Kite Runner

Friendship
Sometimes, up in those trees, I talked Hassan into firing walnuts with his slingshot at the neighbor's one-eyed German shepherd. Hassan never wanted to, but if I asked, really asked, he wouldn't deny me. Hassan never denied me anything. And he was deadly with his slingshot. Hassan's father, Ali, used to catch us and get mad, or as mad as someone as gentle as Ali could ever get. He would wag his finger and wave us down from the tree. He would take the mirror and tell us what his mother had told him, that the devil shone mirrors too, shone them to distract Muslims during prayer. "And he laughs while he does it," he always added, scowling at his son.

"Yes, Father," Hassan would mumble, looking down at his feet. But he never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbor's dog, was always my idea.

But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that either. I spent most of the first twelve years of my life playing with Hassan. Sometimes, my entire childhood seems like one long lazy summer day with Hassan, chasing each other between tangles of trees in my father's yard, playing hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, insect torture – with our crowning achievement undeniably the time we plucked the stinger off a bee and tied a string around the poor thing to yank it back every time it took flight

"Think of something good," Baba said in my ear. "Something happy."

Something good. Something happy. I let my mind wander. I let it come:

Friday afternoon in Paghman. An open field of grass speckled with mulberry trees in blossom. Hassan and I stand ankle-deep in untamed grass, I am tugging on the line, the spool spinning in Hassan's calloused hands, our eyes turned up to the kite in the sky. Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything – that's how it is between people who are each other's first memories, people who have fed from the same breast. A breeze stirs the grass and Hassan lets the spool roll. The kite spins, dips, steadies. Our twin shadows dance on the rippling grass. From somewhere over the low brick wall at the other end of the field, we hear chatter and laughter and the chirping of a water fountain. And music, some thing old and familiar, I think it's Ya Mowlah on rubab strings. Someone calls our names over the wall, says it's time for tea and cake

Next to me, Sohrab was breathing rapidly through his nose. The spool rolled in his palms, the tendons in his scarred wrists like rubab strings. Then I blinked and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, calloused hands of a harelipped boy. I heard a crow cawing somewhere and I looked up. The park shimmered with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes. It sprinkled soundlessly from the branches of white-clad trees. I smelled turnip qurma now. Dried mulberries. Sour oranges. Sawdust and walnuts. The muffled quiet, snow-quiet, was deafening. Then far away, across the stillness, a voice calling us home, the voice of a man who dragged his right leg

Quote #1Sometimes, up in those trees, I talked Hassan into firing walnuts with his slingshot at the neighbour’s one-eyed German shepherd. Hassan never wanted to, but if I asked, really asked, he wouldn't deny me. Hassan never denied me anything. And he was deadly with his slingshot. Hassan's father, Ali, used to catch us and get mad, or as mad as someone as gentle as Ali could ever get. He would wag his finger and wave us down from the tree. He would take the mirror and tell us what his mother had told him, that the devil shone mirrors too, shone them to distract Muslims during prayer. "And he laughs while he does it," he always added, scowling at his son.

"Yes, Father," Hassan would mumble, looking down at his feet. But he never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbor's dog, was always my idea. (2.2-3) |
This passage shows up early in the novel and really tells us quite a bit about Amir and Hassan's friendship. Hassan protects and defends Amir and, foreshadowing later events in the novel, refuses to tell on Amir. (Hassan will later take the blame for the wad of cash and the watch.) We should also note that Amir seems like the gang leader in this passage, getting the two boys into trouble. Does Amir control the relationship? Is this why Hassan often takes the blame for things? Does Amir ever take responsibility for anything in the novel? Quote #2Then he [Ali] would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fled from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.

Mine was Baba.

His was Amir. My name. |
There's a primal closeness between Amir and Hassan. Later, we'll find out the two boys have the same father, but notice how Hosseini is laying the groundwork for that revelation. The two boys might as well be brothers: they learn to walk together, they learn to speak together, and they feed from the same breast. Which brings up an interesting question: What does Rahim Khan's revelation – that Amir and Hassan are half-brothers – really change? Aren't the two already brothers in everything? Or does "blood" fundamentally change Amir's relationship with Hassan? Quote #3Ali and Baba grew up together as childhood playmates – at least until polio crippled Ali's leg – just like Hassan and I grew up a generation later. Baba was always telling us about the mischief he and Ali used to cause, and Ali would shake his head and say, "But, Agha sahib, tell them who was the architect of the mischief and who the poor laborer?" Baba would laugh and throw his arm around Ali.

