Women's Roles In The Kite Runner

Similarly, these negative statements can be located in The Kite Runner, which, albeit has a modern view on most things, displays many comments about how the Middle East view women. Near the beginning, women are basically absent from the novel and, as stated by Shyamala, “Hosseini restricts the experience of the women characters to the protagonist’s wife and his mother-in-law” (170). Nevertheless, it is possible to analyse how a woman’s life is described using Soraya, and Jamila. First, the women’s lives are shown to be ruled by the authority that is men as the man is the one who has established dominance in the family, holding all of the power in his hands (Shyamala 171). An example of this would be observing Soraya before she marries Amir.
Because her father holds the authority, she surrenders the pages to her father without opposition. Equally, Soraya depicts a soft, and weak woman when she is confronted by her father, and ordered to “cut off all of her hair” (Hosseini 189). She is punished by her father for running off with an Afghan man, and staining her reputation as the honour of a man is joined with the purity of his wife and daughter. (Shyamala 171). She is unable to make her own choices, being taken home by her father, reflecting her submissive, and powerlessness within society. Likewise, her mother lives a similar life of weakness and submission. Once married to Taheri, she finds herself under his complete control. Supporting this, Sarma states, “Though Jamila can sing well, she was forbidden to sing after marriage” (46). Even when Jamila, as Amir explains, “wanted to sing at [Amir and Soraya’s] wedding, only one song, but the general gave her one of his looks and the matter was buried” (Hosseini 187). Jamila did not bother to argue any further, displaying her frailty, by yielding to her
To begin, according to Shyamala, “Femininity is characterized by tolerance, delicacy, submission, emotion and softness” (169), a truth that is presented especially within the novel. Though this is true, the most evident traditional view present is that “Women are assigned only support roles such as a nurse, mother or wife” (Sarma 45). These roles are directly related to delicacy and softness that women are described as being which they sometimes relate to weakness. The novel presents a visual of women being in the support role to their husbands as in many instances, such as when a young Amir mentions that “The women were cooking”(Hosseini 90), and that the “wives and daughters served dinner” (Hosseini 90). While the men are sitting down, and such, the women are doing the chores of cooking and preparing dinner reinforcing their position in supporting roles. The men are the ones who dominate in this case. Additionally, as suggested by Shyamala, the traditional “Reflects Afghan culture where women need to be pure for men” (171). They must be pure so that they can find a husband, just as Amir claims, “Every woman needed a husband” (Hosseini 187). However, in Soraya’s case, she has no suitors until Amir arrives, and he is not accustomed to the