Kite Runner Essay

The Ultimate Misuse of Power
In the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseni, a young boy named Amir grows up with guilt and is tormented by the memories of when he betrayed his best friend Hassan when they were little. The main cause of Amir’s guilt was due to the misuse of power on his father’s side. Another misuse of power is shown at different times throughout the book and this misuse of power is with Amir’s childhood enemy Assef. Both of these misuses of power shape the lives of Amir and at some degree the lives of all the Afghanistan people. One of the main abuses of power is that of Amir’s father, Baba. Amir and Baba are completely different people and they do not relate at all. When Baba was young, he was an athlete that played soccer and was a champion kite fighter. Amir is quiet and loves to read and write stories, a completely different personality than that of his father. Baba cannot understand Amir and that causes him to always seem disappointed in his son; at one point in the novel even saying “If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son” (p. 23) This was very hurtful for Amir, thinking that his father did not love him. This created a desire for Amir to always want to please Baba in anything that he did. One winter Baba told Amir that he should win the kite fighting tournament, considering that Amir was very good at fighting kites and he had been in the finals last year. This spark of approval from Baba created a need for Amir to win the tournament in order to win his father’s praise and affection because Baba was never happy of what Amir was doing. Baba without knowing it used his parental power to pressure Amir into wanting to win the tournament because this was the first time that his father had shown positive feedback on what Amir was doing; something that should not have been the case. Baba should have encouraged Amir in whatever he wanted to do and not try and pressure him into sports like himself. Baba’s misuse of power was shown after Amir won the kite tournament. Hassan had gone to run the kite for Amir while Amir was praised by his father for the first time. It was a glorious day for Amir until he went looking for Hassan. When he found him, Hassan had run the kite but was cornered by Assef and his friends. Amir watched in fear has they prepared to rap Hassan and then ran away in fear. This is the main source of guilt for Amir because he ran away and did not stand up for his friend when he should have. Amir did not stand up for his friend in fear that it would anger his father and his day of praise would be over. Baba used his parental power to influence Amir so much that he did not want to do anything to ruin the first time he done something that Baba approved; even if that meant letting his best friend Hassan get raped. Baba should have known the power that he had over Amir’s actions and encourage Amir more and help him grow as a person, instead of ignoring him and always seeming unhappy with him.
Another important theme in The Kite Runner is the friendship between Amir and Hassan. Before the rap they were the best of friends and always did everything together. Amir also has power of Hassan which he misuses. Amir always tried to show his superiority over Hassan by never teaching him to read therefore always reading to him and playing tricks on him. This is shown in the quote, “I was reading to him, and suddenly I strayed from the written story. I pretended I was reading from the book, flipping pages regularly, but I had abandoned the text altogether, taken over the story and made it my own …to him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, indecipherable, mysterious,. Words were a secret doorway and I held all the keys” (p. 30) This shows Amir wanted to be better than Hassan and because he could read and Hassan could not, he left as if he could make up whatever story and lie and tell it to Hassan because he would not know the difference. He enjoyed having total control over books. This is a minor abuse of power even at a playful level but power is still misused in ways in shouldn’t. Amir should use his power of reading and share it with Hassan so that he could read as well. Regardless of Amir’s abuse of power they are best friends and when Amir watches Hassan get raped and runs away fearing Baba’s disapproval, he feels complete guilt and it consumes him. The reason that it haunts him so badly is the unmoving loyalty of Hassan. An example of Hassan’s loyalty is in the quote “ I don’t know how many times I hit him. All I know is that when I finally stopped, exhausted and panting, Hassan was smeared in red like hed been shot by a firing squad…He opened it and crusted it against his own forehead” (p. 93) This shows that Hassan will not harm Amir showing the strength of their friendship, making Amir’s betrayal even worse and creating even more guilt. Amir’s guilt continues to build up because he keeps it a secret and does not tell anyone. If Amir had talked to Hassan about it maybe they would have still been able to be friends considering that Hassan never acted differently towards Amir. The fact that Amir kept it a secret built it up in his mind and throughout his life. All this guilt was based on Baba’s misuse of power in pressuring Amir to be more like him and Amir desperately wanting to do anything to make him happy.
The last abuse of power was Assef’s. Assef grew up to be one of the leaders of the Taliban, a group that took over Afghanistan and over threw the old and violent leaders. All the people believed that there would be peace now and that the fighting would stop. However, the Taliban became even more violent and completely destroyed the city of Kabul where they lived. They were violent because of Assef’s main goal when he was a child; get rid of the Hazaran people, which were considered the inferior Afghanistan’s. Assef believed in the same mindset that Hitler did and growing up Hitler was actually his hero. Assef misused his power as one of the leaders of the Taliban into creating a more violent society than the one that they overthrew. The Taliban had a chance to govern Afghanistan well and create peace in their land, however they chose to be violent and cause destruction throughout the country.
The Kite Runner was a novel whose main focuses were on the misuse of power and the ultimate guilt of betraying an amazing loyal friend. Guilt became even worse the longer he kept it a secret because it built up on him and it drove him mad. All the problems in the novel may have been resolved when Amir and Hassan were younger if they had talked, but because Amir chose to keep it a secret then everyday it became worse and worse. The misuse of power effected some of the characters in the book very deeply, especially Assef who chose a more violent world for his beloved country effecting everyone negatively. Those men who are in positions of power much remember that whenever they misuse their power, it affects many more people than just themselves.