go to America to live with Amir
and Soraya.
In this undertaking, Amir reinforces his transformation. While a Pashtun having a
Hazara live with him was still considered disrespectful to one’s social status, Amir takes Hassan
in to live without any evidence of his past beliefs of prejudice. In true transformation, Amir tells
his father-in-law:
You see, General Sahib, my father slept with his servant’s wife. She bore him a
son named Hassan. Hassan is dead now. That boy sleeping on the couch is
Hassan’s son. He’s my nephew. That’s what you tell people when they
ask…And one more thing, General Sahib…You will never again refer to him as a
‘Hazara boy’ in my presence. He has a name and it’s Sohrab. (361)
While Amir faces the difficult question of how to transcend societal injustices, this ending
provides a resolution for him, as well as a proposal for Afghanistan’s tolerance towards diversity
in ethnicity and religion.
This idealistic resolution is far-fetched, because the blood relation between Pashtuns and
Hazaras is not commonly found in Afghanistan, and the heroic transcendence of the protagonist
in this story does not provide an example to every Pashtun in Afghanistan. However, the
resolution provides a Marxist criticism to the social order held in Afghanistan today, and tears
down these ethnic, religious, and linguistic inequalities by displaying brotherhood between all,
and the effects that social classes have on the oppressors and the oppressed.
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Throughout the novel, Amir struggles to find a balance between what society imposes on
him in regard to social structures and what reality proves to be a true and loyal friendship. Amir
wrestles with the idea that his friendship with Hassan is mythical; anything that seems to be more
than just the relationship between a master and his servant seems like an illusion. He struggles
with the concept that one cannot escape the traditions passed down from generation to
generation, even when the reality of friendship seems to disprove the traditions. The struggle
Amir experiences exemplifies how the Afghanistan society has engrained its societal ideals into
the youth who uncritically subscribe to the beliefs, causing the inequality to perpetuate. The
novel provides a Marxist criticism of society because it sets up the prevailing social order and
then tears down the standards that exist within the society that allow dominance of one group
over another. The resolution becomes a rejection of the idea that the novel is simply a passive
product of the cultural warfare. It does this by using the theme of friendship to display the
struggle between classes to find balance in the face of inequality, a balance that does exist
whether society identifies it or not.
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Works Cited
“Hazaras of Afghanistan.” Afghan-Network. 16 Nov. 2007
<http://www.afghan-network.net/Ethnic-Groups/hazaras.html>.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003.