But in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend. (4.2-3) |
Baba and Ali's friendship parallels Amir and Hassan's on a number of levels. First, as this passage indicates, there's a similar pattern of leadership (and power): both Baba and Amir have dominant roles in each friendship. And, lest you forget, Baba betrays Ali much like Amir betrays Hassan. As they say, two peas in a pod. Or, maybe it would be four peas in a pod. We're not sure. Anyways, after Amir learns that Baba lied to him for years, he says: "Baba and I were more alike than I'd ever known. We had both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us" (18.7). Four peas in a pod.

Quote #4But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that either. I spent most of the first twelve years of my life playing with Hassan. Sometimes, my entire childhood seems like one long lazy summer day with Hassan, chasing each other between tangles of trees in my father's yard, playing hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, insect torture – with our crowning achievement undeniably the time we plucked the stinger off a bee and tied a string around the poor thing to yank it back every time it took flight. (4.6) |
Amir lays out the opposing argument just prior to this paragraph. In it, he says ethnicity will always define a relationship. We believe Hosseini really wants us to grapple with Amir's contradictory stances: Does Amir's friendship with Hassan ever get past history, ethnicity, society, and religion? Later, Amir will justify his cowardice in the alleyway by asking himself if he really has to defend Hassan (since Hassan is a Hazara). Does Amir ever get past his prejudices? We're really not sure about this one. Hosseini devotes the entire novel to this question. Quote 5"I know," he said, breaking our embrace. "Inshallah, we'll celebrate later. Right now, I'm going to run that blue kite for you," he said. He dropped the spool and took off running, the hem of his green chapan dragging in the snow behind him.

"Hassan!" I called. "Come back with it!"

He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "For you a thousand times over!" he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph. (7.52-54) |
Yet again, Hassan demonstrates his loyalty and devotion to Amir. If we were to judge Amir and Hassan's friendship by actions and not simply expressions of loyalty, the score would be pretty lopsided. (Of course, Amir saves Hassan's son at the end of the book from a pathological pedophile so that counts for something.) We also want to point out the irony in Hassan's reply: "For you a thousand times over!" Amir will develop a pretty nasty case of insomnia as the guilt piles up inside him. Really, Amir returns to the alleyway thousands of times in his memory before he comes to peace with his cowardice. And so the phrase "a thousand times over" is colored with some pretty devastating irony. Yes, Hosseini is using irony again. Quote #6[Assef:] "But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? Why he only plays with you when no one else is around? I'll tell you why, Hazara. Because to him, you're nothing but an ugly pet. Something he can play with when he's bored, something he can kick when he's angry. Don't ever fool yourself and think you're something more."

"Amir agha and I are friends," Hassan said. He looked flushed.

"Friends?" Assef said, laughing. "You pathetic fool! Someday you'll wake up from your little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is. Now, bas! Enough of this. Give us that kite." (7.106-108) |
This is a fairly complex scene. Assef, before he assaults and rapes Hassan, asks Hassan whether he really wants to sacrifice himself for Amir. We know Amir is listening in – and watching – this exchange between Assef and Hassan. In a way, Assef's speech is not prophetic but descriptive: Amir is abandoning Hassan right now. However, we wonder if Assef's description is inaccurate. Is Assef describing his own relationship with Hazaras or Amir's with Hassan? Sure, sometimes Amir does cruel things to Hassan, but he also reads to Hassan and spends almost all his free time with Hassan. Amir may hesitate to call Hassan his friend, but perhaps that's because neither "friend" nor "servant" really describes Hassan. "Brother" might do the trick, but Amir has no idea at this point.

Quote #7"Think of something good," Baba said in my ear. "Something happy."

