Toxic Masculinity and Racial Ethnicity in The Kite Runner Essay Example

The above extract is from the Book the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini who is the author of “a thousand splendid suns”. Hosseini himself is an immigrant who immigrated from Afghanistan to America. The kite runner is a diasporic novel that revolves around the life of a young boy named Amir and the secret that he has to live with on a daily basis and how he finally gets redemption from his secret. The above extract explores the global issues of toxic masculinity and racial ethnicity through Amir finding out his father is not as perfect as he pretends to be and Rahim Khan who is a contrasting character to his baba who motivates Amir who finds Sohrab, in turn, his path to redemption.

Amir comes to the realization of all the signs that he has been ignoring. Amir as a child was very insecure. He always felt inferior to Hassan. As Hassan who was a Hazara had no proper education, nothing was taught to him but in spite of that was stronger and smarter than Amir. Due to this, Amir felt that Hassan was preferred more by Baba than him. He recollects all the times Baba preferred Hassan and started connecting the dots. He started realizing how baba through little actions favored Hassan.

He felt very betrayed by Baba. He recollected from his childhood when baba had told him stealing was the greatest crime anyone could ever commit. Here he says baba had done the worst to amir. He deprived Amir of the fact that Hassan was his half-brother. Here Amir also realizes that he has betrayed not only his best friend and loyal servant but also his half-brother. Baba had betrayed or stolen from Ali the fact that Hassan was not his son.

This shows how much Baba cared about his status in society and how badly he didn't want people to know he had a Hazara son. This is where racial ethnicity is highlighted. Baba is shown to do charity work or build orphanages as a way of him redeeming himself because he was not able to openly claim or love his son. Amir can also compare his life with his father’s as they both were living with a dark secret. Amir was on his quest for redemption as he was going to save Hassan's son Sohrab.

Amir started questioning his culture. Even though he had been living in America for the past 10 years he still makes references to Afghanistan. This shows that he is still deeply rooted in his culture. He even tried to understand how baba was able to bear the guilt every day of his life. How he was able to see Hassan cleaning the dishes not able to how a proper childhood or each night seeing him sleep in the maid’s quarter

How baba was viewed in society was extremely important to him. Amir or in fact everyone in Afghanistan thought of baba as the man who wrestled bears, the rich Pashtun, and the all good qualities and connotations attached to him. Now that Amir knows his secret he begins to see a new image of baba and not the unrealistic one. He realizes baba is not as perfect as he claims to be and the only difference is baba doesn’t let anyone see his faults or weaknesses. This now is contrasting to how in the end Amir admits that Sohrab is his half nephew and doesn’t allow anyone to call him a Hazara. This shows that Amir's character has grown. also must be thinking about how baba always made him feel guilty for killing his wife, his princess but baba has an illegitimate child.

Amir at this part of the story started feeling more guilty than ever. Amir, who was selfish as he had driven Ali and Hassan out of the house, caused their deaths. Left his nephew to be

parentless. He feels that Hassan too could have had a job, family, and life. He says if baba had brought Hassan to America no one would have cared if he was a Hazara. This shows that America was more accepting or there is no caste system prevalent in America. This made him feel even more guilty as Hassan could’ve had a happy life if not for his inane need to prove he was strong to his father when his father was not as perfect as he claimed to be.

In the last paragraph of this extract, he thinks about his life in America with his wife, Soraya, who is waiting for him for his job and responsibilities. Whereas on the other hand, he thinks the life that he has right now should have been the life Hasan should have got. The guilt kept lingering on his mind. He knew unconsciously this was the only way to redeem himself of this secret, he was going to have to save Sohrab.

This extract is actually cyclic of the life of baba and amir lead. Amir and baba both had to live with a life-changing secret. Baba didn't want anyone to know he had a Hazara son and was deprived of loving that son openly. He had to do so because he wanted everyone in society to portray him as the ideal and perfect man who had the solutions for everything. Amir who lived in the shadow of this man had the constant urge to prove to his baba that he was strong and wanted his appreciation anyhow. The consequence was he had to see his half-brother or his best friend get assaulted in front of his eyes and was forced to live through guilt his entire life. They tried to redeem themselves baba by building orphanages being there was Hassan in any way possible and amir by saving Sohrab. The thing they had in common is that they always wanted to impress other people, toxic masculinity lead to their downfall.