Something good. Something happy. I let my mind wander. I let it come:

Friday afternoon in Paghman. An open field of grass speckled with mulberry trees in blossom. Hassan and I stand ankle-deep in untamed grass, I am tugging on the line, the spool spinning in Hassan's calloused hands, our eyes turned up to the kite in the sky. Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything – that's how it is between people who are each other's first memories, people who have fed from the same breast. A breeze stirs the grass and Hassan lets the spool roll. The kite spins, dips, steadies. Our twin shadows dance on the rippling grass. From somewhere over the low brick wall at the other end of the field, we hear chatter and laughter and the chirping of a water fountain. And music, some thing old and familiar, I think it's Ya Mowlah on rubab strings. Someone calls our names over the wall, says it's time for tea and cake. (10.73-75) |
You need some context for this quote. Baba and Amir are on their way to Pakistan, but they're not traveling by taxi or bus. They're in the belly of an oil tanker along with dozens of other Afghans. Baba tells Amir to think of something "good," something "happy." So what does Amir think of? His childhood with Hassan. We believe this passage proves Amir's (brotherly) love for Hassan. Notice that Amir doesn't recall a special moment with Baba, or even his books or poetry. He thinks of Hassan. Quote #8Lying awake in bed that night, I thought of Soraya Taheri's sickle-shaped birthmark, her gently hooked nose, and the way her luminous eyes had fleetingly held mine. My heart stuttered at the thought of her. (11.104) |
Soraya doesn't sound that hot here. From Hosseini's description, we picture the witch in "Sleeping Beauty": her nose is hooked like a scythe, and her eyes are glowing in a potion-induced mania. However, we do think Soraya's sickle-shaped birthmark should remind you of someone else in the book. Give up? That's right: Hassan. (Hassan has a harelip.) Why do you think Hosseini compare these two characters through their physical features? What else do they have in common? Quote #9When we got to Kabul, I [Rahim Khan] discovered that Hassan had no intention of moving into the house. "But all these rooms are empty, Hassan jan. No one is going to live in them," I said.

But he would not. He said it was a matter of ihtiram, a matter of respect. He and Farzana moved their things into the hut in the backyard, where he was born. I pleaded for them to move into one of the guest bedrooms upstairs, but Hassan would hear nothing of it. "What will Amir agha think?" he said to me. "What will he think when he comes back to Kabul after the war and finds that I have assumed his place in the house?" Then, in mourning for your father, Hassan wore black for the next forty days. (16.24-25) |
You may be confused by the voice here. It's actually not Amir – Rahim Khan gets one chapter in the book. Rahim Khan recounts his trip to Hazarajat to find Hassan and bring him back to the house in Kabul. When Hassan does move back to the house with Rahim Khan, he refuses to live where Baba and Amir lived. Does Hassan's refusal suggest that Hassan is only Amir's servant and the two never achieved an equal friendship? (Side question: Does Hassan sense – on some unconscious level – Baba's true relationship to him? Is that why he mourns Baba for forty days?)

Quote #10Next to me, Sohrab was breathing rapidly through his nose. The spool rolled in his palms, the tendons in his scarred wrists like rubab strings. Then I blinked and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, calloused hands of a harelipped boy. I heard a crow cawing somewhere and I looked up. The park shimmered with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes. It sprinkled soundlessly from the branches of white-clad trees. I smelled turnip qurma now. Dried mulberries. Sour oranges. Sawdust and walnuts. The muffled quiet, snow-quiet, was deafening. Then far away, across the stillness, a voice calling us home, the voice of a man who dragged his right leg. (25.150) |
We think this is one of the most beautiful passages in the book. Hosseini moves effortlessly between the past and present. Sohrab becomes Hassan, and the park in Fremont, California becomes a snow-quiet Kabul. The smells of Kabul mix with the smells of the New Year celebration in the park. Perhaps, at least in the space of this passage, Amir does find peace. America allowed Amir to escape his past for so many years; but, in this moment, the two homelands merge. Ali calls Amir home, and Amir doesn't seem to mind.

ROAD TO AMIR'S REDEMPTION" - THE KITE RUNNER REVISION

-------------------------------------------------
Top of Form zainboThreads: 1
Posts: 3
Author: Zain Mehdi | Edited by: zainbo Mar 11, 2012, 12:58pm #1 | The topic of the Essay is

"After reading the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, do you think Amir has found redemption in things he's done. If so, please explain how"

I wrote this essay based on the events that took place in the novel. Each paragraph must have a quote from the book and I've included that. I just need to see if my essay is well written, correct grammar and other little mistakes.

Please and thank you.

"ROAD TO AMIR'S REDEMPTION
In a lifetime, everyone will face personal battles and guilt, some large and some small. Such as guilt over sneaking out, not doing homework, or telling your parents a little white lie. People find peace of mind through redeeming themselves, in other words, we do something that makes up for the cause of guilt. Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner revolves around betrayal and redemption. Redemption is the act of saying or being saved from sin, error or evil, which the main character Amir seems to need the most. Amir lives with the guilt he has built up over the years because of one incident from his childhood. Amir's fathers words still echo through his head "A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything." �pg. 24 Although Amir destroyed the lives of many people, and he has had more than one opportunity to redeem himself of his guilt, he is not the selfish little boy he once was.

How often does one stop and think, "How will this affect everyone else in my life?" Amir had a chance in the alley, to put Hassan first and change the path of both their lives, but he made the decision to turn around and run because it was what he thought was best for him:

"I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan � the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past � and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran. I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That's what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. That's what I made myself believe. 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." �pg.77

Amir's selfish ways were a result of the lack of his father's affection in his life. As a young boy, he was forced to deal with his father's disinterest in him, which made him incredibly jealous of Hassan. Amir could not understand at the time, why his father adored his servant's son more than his own son. As the tension increases between Amir and Hassan, Amir can no longer stand to see Hassan everyday because of what Amir had not stopped and he could not bare seeing his father showing Hassan love and not him. Hassan and his father are forced to leave their home after Amir places his watch under Hassan's pillow and accuses him of stealing it. Hassan did not even deny the accusations because he had figured out what Amir was doing. "Hassan knew. He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time." �pg.111 Even after the alleged theft of the watch, Amir's father is willing to forgive Hassan, which stunned Amir, and made him see that the love his father has for Hassan is greater than he imagined.

Amir did not just ruin Hassan's life; he also ruined the lives of many people with his decisions after the incident in the alley. Baba lost a chance to watch his son, Hassan, grow up and also lost the chance to bring him to America so he could start a new life. Sohrab lost both his parents to war because they were still living in Afghanistan, lost his childhood to war, and tried to commit suicide as a result of Amir going back on his promise to keep him safe from orphanages. Soraya lost her right to the truth when Amir kept his past a secret even though she opened up to him about hers. It is one thing to destroy your own life with guilt, but it is a completely different issue when you destroy the lives of others.

Before Amir can go on the road to redemption, Amir must realize that he can't go back and change what he has done as a child, and he must find inner peace. Although if it was not for Amir's actions as a child, Sohrab never would have needed to be saved in the first place but by saving Sohrab, the last piece of Hassan's life, does make a difference. From the moment he chose to turn his back on Hassan, there were many chances where "There's a way to be good again" �pg.238 for all his wrongdoings, but he chose not to take any of these. Sohrab was his last and only chance for redemption.

"I have a wife in America, a home, a career and a family". But how could I pack up and go back home when my actions may have cost Hassan a chance at those very same things? And what Rahim Khan revealed to me changed things. Made me see how my entire life, long before the winter of 1975, dating back to when that singing Hazara woman was still nursing me, had been a cycle of lies betrayals and secrets." �pg.238

Amir admits that he cost Hassan a chance at a good life and that he had many opportunities to change the outcome of Hassan's life. But at this moment he realized he could lose everything he has built in America, but for the first time in his life, Amir did not care about only himself, he came to terms with what he had done, and he was ready to redeem himself at any cost.

Amir finally became the man who stood up for himself and his sins. Throughout his childhood, Amir looked for his father's affection and he never could get it. His father had said "I'm telling you, Rahim, there is something missing in that boy." �pg.24 Amir's father would have been proud of him at this very moment because that was all he had wanted from him. The guilt that was built over the years was finally put to rest at the safety of Sohrab. In Afghanistan when Amir stood up for Sohrab and Assef aggressively beat him up, Amir had said "My body was broken�just how badly I wouldn't find out until later�but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed." �pg.289 which showed Amir had come to terms with what he had done as a child and was finally felt relieved. Although he was getting beat up, it did not matter anymore, he just wished he had stood up to Assef years ago, and maybe he would have earned his redemption in that alley. | |

Jennyflower81Threads: -
Posts: 884
Author: Jennifer Reeves 85 | Mar 11, 2012, 02:17pm #2 | Such as guilt over sneaking out, not doing homework, or telling your parents a little white lie.
Not a full sentence. You could start this sentence with: "Guilt can stem from..."

People find peace of mind when they redeem themselves, in other words, they do something that makes up for the cause of their guilt.

Amir had a chance in the alley, to put Hassan first and change the path of both their lives, but he made the decision to turn around and run because it was what he thought was best for him:
I would break up this sentence into 2 sentences, because it is a bit too long, it would be easier to read if it was in 2 shorter sentences.

Amir's selfish ways resulted from the lack of his father's affection in his life.

At the time, Amir could not understand why his father adored his servant's son more than his own son.

As the tension increases between Amir and Hassan, Amir can no longer stand to see Hassan everyday because of what Amir had not stopped and he could not bare seeing his father showing Hassan love and not him.
Right here, you begin writing in present tense, when the beginning of the essay is written in past tense, be sure to stay consistent with this, it makes your paper easier to read that way. | |

zainboThreads: 1
Posts: 3
Author: Zain Mehdi | | Thank you, any more updates? | |

Jennyflower81Threads: -
Posts: 884
Author: Jennifer Reeves 85 | Mar 11, 2012, 05:04pm #4 | Amir did not just ruin Hassan's life; he also ruined the lives of many people with his decisions after the incident in the alley

Can you be more specific about how exactly did he ruin Hassan's life? This is kinda vague. Another example of a life ruined is that of Soraya- you say:
Soraya lost her right to the truth when Amir kept his past a secret even though she opened up to him about hers
I don't know if this is her life being ruined, although she was wronged. How did this ruin her life? Clarify this.

... but it is a completely different problem when you destroy the lives of others.

Although if it was not for Amir's actions as a child, Sohrab never would have needed to be saved in the first place but by saving Sohrab, the last piece of Hassan's life, does make a difference.
This sentence is long and confusing, I would make it into 2 shorter sentences.

Amir admits that he cost Hassan the chance at a good life and that he had many opportunities to change the outcome of Hassan's life.

At this moment, he realizes he could lose everything he has built in America, but for the first time in his life, Amir did not only care about himself, he came to terms with what he had done, and he was ready to redeem himself at any cost. | |

chalumeau | | ROAD TO AMIR'S REDEMPTION�

"During their lifetime, most people face guilt: some appropriate some inappropriate. Redemption is a way that makes up for the cause of the guilt. In Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner, the theme revolves around betrayal and redemption."

I looked up the word "redemption" in The Kite Runner:

p. 65, "All I saw was the blue kite. All I smelled was victory. Salvation. Redemption. If Baba was wrong and there was a God like they said in school, then He'd let me win. I didn't know what the other guy was playing for, maybe just bragging rights." Important quote.

p 231, "And from this one last chance at redemption." What is going on here?

"My body was broken�just how badly I wouldn't find out until later�but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed." �pg.289 Good quote you found.

Salvation is when God saves you. Redemption may be part of salvation, but redemption also has a place separate from the Divine. After doing a wrong, a person may be redeemed by performing some act, or saying something, or fighting for (or against) someone. You know how they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" Redemption is in the eye of the wronged party. It's why you hear phrases such as, "redeemed in her eyes." You can't be redeemed without permission. Hopefully, the wronged party accuses the right person, and the right person knows what wrong was committed. Otherwise, you have a very confusing situation for all parties. One that cannot be redeemed. Ever.

Try writing your essay again with the theme of redemption as the main focus. Try to answer these questions:
1) What wrongs were committed? Pick the best 3 wrongs he committed. You partially explained these.
2) What does Amir think about redemption? Why does he seek it? Usually a person feels badly about something, or the other party is making his life miserable enough to cause him to cry," ___!"
3) What action or words support him receiving redemption?
4) What action or words deny him redemption?
5) At the end is he redeemed? In the eyes of the wronged party? Did the wronged party (parties) know the truth that the reader knows? Does he feel redeemed? Did he know the same truth as everyone else?

For the record, I've never read The Kite Runner. I don't have a copy of the novel either. I wanted to try to help you focus and organize your essay. I've written many A-essays over the years. | |

zainboThreads: 1
Posts: 3
Author: Zain Mehdi | Mar 12, 2012, 08:37pm #6 | thanks, ill try to work on it | |

Essay Forum / Literature Review / | Unanswered [this forum] / Featured / Similar |

Bottom of Form

Similar discussions: * Michigan Supplement. Kite Runner * The Kite Runner: A Marxist Perspective * The Kite Runner Thesis Statement * HELP! - Kite Runner Essay on Father/Son relationship * Persuasive essay on The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini + The Devil in the White City * The redemption of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities * Run after the kite --common app essay * UC Essay -- I am a runner, track and cross-country * Developing Runner's Mindset -- Common App Essay for Stanford * Morality and Responsibility essay (connection between Frankenstein and Blade runner)

Random: MSW Essay on Parent Advocacy- Child Protective Services

The discrimination theme in The Kite Runner helps explain?
Discrimination
The Kite Runner tackles the issue of ethnic discrimination in Afghanistan with an example of the relationship between Pashtuns and Hazaras. Baba's father sets an example for him of being kind to Hazara people, even though they are historically demeaned and persecuted. He could have easily sent Ali to an orphanage after his parents' death, but chose to raise him in his household. Baba does the same with Hassan, although this is complicated by the fact that Hassan is actually his son. Even in Baba's house, the house of best intentions, the class barrier between the Pashtuns and Hazaras endures. Ali is as dear to Baba as a brother; he calls him "family." But Ali still lives in a hut and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. He tends the garden, cooks, and cleans up after Baba, and raises Hassan to do the same. So strong is Hassan's identity as a servant that even as an adult, when Baba is gone, he has no sense of entitlement. He insists on staying in the hut and doing housework. When Hassan dies defending Baba's house, he does so not because he feels it belongs to him, but because he is being loyal to Baba and Amir.
In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, discrimination is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. On the one hand, the Taliban do not seem to care whom they are beating, torturing, or executing. Children like Sohrab and grandmothers like Sanaubar are all susceptible to the Taliban's cruelty. In this way, the Talibs discriminate against everyone but themselves. As Amir notices, Assef forces Sohrab to dance to music for his enjoyment dancing and listening to music have long been banned. Amir thinks, "I guessed music wasn't sinful as long as it played to Taliban ears." On another level, the Taliban discriminate specifically against the Hazara people. They massacre the Hazaras not only in Mazar-i-Sharif, but in the region of Hazarajat and nearly anywhere else they can find them. Assef and his fellows do not see the Hazaras' lives as worthwhile; they barely see them as human. Assef tells Amir, "Afghanistan is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage, and someone has to take out the garbage." Like his idol, Hitler, he feels entitled to killing those he deems unworthy of living in his land. He even relishes the term "ethnic cleansing" because it goes so well with his garbage metaphor. Hosseini has mentioned in interviews that his focus on discrimination in The Kite Runner angers some Afghans, who feel it is inappropriate. Like Baba, many people do not mention the Hazaras' history of persecution. Perhaps these people are so uncomfortable with this topic because by having Assef appear in pre-Taliban times and emerge as a leading Talib, Hosseini shows that the Taliban's persecution of the Hazaras and other Shiites is not new, but a greatly intensified outgrowth of long-held discrimination.

In The Kite Runner friendship is a recurring theme, particularly in terms of how friendship is experienced between different social classes and castes. This is explored in the relationships between Baba and Amir who are Pashtun and Ali and Hassan who are Hazara.
A central issue in the novel is how friendship is experienced, understood and expressed between social unequals when they have been pushed together by circumstances (Baba’s father’s adoption of Ali meant he and Baba grew up from boyhood together, followed by Amir and Hassan sharing their entire childhoods in the same house, despite their very different status within the household.)
Amir constantly reflects on the question of friendship: ‘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…Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing.’
When questioned by Assef about his friendship with a Hazara Amir admits: “But he’s not my friend!” I almost blurted. “He’s my servant!” Had I really thought that? Of course I hadn’t. I hadn’t. I treated Hassan well, just like a friend, better even, more like a brother.’
Hassan regards Amir as his friend and shows it by his unfailing loyalty which is indicative of his awareness of the unequal power in the relationship. Amir is bothered by Hassan’s unfailing loyalty and self denial on his behalf. ‘For you a thousand times over’ is the repeated phrase expressive of this loyalty – and we note how it is this phrase which finally comes from Amir himself at the end of the novel.
Hassan’s loyalty is brought out by Assef’s remarks before he assaults him:
‘Before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you? … to him, you’re nothing more but an ugly pet. Something he can play with when he’s bored, something he can kick when he’s angry…’ Hassan then says that he and Amir are friends, a remark which is again cynically rebuffed. The retrieved kite symbolises the strength of Hassan’s loyalty; this is in sharp contrast to the cowardice and disloyalty that Amir is about to show. However, Hassan never ceases to regard Amir as his friend as his letter confirms.